Why AI Chat Bot ChatGPT Is Taking The World By Storm

AI chatbot ChatGPT hit the ground running in November 2022 and grew to more than 100 million users just months after its launch! The easy-to-use interface, efficient and natural-sounding output, and broad knowledge base have set it apart from other AI chatbots and transformed it into a tool that just about anybody can use.

Someone studying on their bed with a small dog and a tablet.

What are people using ChatGPT for? The sky’s the limit, really. Here’s a quick look at just a few things AI can do:

Create content
Brainstorm
Answer questions
Research
Write essays (much to the chagrin of teachers everywhere)
Generate emails
Write code
Translate transcripts
Compose music
Create art

Write with Confidence using Editor

Elevate your writing with real-time, intelligent assistance

Learn more

Even everyday tasks can be simplified. For example, are you tired of cooking the same old recipes and want some new ideas? Ask ChatGPT for some recipe ideas with a few specific ingredients you want to use, and you’ll have a list of suggestions in no time. It’s a great way to learn quickly and easily about a topic without spending a lot of time online. If you can think of something to ask ChatGPT, there’s a good chance you’ll receive a quick answer in return.

Let’s take a deeper dive and learn what it is, what its limitations are, and how it will make massive waves in the digital world—and your world, as well.

What is ChatGPT? To answer that question, we went straight to the source and asked ChatGPT to explain to us what it is in 100 words or less. This was the response:

“I am an AI language model developed by OpenAI, trained on a diverse range of internet text to perform a variety of tasks such as answering questions, generating text, and translation. I am designed to be fast, accurate, and able to generate human-like responses. I do not have emotions, personal experiences, or beliefs, but I have been trained to respond based on the patterns in the data I was trained on.”

As you can see here, ChatGPT is an AI chatbot that can take a prompt and write a pretty natural and informative response. It uses checks and balances against itself to create responses to questions, prompts, and requests. This specific response was generated in about two minutes. A more complex prompt or an extensive answer would take more time to return a response.

“ChatGPT hit the ground running in November 2022 and grew to more than 100 million users just months after its launch!”

What sets ChatGPT apart from other chatbots? AI chatbots are used to simulate conversations between two people. However, an AI bot replaces one side of the conversation. Many companies will use a chatbot to provide 24-hour customer service on their websites to eliminate the need for round-the-clock employees waiting for a periodic conversation. Many of these chatbots are limited to contextual information within the company’s database to provide responses to questions or direct a customer to helpful articles that have been written about the topic. ChatGPT’s capabilities go far beyond these limitations and will reference information from across the internet.

ChatGPT is the first of its kind to become available to the general public. It has a user-friendly interface that makes it easy for users to submit a prompt, then receive a timely, conversational response. Of course, these responses can sometimes feel a bit awkward because they’re being written by a machine rather than a person on the other end typing out a response.

A top down view of someone using a tablet and stylus to illustrate a toucan.

ChatGPT said it’s “trained” to be accurate. Is it always accurate? The short answer: no. ChatGPT’s database is limited to information from 2021 and earlier. This means that if you were to ask it about current information, it would treat your answer like we’re in the year 2021. Furthermore, not all of the information it gives you is entirely accurate. To quickly test this, we asked, “Who won the last World Series?” ChatGPT’s response was, “The Tampa Bay Rays won the World Series in 2020.” This response is erroneous in two ways. First, the last World Series champion was the Houston Astros in 2022. Second, the LA Dodgers won the World Series (by defeating the Tampa Bay Rays) in 2020.

Aside from sports trivia, it’s a good idea to check every response you receive from the chatbot. It doesn’t matter if you’re researching a topic to write a term paper or generating code to build a page on your website. Because ChatGPT can miss on something as trivial and easily researched as a World Series winner, you should still comb through the information provided to verify that it’s correct.

ChatGPT and AI tools that will follow are here to make our everyday lives easier. From researching, to content creation ideation, to communicating, and beyond—use it wisely and be aware of its limitations.