What is ChatGPT? Here's how to use the popular AI chatbot | MarkMeets | Entertainment, Music, Movie, TV & London Film Premiere News

ChatGPT has continued to dazzle the internet with AI-generated content, morphing from a novel chatbot into a piece of technology that is driving the next era of technological innovation. Not everyone’s on board yet, though, and you’re probably wondering: What’s all the fuss about?

Made by OpenAI, well-known for having developed the text-to-image generator DALL-E, it’s currently available for anyone to try out for free. Here’s what ChatGPT is, how to use it, and how it could change the future of the internet.

What is ChatGPT?

ChatGPT is a natural language AI chatbot. At its most basic, that means you can ask it any question, and it will answer.

As opposed to a simple voice assistant like Siri, though, ChatGPT is built on what is called an LLM (Large Language Model). These neural networks are trained on huge quantities of information from the internet for deep learning. This is implied in the name of ChatGPT, which stands for Chat Generative Pre-trained Transformer. In the case of the current version of ChatGPT, it’s based on the GPT-3.5 LLM. The model behind ChatGPT was trained on all sorts of web content including websites, books, social media, news articles, and more — all fine-tuned in the language model by both supervised learning and RLHF (Reinforcement Learning From Human Feedback). OpenAI says this use of human AI trainers is really what makes ChatGPT stand out.

ChatGPT was first launched as a prototype to the public in November 2022, quickly growing to over 100 million users by January of 2023, making it the most quickly-adopted tech software ever made.

How to use ChatGPT

First, go to chat.openai.com. If it’s your first time, you’ll need to set up a free account with OpenAI before getting started. You have the option of choosing an easy login with a Google or Microsoft account, or just entering your email address. You’ll be asked next to enter a phone number; however, keep in mind that you cannot use a virtual phone number (VoIP) to register for OpenAI. You will then receive a confirmation number, which you will enter on the registration page to complete the setup.

Once you see some housekeeping rules about ChatGPT, including potential errors in data, how OpenAI collects data, and how users can submit feedback — all of which has some wondering about whether or not ChatGPT is safe to use. Once you’re through that, you know you have successfully registered. You’re in!

Using the ChatGPT chatbot itself is fairly simple, as all you have to do is type in your text and receive the information. The key here is to be creative and see how your ChatGPT responds to different prompts. If you don’t get the intended result, try tweaking your prompt or giving ChatGPT further instructions.

For example, inputting “explain how the solar system was made” will give a more detailed result with more paragraphs than “how was the solar system made,” even though both inquiries will give fairly detailed results. Take it a step further by giving ChatGPT more guidance about style or tone, saying “explain how the solar system was made as a middle school teacher.”

You also have the option for more specific inputting requests for an essay with a specific number of paragraphs or a Wikipedia page. We got an extremely detailed result with the request “write a four-paragraph essay explaining Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.” And remember, ChatGPT is great at making tweaks to previous answers, so you can always ask for more detail, ask it to rewrite something, or ask further questions.

If there is enough information available, the generator will fulfill the commands with accurate details. Otherwise, there is potential for ChatGPT to begin filling in gaps with incorrect data. OpenAI notes that these instances are rare, but hallucinations certainly do happen. The brand also notes that ChatGPT, which uses the GPT-3.5 LLM (large language model), currently has “limited knowledge of world events after 2021.”

Even so, you have the option to input queries continuously until you close your browser or reset the thread to clear your previous requests. You also have the option to use ChatGPT in dark mode or light mode.

ChatGPT made its own language to extend conversations, and it’s getting freaky

ChatGPT did just make up its own language to extend its 8K-limit conversations. In a stranger turn of events, ChatGPT users have discovered that GPT-4 is able to compress a long conversation and create a sort of compression language that you can then utilize as a new prompt later.

When entered as a new prompt in the chat, this essentially recreates that same exact conversation. In effect, it not only allows you to pick up where you left off but also extends ChatGPT conversations beyond their word limit.

