WTF Is ChatGPT, the AI Phenomenon That Seems Almost Human?

AI is dead. Long live AI.

If you’ve been on social media recently, you’ve seen a dip in weird images generated by Dall-E and a rise in Q&A-style chats between people and something called ChatGPT(Opens in a new window). The discourse is startlingly human. Wondering what’s going on? We have answers. (And the answers are not generated by ChatGPT. We swear.)

You: Hi.
PCMag: Hi.

Um… I have sort of a weird question. Am I talking to a real person right now?
I successfully completed a CAPTCHA about 30 minutes ago, so I can assure you that I am real. Why do you ask?

Well, it’s this ChatGPT 3 thing I’ve seen online. It seems like the things it says are written by a human.
I’ve seen it, too, and as a person who writes for a living, I don’t like it. But I have to agree with you.

What is ChatGPT 3, exactly?
It’s a large language model, meaning that it uses an algorithm to read and analyze language and produce humanlike responses. 

What does GPT stand for?
Generative pre-trained transformer.

That term doesn’t sound like something a person would come up with.
It doesn’t. It sounds like something an engineer would come up with. 

Can I access ChatGPT for myself?
Yes, you can go the ChatGPT site(Opens in a new window), where you’ll need to log in with or create an OpenAI account. It’s in high demand, so you might be put on a waitlist. But once you’re logged in, type your request in the box at the bottom of the screen. ChatGPT will generate a response in seconds.

(Credit: PCMag/ChatGPT)

Is ChatGPT free to use?
ChatGPT is free. Though using it and training an AI in your own image is priceless.

Who developed ChatGPT?
It’s made by OpenAI, a nonprofit research lab with a for-profit company that’s part of it. You might have heard of OpenAI, since it’s also behind the Dall-E AI art generator.  

Is that the thing that you can ask to paint you like a person talking to an AI, and it does that?

Credit: Dall-E

I knew you were an AI!
I couldn’t help myself. 

I’ve heard that Dall-E is not good for artists.
You’re correct. That’s because it assembles its art from the work of human artists, and it can be used to generate free images that human artists would be paid to create.

How accurate is ChatGPT? Will it put writers out of business?
Not yet. It can generate some basic writing that does credibly read as though it were written by a person, but it can’t handle anything too complex. Though now you’ve made me sort of worried, so I’m going to ask ChatGPT if it will take my job.

Does that reassure you or make you more worried? Because it sounded pretty real to me.
Hang on; I’m just thinking about what it would be like to be free from browsing the internet.

I’ve interacted with chatbots before, and they weren’t as good as this. Are you sure this isn’t humans writing in real time, just trying to fool me?
The reason ChatGPT is so convincing is that it was trained on a tremendous amount of data composed of conversations in which humans both generated questions and gave answers.

Oh. Like this, then?
Exactly like this, yes.

Now I really think you’re a robot.
Listen, I have something to tell you about that CAPTCHA test earlier. It took me three tries to identify all the traffic lights in a crosswalk. What is more human than that?

Is there a Turing test for this ChatGPT thing? A way for us to figure out that it’s not actually a person writing?
I am sorry to say that just like a human writer, ChatGPT is bad at math, so no.

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