Also: How does ChatGPT work? Usage is currently open to the public free of charge because ChatGPT is in its research and feedback-collection phase. As of Feb. 1, there is also a paid subscription version called ChatGPT Plus. Also: What is GPT-4? Here’s everything you need to know OpenAI is also responsible for creating DALL-E-2, a popular AI art generator, and Whisper, an automatic speech recognition system. “ChatGPT is scary good. We are not far from dangerously strong AI,” said Elon Musk, who was one of the founders of OpenAI before leaving. Sam Altman, OpenAI’s chief, said on Twitter that ChatGPT had more than 1 million users in the first five days after it launched. According to an analysis by Swiss bank UBS, ChatGPT is the fastest-growing app of all time. The analysis estimates that ChatGPT had 100 million active users in January, only two months after its launch. For comparison, it took nine months for TikTok to reach 100 million. Also: TikTok bans explained: Everything you need to know Once you sign in, you can start chatting away with ChatGPT. Get your conversation started by asking a question. Because ChatGPT is still in its research stage, it is free to use and you can ask as many questions as you’d like. For step-by-step instructions, check out ZDNET’s guide on how to start using ChatGPT. Also: I tested Google Bard. It was surprisingly bad If you want to skip the wait and have reliable access, there is an option for you. As of Feb. 1, OpenAI has a ChatGPT pro plan, ChatGPT Plus, which allows users to have general access even during peak times, experience faster response times, and have priority access to new features and improvements including OpenAI’s most advanced LLM, GPT-4. The premium services cost $20 per month. Also: 5 ways to use chatbots to make your life easier My personal favorite is asking the chatbot for help creating basic lists such as packing, grocery, and to-do lists to make my daily life more productive. The possibilities are endless. ZDNET has published many ChatGPT how-to guides. Here are some of the most popular. How to use ChatGPT to:
Create an appWrite codeBuild your resumeWrite Excel formulasSummarize contentWrite a cover letter
However, with a subscription to ChatGPT Plus, you can access ChatGPT with GPT-4, Open AI’s most advanced model. Also: Here’s a deep dive into how ChatGPT works Generative AI models of this type are trained on vast amounts of information from the internet, including websites, books, news articles, and more. The language model was fine-tuned using supervised learning as well as reinforcement learning. The use of Reinforcement Learning from Human Feedback (RLHF) is what makes ChatGPT especially unique. Through RLHF, human AI trainers provided the model with conversations in which they played both parts, the user and AI assistants, according to OpenAI. Also: Google plans to add AI tools to its search engine Another major difference is that ChatGPT only has access to information up to 2021, whereas a regular search engine like Google has access to the latest information. So if you ask ChatGPT who won the World Cup in 2022, it wouldn’t be able to give you a response as Google would. Also: These experts are racing to protect AI from hackers Instead of asking for clarification on ambiguous questions, the model just guesses what your question means, which can lead to unintended responses to questions. Already this has led developer question-and-answer site StackOverflow to at least temporarily ban ChatGPT-generated responses to questions. “The primary problem is that while the answers that ChatGPT produces have a high rate of being incorrect, they typically look like they might be good and the answers are very easy to produce,” says Stack Overflow moderators in a post. Critics argue that these tools are just very good at putting words into an order that makes sense from a statistical point of view, but they cannot understand the meaning or know whether the statements it makes are correct. Also: OpenAI’s ChatGPT is scary good at my job, but it can’t replace me (yet) Another major limitation is that ChatGPT’s data is limited to 2021. The chatbot does not have an awareness of events or news that have occurred since then. Therefore, some prompts will render no results, such as “Who won the World Cup in 2022?” Lastly, ChatGPT does not provide sources for its responses. There is a workaround, though. Here’s how you can make it provide its sources and citations. Also: Do you like asking ChatGPT questions? You could get paid (a lot) for it Some conversation starters could be as simple as “I am hungry, what food should I get?” or as elaborate as, “What do you think happens in the afterlife?” Either way, ChatGPT is sure to have an answer for you. Also: AI could automate 25% of all jobs. Here’s which are most (and least) at risk The chatbot can also write an entire full essay within seconds, making it easier for students to cheat or avoid learning how to write properly. This has led to some school districts blocking access to it. Another concern with the AI chatbot is the possible spread of misinformation. Since the bot is not connected to the internet, it could make mistakes in what information it shares. Also: ChatGPT’s intelligence is zero, but it’s a revolution in usefulness, says AI expert The bot itself says, “My responses are not intended to be taken as fact, and I always encourage people to verify any information they receive from me or any other source.” OpenAI itself also notes that ChatGPT sometimes writes “plausible-sounding but incorrect or nonsensical answers.” Also: ChatGPT is more like an ‘alien intelligence’ than a human brain, says futurist Other AI detectors also exist on the market including GPT-2 Output Detector, Writer AI Content Detector, and Content at Scale AI Content Detection. However, ZDNET put all three of these tools to the test and the results were underwhelming. All three of the tools were found to be unreliable sources for spotting AI, repeatedly giving false negatives. Here are ZDNET’s full test results. Although tools aren’t sufficient to detect ChatGPT-generated writing, a study shows that humans may be able to detect it by looking for politeness within the text. The study’s results indicate that ChatGPT’s writing style is extremely polite. And