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What Is ChatGPT and How Does It Make Money?

ChatGPT, the free chatbot released in November 2022 by artificial intelligence (AI) research company OpenAI, has taken the internet by storm. In its first months of existence, ChatGPT inspired users to imagine a host of use cases for the model, including using ChatGPT to negotiate parking tickets, make workout plans, and even create bedtime stories for children. Some artificial intelligence experts believe that ChatGPT could revolutionize both the way that humans interact with chatbots and AI more broadly.

Below, we explore this new technology and how it is poised to begin making money.

What Is ChatGPT?

ChatGPT is an AI computer program that uses its intelligence to intake, comprehend and produce a response that mimics the natural diction of human language.

The program uses a transformer-based neural network that works off of so much data that the AI can analyze that information and create a response from it. When a human user converses with ChatGPT, the AI processes the human text and generates the answer based on the data it has access to.

The technology also considers context, syntax, and word associations, which is how it can produce responses that mimic human speech and writing.

ChatGPT can also:

Whether it’s questions, answers, essays, or entire conversations, this technology is meant to carry on as a human would.

Answer follow-up questions.
Admit mistakes.
Challenge incorrect premises.
Reject inappropriate requests.

Because of its human-like capabilities, ChatGPT has countless uses.

How does ChatGPT work?

To grasp large language models, it’s critical to understand a few key concepts.

Current large language models, like GPT-3, have been trained on a massive amount of data and billions of parameters, which were used to pre-train those models.

In the pre-training phase, through unsupervised learning, it’s possible to give the model a straightforward goal, like predicting the next token in the sequence.

In short, the main goal of a large language model like GPT-3 in the pre-training phase is the text-to-text prediction of what comes next in the text sequence.

Once the model has been pre-trained, it’s pretty good at general tasks. Though it can be misleading and untruthful, thus hallucinating often.

To “put some breaks” and enhance the guardrails of a general-purpose model, like GPT-3, that can be fine-tuned.

What is ChatGPT used for?

The main feature of ChatGPT is generating responses like those humans would provide, in a text box. Therefore, it is suitable for chatbots, AI system conversations, and virtual assistants.

However, it can also give natural answers to questions in a conversational tone and can generate stories poems, and more. Moreover, it can:

Write code
Write an article or blog post
Translate
Debug
Write a story/poem
Recommend chords and lyrics

To make the AI carry out one of these demands, all you need to do is type the command into the chatbot.

Related: How does ChatGPT work?

OpenAI has released a ChatGPT plugin feature set to enhance the chatbot’s initial capabilities. ChatGPT will be bigger and better than ever, with the ability to draw on the knowledge and features of many third-party applications.

The initial set of plugins has already been launched, featuring popular platforms such as Expedia, Klarna, Slack, Wolfram, OpenTable, Shopify, and others.

Essentially, this new update will mean that ChatGPT can bring in tools from these platforms. For example, plot graphs using Wolfram or send you restaurant reservations from OpenTable.

How Does ChatGPT Make Money

OpenAI, the company that created ChatGPT, has not yet monetized ChatGPT on a wide scale. A free version of ChatGPT remains available on OpenAI’s website as of Feb. 23, 2023. However, the company does sell the application programming interface on a subscription basis to organizations looking to use the model for their own purposes, according to Investopedia’s query to ChatGPT itself.

On Feb. 1, 2023, OpenAI announced that it would launch a pilot version of a paid subscription plan called ChatGPT Plus for $20 per month. Subscribers will receive benefits including access to ChatGPT during peak times, faster response times, and priority access to new improvements and features. The company said this paid plan is available in the U.S. and that users will be invited from a waitlist “over the coming weeks.” OpenAI will expand access to additional parts of the world over time.

The viral success of ChatGPT could be worth a huge amount to OpenAI, which was co-founded by Elon Musk. Within a week of its launch, the model had gained one million users. And two months after ChatGPT was released, OpenAI raised the possibility of selling existing shares in a tender offer that would place the value of the company at about $29 billion, making it among the most valuable startups.