What is ChatGPT? The Viral AI Chatbot Explained

ChatGPT is the viral AI chatbot that seems to be everywhere lately. This powerful language model can hold conversations, answer questions, and even generate articles or code on demand.

In this beginner's guide, we'll cover:

What is ChatGPT and how it works
Impressive examples of what ChatGPT can do
Limitations and concerns around bias and misinformation
How ChatGPT could impact search engines and other industries
Whether AI like ChatGPT represents an existential threat

Understanding this groundbreaking AI system is important given its rapid spread across the internet. Read on to learn all about ChatGPT and where this technology might be headed next.

What is ChatGPT?

ChatGPT is an AI chatbot developed by OpenAI that uses natural language processing to create human-like conversational dialogue. It is a sibling model to InstructGPT and is fine-tuned from a model in the GPT-3.5 series. ChatGPT can answer questions, generate written content, and even write code. It is trained with reinforcement learning through human feedback and reward models to improve its responses.

Examples of what ChatGPT can do

Some examples of ChatGPT's capabilities include:

Writing jokes
Assisting with CV and cover letter creation
Summarizing documents and blog posts
Debugging code
Writing songs
Grading homework
Preparing for job interviews

Limitations of ChatGPT

ChatGPT has some limitations, such as:

Limited knowledge and understanding of context
Difficulty handling multiple tasks simultaneously
Sensitivity to typos, grammatical errors, and misspellings
Producing inaccurate or irrelevant responses
Need for fine-tuning for specific use cases

Additionally, ChatGPT may generate biased answers, lack human insight, and produce factual errors.

ChatGPT's impact

ChatGPT has the potential to revolutionize search engines by providing a more natural way of interacting with them and generating more relevant, concise results. This could change the way businesses reach their target audiences and how content creators produce quality content. However, its impact on search will depend on how it is implemented and integrated into search engines and other search tools.

Is ChatGPT an existential threat?

While ChatGPT is an advanced chatbot with the potential to make people's lives easier and assist with everyday tasks, it also has limitations and can produce nonsensical answers and incorrect information. Users should be cautious and double-check the information provided by ChatGPT to ensure accuracy. As AI technology continues to develop, it is essential to address its limitations and potential biases to minimize any negative consequences.

Get started with ChatGPT

To use ChatGPT, follow these steps:

Create an OpenAI account: Go to chat.openai.com and click "Sign up". You can use an email address, or sign in with your Google or Microsoft account. If you use an email address, you'll be required to do a phone verification to confirm that you're a human and not a bot.
Log in or sign up: Once you have an account, log in to chat.openai.com or the mobile app.
Type your prompt: Enter your prompt in the message box on the ChatGPT home page.
Interact with the response: Once ChatGPT generates a response, you can enter a new prompt, regenerate the response, copy the response, share the response, or like or dislike the response.
Use custom instructions: Click your name and select "Custom instructions". In the window that appears, click the "Enable for new chats" toggle. Enter helpful background information and instructions you'd like ChatGPT to consider in its responses.
Use voice and image capabilities: ChatGPT recently launched voice and image capabilities (both in beta) for Plus and Enterprise users.

To get the most out of ChatGPT, consider these tips:

Use simple and specific prompts.
Lean into the conversational nature of the chatbot.
Ask ChatGPT to try again if it gets things wrong.

Remember, ChatGPT is a powerful tool that can be applied in a wide range of projects, from software development to writing, translations, and much more. It can also be used to create apps, rewrite and improve existing code, and even write a custom JavaScript bookmarklet.

ChatGPT on mobile, desktop, and web

You can use ChatGPT in a lot of different applications. It's commonly available via an API that developers can integrate into their apps. Here are some of our favorite ways to use ChatGPT:

Telegram: Magic Buddy is a Telegram bot, so you can use it on your phone or desktop.
Mac App: Bolt AI is a Mac app that lets you chat with ChatGPT, one for the Apple fans.
Web: The official web app is available at chat.openai.com.
Better ChatGPT UI: SlickGPT is a web app that makes it easier to use ChatGPT.