As you know, ChatGPT has a word limit – though as to what that number is, reports seem to vary. Some say GPT-4 gives you about 25,000 words while some says it’s around 8,000K words. Not that most users tend to reach that cut-off, but it does mean that if your current conversation goes on for too long, ChatGPT might simply cut off, even mid-sentence. As a result, you would have to start a brand-new chat, which can be extremely frustrating if you’re not finished and need more information.

This new compression language lets you get around that word count so you can continue your conversation, which is extremely useful especially if your query has morphed into a complex rabbit hole or your chat has turned into a month-long chat (or you simply need a bestie who will remember everything you’ve told them in the past).

GPT-4 still needs context

ChatGPT won’t simply create a compressed message for you when it’s running out of words. You still have to ask it to compress that current conversation with very specific instructions.

In his example, he specified that the compression should be “lossless but results in the minimum number of tokens that could be fed into an LLM like yourself as-is and produce the same output.” He also instructed it to utilize different languages, symbols, and “other up-front priming.”

The same has to be done when entering that compressed message in a new chat to give it a hand – although it seems like some GPT-4 users aren’t doing so, adding context just helps minimize errors.

It’s worth noting that this language isn’t foolproof yet. GPT-3.5 is unable to read the compressed language, and “GPT-4 via API struggles.” It works best on GPT-4, which is a refined version of its predecessors, via ChatGPT. So, if you think it’s going to be a long, convoluted conversation that would make Proust proud, you better stick with that chatbot.

AI: China tech giant Alibaba to roll out ChatGPT rival

Chinese technology giant Alibaba has announced plans to roll out its own artificial intelligence (AI) ChatGPT-style product called Tongyi Qianwen.

Its cloud computing unit says it will integrate the chatbot across Alibaba’s businesses in the “near future” but did not give details on its timeline.

In recent months, technology companies around the world have unveiled their own so-called generative AI chatbots.

Earlier this year, Alibaba revealed it was working on a rival to ChatGPT.

Tongyi Qianwen roughly translates as “seeking an answer by asking a thousand questions”, although Alibaba has not given an English version of the name.

“We are at a technological watershed moment driven by generative AI and cloud computing,” Alibaba’s chairman and chief executive Daniel Zhang said in as Tongyi Qianwen was launched.

The company said Tongyi Qianwen, which is capable of working in English as well as Chinese, will initially be added to DingTalk, Alibaba’s workplace messaging app.

It will perform a number of tasks including turning conversations in meetings into written notes, writing emails and drafting business proposals, the company said.

Alibaba said it will also be integrated into Tmall Genie, which is similar to Amazon’s Alexa voice assistant smart speaker.

Interest in generative AI has surged since the release of ChatGPT by Microsoft-backed OpenAI in November.

Generative AI is capable of learning from past data to create content indistinguishable from human work.

ChatGPT can answer questions using natural, human-like language and it can also mimic other writing styles, using the internet as it was in 2021 as its database.

Microsoft has spent billions of dollars on the technology, which was added to its search engine Bing in February.

The US software giant also said it will embed a version of ChatGPT in its Office apps, including Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook.

Alphabet’s Google and Chinese technology group Baidu have also announced their own AI models and released similar chatbots.

On Tuesday, China’s cyberspace regulator unveiled draft measures for managing generative AI.

Under the proposed rules, companies would be responsible for the legitimacy of data used to train the technology, the Cyberspace Administration of China said.

The public has until 10 May to give feedback on the proposals.

Last month, a group of high-profile figures in the technology industry called for training of powerful AI systems to be suspended amid fears of a threat to humanity.

Twitter chief executive Elon Musk and Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak were among those who signed an open letter warning of potential risks, and said the race to develop AI systems is out of control.

Meanwhile, a recent report by investment bank Goldman Sachs estimated that AI could replace the equivalent of 300 million full-time jobs.

Earlier this month, Italy became the first Western nation to block ChatGPT, with the country’s data-protection authority citing privacy concerns.