unlike humans, it cannot produce responses that include metaphors, irony, or sarcasm. Also: ChatGPT just debugged my code. For real Does it mean that AI is taking over the world? Not yet, perhaps, but OpenAI’s Altman certainly thinks that human-style intelligence in AI is now not that far off. Responding to Musk’s comment about dangerously strong AI, Altman tweeted: “I agree on being close to dangerously strong AI in the sense of an AI that poses e.g. a huge cybersecurity risk. and i think we could get to real AGI in the next decade, so we have to take the risk of that extremely seriously too.” Also: How to use the new Bing (and how it’s different from ChatGPT) He also noted: “interesting watching people start to debate whether powerful AI systems should behave in the way users want or their creators intend. the question of whose values we align these systems to will be one of the most important debates society ever has.” GPT-4 is a multimodal model that accepts both text and images as input and outputs text. This can be useful for uploading worksheets, graphs, and charts to be analyzed. Also: What is GPT-4? Here’s everything you need to know Currently, GPT-4’s text input capabilities are the only ones available to the public. Users can access them by subscribing to ChatGPT Plus for $20 per month or by using Bing Chat. The day that GPT-4 was unveiled by OpenAI, Microsoft shared that its chatbot, Bing Chat, had been running on GPT-4 since its launch. This chatbot is free to use but requires users to join a waitlist for access. GPT-4 has advanced intellectual capabilities that allow it to outperform GPT-3.5 in a series of simulated benchmark exams. It has also reduced the number of hallucinations produced by the chatbot. Also: The best AI chatbots: ChatGPT and other fun alternatives to try Despite ChatGPT’s extensive abilities, there are some major downsides to the AI chatbot, including that the free version is often at capacity. If you want to give the world of AI chatbots and writers a try, there are plenty of other options to consider, including Bing Chat, YouChat, Jasper, and Chatsonic. ChatGPT not only passed the exam but also scored a whopping B to B-. The professor, Christian Terwiesch, was impressed at its basic operations management, process analysis questions, and explanations. Also: ChatGPT took an MBA exam. Here’s how it did OpenAI also tested the chatbot’s ability to pass benchmark exams. Although ChatGPT could pass many of these benchmark exams, its scores were usually in the lower percentile. However, with GPT-4, ChatGPT can score much higher. For example, ChatGPT in the 3.5 series scored in the lower 10th percentile of a simulated Bar Exam, while GPT-4 scored in the top 10th percentile. More examples from OpenAI are seen in the chart below. If your application has any written supplements in addition to your cover letter, you can use ChatGPT to help you write those essays or personal statements. Also: ChatGPT is coming to Snapchat. Just don’t tell it your secrets The feature, called “My AI”, will include some ChatGPT limitations, including the refusal to provide responses about politics, violence, swearing, and even academic essay writing, according to The Verge. Also: How to use Bing Image Creator (and why it’s better than DALL-E 2) Neither company disclosed the investment value, but sources revealed it will total $10 billion over multiple years, according to Bloomberg. In return, Microsoft’s Azure service will be OpenAI’s exclusive cloud computing provider, powering all OpenAI workloads across research, products, and API services. Microsoft has also used its partnership with OpenAI to revamp its own Bing search engine and improve its browser. On Feb. 7, Microsoft unveiled a new Bing search engine that runs on a next-generation OpenAI large language model customized specifically for search. Also: ChatGPT vs. Bing Chat: Which AI chatbot should you use? Access to Bing’s AI-powered chatbot, Bing Chat, is currently limited. However, ZDNET was granted early access and was impressed with the results. Five weeks after launch, Microsoft revealed that since its launch, Bing Chat had been running on GPT-4, the most advanced Open AI model, before the model even launched. Also: I tried Bing’s AI chatbot, and it solved my biggest problems with ChatGPT Because Bing’s ChatGPT is linked to the internet, the biggest difference from ChatGPT is that Bing’s version has information on current events. Another major advantage of the new Bing is that it links back to the sources it pulls information from, leaving less room for misinformation. Other advantages that Bing Chat has over ChatGPT is access to the internet. Web access gives Bing Chat knowledge on current information, where ChatGPT is limited to information before 2021. Bing Chat also sources back to the sites it sourced its information from using footnotes, where ChatGPT does not. For a full dive into the differences, and which AI chatbot is better for you, check out: ChatGPT vs. Bing Chat: Which AI chatbot should you use? Also: What is Google Bard? Here’s everything you need to know Bard uses a lightweight version of Google’s Language Model for Dialogue Applications (LaMDA) and draws on all the information from the web to respond – a stark contrast from ChatGPT, which does not have internet access. Google’s chat service has had a rough launch, with a demo of Bard delivering inaccurate information about the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). Google told ZDNET reporter Stephanie Condon, “This highlights the importance of a rigorous testing process, something that we’re kicking off this week with our Trusted Tester program,” in a statement. After Google began rolling out the chatbot, ZDNET had the opportunity to test the chatbot and the results were surprising in a bad way. Also: Bard vs. ChatGPT: Can Bard help you code? For example, Google Bard fails to answer, “Who are the all of the US Presidents?” and responds with “I’m just a language model, so I can’t help you with that.” It also fails to answer some coding questions and math questions. For more details, visit ZDNET’s full review. Google CEO Sundar Pichai even called Bard ‘a souped-up Civic’ soon after its rollout compared to other chatbots on the market such as ChatGPT and Bing Chat.
