ChatGPT, the artificial intelligence software that can write text, create computer code, and even help you chat up your Tinder match, is now the fastest-growing app in human history, according to a new report from financial heavyweights UBS.
The scarily competent AI was only released in its current form at the end of last year and yet, in January of this year, has racked up 100 million monthly active users.
For comparison, this makes the meteoric rise of TikTok look like a crawl, given that it took that app nine months to gain the same number of users. Instagram hit the same milestone after two and a half years, while Spotify took four and a half.
“In 20 years following the internet space, we cannot recall a faster ramp in a consumer internet app,” UBS analysts wrote in a note.
ChatGPT is owned by the San Francisco-based AI engineering company OpenAI. They’re responsible for creating other apps like DALL.E, which takes text input and turns it into images and caused a bit of a stir a few years back. But it’s the latest version of their AI chat-based programme that has really taken the world by storm.
Already, ChatGPT has ‘passed’ complex legal and business school exams, been banned from schools in Victoria, and has the entire higher education sector in a flap about how in the hell they’re going to stop students cheating using the programme. One solution: use OpenAI to tell if AI was used to create something. It’s either a brilliant idea or totally ridiculous. Or both.
For our part, we’ve already used the programme to do our jobs for us and write an article about itself which you can check out here. The programme is currently in a research phase and free to use while developers work on the next generation of the software based on user feedback of the current one.
The uses of ChatGPT are virtually limitless when it comes to text-based work, and people are equally terrified and excited by the implications of it and the future of AI. Microsoft, who partially owns OpenAI, got so excited they dumped an undisclosed amount of money into the company just last week. They had already invested US$1 billion and possibly just spent a further 10 on the project.
While the programme is free, OpenAI announced a US$20 per month subscription model on Wednesday called ChatGPT Plus. They say it will offer faster responses and more reliable service, free from the usage outages that often plague the platform.
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