If you are wondering about what is ChatGPT and probably what it is used for, you are not the only one. In fact, at one time, almost everyone who now knows what ChatGPT is, once wondered why there was so much buzz about it.
With that said, this article introduces you to ChatGPT and its uses and as well as its possible limitations. You may be thinking, is it not an app? Yes it is, but an app with a twist. An app that you can engage in almost any type of conversation.
So What Is ChatGPT?
ChatGPT is a chatbot that is designed and trained to interact and generate human-like responses in a conversational chat style. It is part of the artificial intelligence (AI) language model called GPT(Generative Pre-trained Transformer) developed by OpenAI in collaboration with Microsoft.
It can answer questions, perform certain tasks and generate texts based on the user text input (also known as text prompt or just prompt) as if you are chatting with a person.
It was first introduced in June 2020 and later launched officially in November 2020 by OpenAI and was based on the initial version of the GPT-3 language model before the introduction of GPT-3.5 and 4.
The chatbot can be accessed on the official website of OpenAI here and the mobile app is also available on iOS appstore and Google Playstore for Android. So you can get the mobile app from the respective platforms depending on your smartphone operating system. It is available for free and optional premium subscription plan for advanced features. But in most cases you will just be fine with the free plan.
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What Can ChatGPT Do For You?
Basically, there are so many tasks it can perform, but it all depends on what you want from it and how you want it to display the response. However, in a more broader sense, ChatGPT can assist users in the following ways in no particular order.
1. Answering Questions
ChatGPT can provide answers to your questions on a wide range of topics and subjects. For example, it can answer questions relating to general knowledge, mathematics, programming, current affairs, technology and so on. All you need to do, just type the question and instantly it will respond.
2. Casual Conversation
Whether you want to chat about entertainment, sports, make some jokes or even talk about yourself, ChatGPT can keep you busy as if you are with a friend. However, be aware that it will shut you down if it detects any word it classifies as racist, profane, violent or pornographic related.
3. Content Creation
It can generate different contents for you in any topic and subject matter for different purposes. Whether you are trying to come up with basic ideas, brainstorm, looking for key points or even detailed content, ChatGPT has got you covered. For example, it can write a story in any genre or style for scriptwriters, compose a poem or song and can even draft contract agreement templates. It can also provide video creators content ideas for YouTube, Tiktok, Facebook etc.
4. Programming Or Coding Assistance
This is one of the most remarkable features of ChatGPT, especially for professional programmers and students. It can provide useful answers to coding-related questions and most importantly, it can also provide step-by-step programming guides and generate code snippets in various programming languages and frameworks. For instance, it can walk you through the basic steps of installing the Django web framework and how to run your first web app.
5. Language Translation
While ChatGPT is not a dedicated language translator tool like Google Translate, Bing Translation or Amazon Translate, it can assist with basic translation of world’s major languages by converting text from one language to another.
6. Learning New Things
ChatGPT can also provide insights and explanations about new topics that you would like to know more about. All you need to do is to narrow down your query.
Limitations Of ChatGPT
While ChatGPT is highly praised for its outstanding features and capability to generate useful information, answer questions and engage in human-like conversation, sometimes it can generate inaccurate answers or unverified information.
It is prone to tweaked prompts. What does that mean exactly? It means sometimes when you ask ChatGPT a question, it may not provide an answer, but the moment you make slight modifications to the prompt by rephrasing your question, it will provide or generate expected response. In this regard, it exhibits a degree of inconsistency.
In addition, ChatGPT knowledge is limited to the extent of its training. Therefore, if you ask questions that it has not been trained on, it will not be able to provide you with a satisfactory response or provide any at. In this case, it may even tell you when it was last trained. Sometimes it can also generate biased opinions, inappropriate or harmful instructions.
Conclusion
ChatGPT is a go-to productivity tool for many professionals and students and it continues to expand its knowledge on a wide range of topics. Even though it has a few limitations just like every piece of software, with a little bit of tweaking and creativity, one can take full advantage of what it has to offer. One way to authenticate important information provided by ChatGPT, is to confirm it from other reliable sources like Wikipedia or relevant websites. That way, you will be confident to publish or share that piece of information.
Now that you know or at least have an idea of what ChatGPT is and what you can do with it, you can try it out and see its magic at work. You can start from here.
