What is ChatGPT? How the world’s most popular AI chatbot can benefit you

What is ChatGPT?

ChatGPT is an AI chatbot with advanced natural language processing (NLP) that allows you to have human-like conversations to complete various tasks. The generative AI tool can answer questions and assist you with composing text, code, and much more.

Also: How to use ChatGPT

It’s currently open to use for free. OpenAI launched a paid subscription version called ChatGPT Plus in February 2023, which guarantees users access to the company’s latest models, exclusive features, and updates but is not necessary for basic usage. 

What is ChatGPT used for?

ChatGPT offers many functions in addition to answering simple questions. ChatGPT can compose essays, have philosophical conversations, do math, and even code for you. 

The tasks ChatGPT can help with don’t have to be so ambitious. For example, my favorite use case for ChatGPT is to help create basic lists for chores, such as packing and grocery shopping, and to-do lists that make my daily life more productive. The possibilities are endless. 

ZDNET has published many ChatGPT how-to guides. Below are some of the most popular ones. 

Use ChatGPT to: 

Is ChatGPT available for free?  

ChatGPT is free, regardless of what you use it for, including writing, coding, and much more. 

There is a subscription option, ChatGPT Plus, that costs $20 per month. The paid subscription model gives you extra perks, such as priority access to GPT-4o, DALL-E 3, unlimited photogeneration, Canvas, Voice Mode, and the latest upgrades. 

Also: ChatGPT vs ChatGPT Plus: Is it worth the subscription fee?

Although the subscription price may seem steep, it is the same amount as Microsoft Copilot Pro and Google One AI Premium, which are Microsoft’s and Google’s paid AI offerings. 

How can you access ChatGPT?

On April 1, 2024, OpenAI stopped requiring you to log in to ChatGPT. Now, you can access ChatGPT simply by visiting chat.openai.com. You can also access ChatGPT via an iPhone, Android, or desktop app.

Once you visit the site, you can start chatting away with ChatGPT. A great way to get started is by asking a question, similar to what you would do with Google. You can ask as many questions as you’d like.

Also: ChatGPT no longer requires a login, but you might want one anyway. Here’s why

Creating an OpenAI account still offers some perks, such as saving and reviewing your chat history, accessing custom instructions, and, most importantly, getting free access to GPT-4o. Signing up is free and easy; you can use your existing Google login.

For step-by-step instructions, check out ZDNET’s guide on how to start using ChatGPT. 

Is there a ChatGPT app?

Yes, an official ChatGPT app is available for iPhone and Android users. Make sure to download OpenAI’s app, as many copycat fake apps are listed on Apple’s App Store and the Google Play Store that are not affiliated with OpenAI.

Also: I changed 5 ChatGPT settings and instantly became more productive – here’s how

There’s also a ChatGPT app for MacOS and Windows, which lets you access the chatbot quickly via a keyboard shortcut. The Mac app was initially only available for ChatGPT Plus subscribers, but OpenAI recently made it available to all users. The Windows app is still limited to ChatGPT Plus, Enterprise, and EDU users.

Is ChatGPT safe?

People have expressed concerns about AI chatbots replacing or atrophying human intelligence. 

For example, chatbots can write an entire essay in seconds, raising concerns about students cheating and not learning how to write properly. These fears even led some school districts to block access when ChatGPT initially launched.

Now, not only have many of those schools decided to unblock the technology, but some higher education institutions have been catering their academic offerings to AI-related coursework. 

Also: Two ways you can build custom AI assistants with GPT-4o – and one is free

Another concern with AI chatbots is the possible spread of misinformation. ChatGPT says: “My responses are not intended to be taken as fact, and I always encourage people to verify any information they receive from me or any other source.” OpenAI also notes that ChatGPT sometimes writes “plausible-sounding but incorrect or nonsensical answers.”

Lastly, there are ethical and privacy concerns regarding the information ChatGPT was trained on. OpenAI scraped the internet to train the chatbot without asking content owners for permission to use their content, which brings up many copyright and intellectual property concerns. 

Also: How to use ChatGPT to analyze PDFs for free

There are also privacy concerns regarding generative AI companies using your data to fine-tune their models further, which has become a common practice. OpenAI lets you turn off training in ChatGPT’s settings.

So, is ChatGPT safe? If your main concern is privacy, OpenAI has implemented several options to give users peace of mind that their data will not be used to train models. The company even allows you to turn off your chat history. If you are concerned about moral and ethical problems, they are still being hotly debated.

Will my conversations with ChatGPT be used for training?

Companies train generative AI models on user inputs. Therefore, when familiarizing yourself with how to use ChatGPT, you might wonder if your specific conversations will be used for training and, if so, who can view your chats.

