What is ChatGPT and why all the fuss?
ChatGPT is a software tool that can generate original text that appears it was written by a person on almost any topic.
ChatGPT is an artificial intelligence resource available from the company OpenAI. The software name in full is Chat Generative Pre-trained Transformer, which sounds complicated, so I'll try and simplify what this means. Introduced in November 2022, it's getting much attention in the technology field, academia, and the news in general. In this article, I'll cover what it does, how it works, and a little about the company that makes it.
Why it's a chatbot
ChatGPT is called a chatbot because of the way it works. Chatbots are software applications that allow users to enter questions or requests, and then the chatbot creates a reply. You might have seen them on websites that you use. For ChatGPT, a user goes to the ChatGPT website, sets up a free user account, and then has access to the chatbot screen.
The screen has a text field similar to a search box where you enter your text. It's possible to ask almost any question, and the chatbot will create a reply. Here's a screen shot of the ChatGPT screen with suggestions for what to enter.
What it does
ChatGPT has collected information from the internet to create a massive database of information that the chatbot uses to generate responses. In response to the text prompts, it can write fiction and non-fiction, compose music, create poetry, write computer programs, play games, and more.
ChatGPT is a large language model developed by OpenAI that is capable of generating human-like text. It can be used for a variety of tasks such as language translation, question answering, and text completion. It can also be fine-tuned for specific applications such as chatbots and language understanding in virtual assistants. Additionally, ChatGPT can be used for text generation tasks such as writing essays, articles, or poetry. Overall, ChatGPT is a powerful tool for natural language processing and can be used to help with a wide range of language-based tasks.
As an example, the preceding paragraph was written by ChatGPT in response to a chat request I made to "write a paragraph explaining what ChatGPT is capable of doing."
How it works
To understand better how it works, it helps to understand what a "large language model" is. A large language model is an artificial intelligence program trained to understand and generate language as people use it, or natural language. The software program uses a learning method similar to the human brain. This type of method is commonly called a neural network.
A neural network software program simulates the neuron structure of our brains, where neurons are interconnected and receive inputs, process information with many neurons, and create outputs. A neural network processes its input through layers of neurons, making decisions and adjustments about the final product before it delivers the result.
As a result of using a neural network for a software application, many more decisions and values can be applied to any input request, making the resulting answer more "natural" than a software program that only knows how to give you one answer to a question.
For example, you can ask ChatGPT to write a paragraph about a neural network, or you can tell ChatGPT to write a paragraph to "explain what a neural network is using simple, non-technical language.
Here's the result of that request:
A neural network is a type of computer program that is designed to mimic the way the human brain works. It's made up of layers of simple calculations that work together to process information. Think of it like a decision tree, where each layer represents a set of questions or calculations that help the program arrive at a conclusion. The program is fed with data and it adjusts itself based on that data, so the next time it sees a similar data it can make a better decision. This is similar to how we learn and make decisions, but at a much faster pace and with a much larger amount of data. Neural networks are used in a variety of tasks such as image recognition, natural language processing, and prediction.
Generative Pre-trained Transformer
While ChatGPT is capable of learning, it can also be trained. ChatGPT has been prepared by collecting a large amount of text, so it has a good understanding of language and its use. Think of it like as similar to you learning a story by reading the book, watching the movie, and seeing it performed as a play. There are three different versions that you have learned from. Multiply that learning capability through computers and ChatGPT has seen billions of ways language is used and learned from them, which are more frequently used.
In addition to its own learning capabilities, ChatGPT can learn from people who see its responses, rate them, and make suggestions for improving the response. Staff at OpenAI, the company that owns ChatGPT, reviewed responses and helped the software learn from real people. Users of ChatGPT are encouraged to rate an answer and suggest ways it can be improved, helping to make ChatGPT better.
The" generative" is the software's capability to create something new and not just respond with what it has in its database. The transformer part refers to the understanding ChatGPT has about things like context and the relationships between words.
The "transformer" part of ChatGPT describes artificial intelligence that uses learning to understand and create natural language. So combined, ChatGPT is an artificial intelligence tool trained to generate natural language responses.
The ability to create functional and grammatically correct new text on almost any topic that appears like it's written by a person is why ChatGPT is getting a lot of attention.
OpenAI
OpenAI is the company that created ChatGPT. It's based in San Francisco, and Microsoft and other venture capital investors are the investors. In addition to ChatGPT, OpenAI makes the DALL-E image-generating tool. DALL-E accepts text input and creates an image based on the text. ChatGPT is a chat version of the AI software GPT-3, which can allow other software applications to connect and use the AI tool.
Duolingo, the popular language learning application, uses GPT-3 to provide grammar corrections. Another application, Keeper Tax, uses GPT-3 to help interpret financial data for small-business owners to help find deductible expenses.
Microsoft, a significant investor in OpenAI, has publicly announced that it will deploy OpenAI's software in its consumer products, like Word, Microsoft's web browser, Edge, and its search engine, Bing. Microsoft is the exclusive cloud computing provider for OpenAI, so an investment in Microsoft is an investment in OpenAI.
What to expect?
Schools, universities, and colleges are creating policies for using ChatGPT and other AI tools for submitting papers. Some schools have reported that ChatGPT-submitted papers have gotten excellent grades after the student revealed it was created by the software.
Google has reorganized its AI efforts and called back Larry Page and Sergey Brin to help determine the best course of action for the company.
ChatGPT can produce some pretty-good material. Often it's good enough, but there are some limitations. The software stopped inputting information in 2021, so there's no data in its database after that. So it's not the most current information as of now.
Rarely, but sometimes, ChatGPT produces a grammatically correct response with a mistake. It may not be meaningful depending on the topic or how the input question is phrased. ChatGPT also has limitations created by OpenAI for excluding political opinions or some other types of responses that may be offensive.
It's rumored that ChatGPT 4 is coming sometime in 2023, and while the current version of ChatGPT is free, we'll likely see a paid plan.
The significant benefit for consumers will probably come from users of Microsoft software. Consumers may see a version of Word where you can ask Word to write something for you or tell PowerPoint to create a slide about a topic with a graphic image. And with Microsoft Bing, search results may include more than just links to other web pages.
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