On 30 November 2022, the research company OpenAI announced ChatGPT, a chatbot built on a language model from its GPT-3.5 family, and made it free to try on the web. Its chief executive reported that it passed one million users within five days.
What is it?
ChatGPT is a program trained on large amounts of text so that it can predict what words should come next. In practice, that means you can type a question or an instruction in ordinary language and receive a written answer: an explanation, a poem, a summary, or a piece of working code.
Why it felt different
Earlier chatbots were narrow and easy to confuse. This one could carry on a conversation, adapt its tone and help with many kinds of tasks. For the first time, large numbers of people used an AI tool without any technical knowledge.
What to remember
- It can be wrong, with great confidence. It generates plausible text, which is not the same as checking facts.
- It does not "know" you or your school. Do not paste private information into it.
- It is a tool. Learning to ask good questions and check the answers is a new and valuable skill.
We will be writing more about what this means for classrooms and teachers in the coming months.