Also: This ChatGPT update fixed one of my biggest productivity issues with the AI chatbot

OpenAI will, by default, use your conversations with the free chatbot to train data and refine its models. You can opt out of it using your data for model training by clicking on the question mark in the bottom left-hand corner, Settings, and turning off “Improve the model for everyone.”

Can ChatGPT help me apply for jobs?

Yes, ChatGPT is a great resource for helping with job applications. Undertaking a job search can be tedious and difficult, and ChatGPT can help you lighten the load. ChatGPT can build your resume and write a cover letter.

Also: How to use ChatGPT to write an essay

If your application has any written supplements, you can use ChatGPT to help you write those essays or personal statements. You can also use ChatGPT to prep for your interviews by asking ChatGPT to provide you mock interview questions, background on the company, or questions that you can ask. 

Can you use ChatGPT for schoolwork?

ChatGPT can be an excellent resource in assisting students with their work. A popular misconception is that ChatGPT and other AI resources will do students’ work for them. However, it can be used as a personal tutor or editor, giving students assistance outside of the classroom. 

Also: 5 free AI tools for school that students, teachers, and parents can use, too

For example, a student can drop their essay into ChatGPT and have it copyedit, upload class handwritten notes and have them digitized, or even generate study outlines from class materials. 

It is especially helpful for coding homework since most coding languages are very character-sensitive, and one missing semicolon can throw the entire result off. Instead of staring at the screen for ages, you can ask ChatGPT to identify errors for you, which allows you to grow. 

What does ChatGPT stand for?  

The last three letters in ChatGPT’s namesake stand for Generative Pre-trained Transformer (GPT), a family of large language models created by OpenAI that uses deep learning to generate human-like, conversational text. 

Also: What does GPT stand for? Understanding GPT 3.5, GPT 4, GPT-4 Turbo, and more

The “Chat” part of the name is simply a callout to its chatting capabilities. 

Can ChatGPT generate images?

Yes, ChatGPT can generate images using DALL-E 3. However, the limits vary depending on whether you are a ChatGPT Plus subscriber or a free user. ChatGPT Plus subscribers are allowed 50 generations per day, while free users are allotted two. 

Also: The best AI image generators of 2024: Tested and reviewed

Since OpenAI discontinued DALL-E 2 in February 2024, the only way to access its most advanced AI image generator, DALL-E 3, through OpenAI’s offerings is via its chatbot.

Microsoft’s Copilot offers free image generation, also powered by DALL-E 3, in its chatbot. This is a great alternative if you don’t want to pay for ChatGPT Plus but want high-quality image outputs for free. 

How does ChatGPT work?

ChatGPT runs on a large language model (LLM) architecture created by OpenAI called the Generative Pre-trained Transformer (GPT). Since its launch, the free version of ChatGPT ran on a fine-tuned model in the GPT-3.5 series until May 2024, when OpenAI upgraded the model to GPT-4o. Now, the free version runs on GPT-4o mini, with limited access to GPT-4o. 

Also: How does ChatGPT actually work? 

With a subscription to ChatGPT Plus, you can access GPT-4, GPT-4o mini or GPT-4o. Plus, users also have priority access to GPT-4o, even at capacity, while free users get booted down to GPT-4o mini. 

The LLMs used in generative AI models of this type are trained on vast amounts of information from the internet, including websites, books, news articles, and more, typically via web scraping, where the entirety of the internet is scraped for information. 

Who owns ChatGPT currently?

OpenAI launched ChatGPT on November 30, 2022. OpenAI has also developed DALL-E 2 and DALL-E 3, popular AI image generators, and Whisper, an automatic speech recognition system. 

Also: The best AI chatbots: ChatGPT, Copilot and worthy alternatives

As a result, OpenAI owns ChatGPT. Microsoft is a major investor in OpenAI thanks to multiyear, multi-billion dollar investments. Elon Musk was an investor when OpenAI was first founded in 2015 but has since completely severed ties with the startup and created his own AI chatbot,Grok.

Is ChatGPT better than a search engine?

ChatGPT is an AI chatbot created to converse with the end user. A search engine indexes web pages on the internet to help users find information. One is not better than the other, as each suits different purposes. 

When searching for as much up-to-date, accurate information as possible, your most reliable option is a search engine. It will provide you with pages upon pages of sources you can peruse. 

Also: ChatGPT has officially replaced Google Search for me – here’s why

In November 2024, OpenAI already unveiled ChatGPT Search, a feature within the ChatGPT app that lets users search the web for timely, up-to-date information, complete with citations linked to sources. 

With ChatGPT Search, you can enter your sentence as your train of thought takes you, and the AI will understand the meaning of your query by leveraging its NLP capabilities. This means you can spend less time crafting a tailored search query but still get exactly what you want. 

