So, what exactly is ChatGPT?
ChatGPT is short for Chat Generative Pre-trained Transformer. It is an AI “chatbot”-software program, created by the San Francisco-based tech-company OpenAI1. The program can generate human-like text responses to any question one can think of. ChatGPT does not only summarize existing text, but also create completely new content. In March 2023, a major update to ChatGPT was released (ChatGPT 4.0), which promises improved reasoning and conciseness, and a 40% increased likelihood of producing factual responses5.
At its core an AI is an algorithm, but, unlike static mathematical models, it uses machine learning to adjust its parameters and improve performance over time. To do so, the program needs “training”. ChatGPT was trained by being exposed to a huge amount of text from a database of internet pages. The program then iteratively adjusted its parameters based on human feedback, which gradually made it more capable of generating human-like text. As this whole process took place offline, ChatGPT does not “search the internet in real-time”. It will not consider anything published that was not included in its training material, and it is not getting trained by the input from the current users. However, it does store the content of the current chat and previous “conversations” with the same user, which is a powerful feature because it allows the bot to retain the context. OpenAI states that the conversations the users have with ChatGPT may be reviewed and used for training purposes later, and warns about not sharing sensitive information6.