If you are looking for a platform that can explain complex topics in an easy-to-understand manner, then ChatGPT might be what you want. If you want the best of both worlds, plenty of AI search engines combine both.

The search experience is available on the ChatGPT website, desktops, and mobile apps for all ChatGPT Plus, Team users, and SearchGPT waitlist users. 

What is SearchGPT?

SearchGPT is an experimental offering from OpenAI that functions as an AI-powered search engine that is aware of current events and uses real-time information from the Internet. The experience was a prototype. OpenAI integrated the best features directly into ChatGPT with ChatGPT Search. 

Upon launching the prototype, users were given a waitlist to sign up for. However, shortly after, OpenAI closed its waitlist. Those users were given priority access to ChatGPT Search when it launched. 

What is ChatGPT Search?

In November, OpenAI unveiled ChatGPT Search, a feature that lets users search the web directly within ChatGPT for timely, up-to-date information, complete with citations linked to sources. The tool can be called on manually or activated whenever a user prompt could benefit from web-based information.   

What are ChatGPT’s limitations?

Despite its impressive capabilities, ChatGPT still has limitations. Users sometimes need to reword questions multiple times for ChatGPT to understand their intent. A bigger limitation is a lack of quality in responses, which can sometimes be plausible-sounding but are verbose or make no practical sense.

Also: Police are using AI to write crime reports. What could go wrong?

Instead of asking for clarification on ambiguous questions, the model guesses what your question means, which can lead to poor responses. Generative AI models are also subject to hallucinations, which can result in inaccurate responses.

Does ChatGPT give wrong answers?

As mentioned above, ChatGPT, like all language models, has limitations and can give nonsensical answers and incorrect information, so it’s important to double-check the answers it gives you.

Also: 8 ways to reduce ChatGPT hallucinations

OpenAI recommends you provide feedback on what ChatGPT generates by using the thumbs-up and thumbs-down buttons to improve its underlying model. You can also join the startup’s Bug Bounty program, which offers up to $20,000 for reporting security bugs and safety issues.

Can ChatGPT refuse to answer my prompts?

AI systems like ChatGPT can and do reject inappropriate requests. The AI assistant can identify inappropriate submissions to prevent unsafe content generation.

Also: 6 things ChatGPT can’t do (and another 20 it refuses to do)

These submissions include questions that violate someone’s rights, are offensive, are discriminatory, or involve illegal activities. The ChatGPT model can also challenge incorrect premises, answer follow-up questions, and even admit mistakes when you point them out.

These guardrails are important. AI models can generate advanced, realistic content that can be exploited by bad actors for harm, such as spreading misinformation about public figures and influencing elections.

Does ChatGPT plagiarize?

Yes, OpenAI scraped the internet to train ChatGPT’s models. Therefore, the technology’s knowledge is influenced by other people’s work. Since there is no guarantee that ChatGPT’s outputs are entirely original, the chatbot may regurgitate someone else’s work in your answer, which is considered plagiarism. 

Also, technically speaking, if you, as a user, copy and paste ChatGPT’s response, that is an act of plagiarism because you are claiming someone else’s work as your own. This act could have repercussions based on the rules enforced by your workplace or educational institution. 

Is there a ChatGPT detector?

In short, the answer is no, not because people haven’t tried, but because none do it efficiently. 

In January 2023, OpenAI released a free tool to detect AI-generated text. Unfortunately, OpenAI’s classifier tool could only correctly identify 26% of AI-written text with a “likely AI-written” designation. Furthermore, it provided false positives 9% of the time, incorrectly identifying human-written work as AI-produced. 

Also: I tested 7 AI content detectors – they’re getting dramatically better at identifying plagiarism

The tool performed so poorly that, six months after its release, OpenAI shut it down “due to its low rate of accuracy.” Despite the tool’s failure, the startup claims to be researching more effective techniques for AI text identification.

Other AI detectors exist on the market, including GPT-2 Output Detector, Writer AI Content Detector, and Content at Scale’s AI Content Detection tool. ZDNET tested these tools, and the results were underwhelming: all three were unreliable sources for spotting AI, repeatedly giving false negatives. Here are ZDNET’s full test results.

What is GPT-4?

GPT-4 is OpenAI’s language model, much more advanced than its predecessor, GPT-3.5. GPT-4 outperforms GPT-3.5 in a series of simulated benchmark exams and produces fewer hallucinations.   

What is GPT-4o?

GPT-4o is OpenAI’s latest, fastest, and most advanced flagship model. As the name implies, GPT-4o has the same intelligence as GPT-4. However, the “o” in the title stands for “omni,” referring to its multimodal capabilities, which allow the model to understand text, audio, image, and video inputs and output text, audio, and image outputs.

Also: 6 ways OpenAI just supercharged ChatGPT for free users

The model is 50% cheaper in OpenAI’s API than GPT-4 Turbo while still matching its English and coding capabilities and outperforming it in non-English language, vision, and audio understanding — a big win for developers.

What is ChatGPT o1?

In September 2024, OpenAI unveiled its o1 models, which are capable of more advanced reading, making them ideal for math, science, and coding. For example, it scored 83% on the International Mathematics Olympiad (IMO) qualifying exam. For comparison, GPT-4o correctly solved only 13% of problems. 

Also: What are o1 and o1-mini? OpenAI’s mystery AI models are finally here

ZDNET’s David Gewirtz put o1- preview to the test and was impressed by its ability to tackle several complex tasks with lots of detail, including writing a WordPress plugin, rewriting a string function, finding an annoying bug, and more. 

What are the best ChatGPT alternatives?

Although ChatGPT gets the most buzz, other options are just as good — and might even be better suited to your needs. ZDNET has created a list of the best chatbots, all of which we have tested to identify the best tool for your requirements.

Also: Claude AI can now analyze PDFs – here’s how to try it

Despite ChatGPT’s extensive abilities, other chatbots have advantages that might be better suited for your use case, including Copilot, Claude, Perplexity, Jasper, and more.

What are GPTs?

OpenAI once offered plugins for ChatGPT to connect to third-party applications and access real-time information on the web. The plugins expanded ChatGPT’s abilities, allowing it to assist with many more activities, such as planning a trip or finding a place to eat. 

Also: My two favorite ChatGPT Plus features and the remarkable things I can do with them

However, on March 19, 2024, OpenAI stopped letting users install new plugins or start new conversations with existing ones. Instead, OpenAI replaced plugins with GPTs, which are easier for developers to build. 

With the latest update, all users, including those on the free plan, can access the GPT Store and find 3 million customized ChatGPT chatbots. Unfortunately, there is also a lot of spam in the GPT store, so be careful which ones you use.

What is Microsoft’s involvement with ChatGPT?

Microsoft was an early investor in OpenAI, the AI startup behind ChatGPT, long before ChatGPT was released to the public. Microsoft’s first involvement with OpenAI was in 2019 when the company invested $1 billion. The company invested another $2 billion in the years after. In January 2023, Microsoft extended its partnership with OpenAI through a multiyear, multi-billion dollar investment.

Also: ChatGPT vs. Copilot: Which AI chatbot is better for you?

Neither company disclosed the investment value, but unnamed sources told Bloomberg that it could total $10 billion over multiple years. In return, OpenAI’s exclusive cloud-computing provider — Microsoft Azure, powers all OpenAI workloads across research, products, and API services.

Microsoft has also used its OpenAI partnership to revamp its Bing search engine and improve its browser. On February 7, 2023, Microsoft unveiled a new Bing tool, now known as Copilot, that runs on OpenAI’s GPT-4, customized specifically for search.

How does Copilot compare to ChatGPT?

Copilot uses OpenAI’s GPT-4, which means that since its launch, it has been more efficient and capable than the standard, free version of ChatGPT, which was powered by GPT 3.5 at the time. At the time, Copilot boasted several other features over ChatGPT, such as access to the internet, knowledge of current information, and footnotes.

Also: I was a Copilot diehard until ChatGPT added these 5 features

In May 2024, however, OpenAI supercharged the free version of its chatbot with GPT-4o. The upgrade gave users GPT-4 level intelligence, the ability to get responses from the web, analyze data, chat about photos and documents, use GPTs, and access the GPT Store and Voice Mode. After the upgrade, ChatGPT reclaimed its crown as the best AI chatbot.

What is Gemini and how does it relate to ChatGPT?

Gemini is Google’s AI chat service, a rival to ChatGPT. On February 6, 2023, Google introduced its experimental AI chat service, which was then called Google Bard. 

Also: ChatGPT vs. Microsoft Copilot vs. Gemini: Which is the best AI chatbot?

Over a month after the announcement, Google began rolling out access to Bard first via a waitlist. Now, the tool is available to the public. The biggest perk of Gemini is that it has Google Search at its core and has the same feel as Google products. Therefore, if you are an avid Google user, Gemini might be the best AI chatbot for you. 

What is Apple’s involvement with OpenAI?

At Apple’s Worldwide Developer’s Conference in June 2024, the company announced a partnership with OpenAI that will integrate ChatGPT with Siri. With the user’s permission, Siri can request ChatGPT for help if Siri deems a task is better suited for ChatGPT. This feature has not yet been released to users.