ChatGPT

ChatGPT (Chat Generative Pre-trained Transformer; pronounced “chat-GPT”; from English — “generative pre-trained transformer”) is a generative artificial intelligence chatbot developed by OpenAI. It is capable of conducting conversations in natural language, answering questions, and generating coherent text on a wide range of topics. ChatGPT was launched on November 30, 2022 and immediately attracted widespread attention: in less than a week, its user base exceeded one million, making it the fastest-growing consumer application in history at that time. Within two months, the number of active users reached 100 million per month, breaking previous audience growth records. ChatGPT is positioned as a demonstration of the capabilities of large language models and is made publicly available to collect user feedback.

Capabilities

ChatGPT 5.1 chat interface

ChatGPT uses powerful language models (the GPT-3.5 series and later GPT-4) to generate responses in a conversational format. The system can understand and generate text in many languages, including Russian. Users can submit arbitrary questions or tasks in natural language, and ChatGPT produces detailed responses. The chatbot demonstrates a wide range of capabilities: it can answer factual questions, write coherent and meaningful texts (essays, articles), compose poetry and song lyrics, generate scripts and dialogues, as well as create and debug program code. For example, the chatbot can explain a scientific concept in simple terms, write an essay in an academic style, or assist with code debugging by commenting on it in any requested manner. ChatGPT maintains conversational context by taking previous messages into account, allowing users to ask follow-up questions and receive continued responses within a single session. Developers implemented specific limitations and filters in ChatGPT to ensure safety. The model refuses to respond to inappropriate or dangerous requests (such as instructions for producing harmful substances), explaining its inability to provide such information. Nevertheless, users have discovered ways to bypass some restrictions by prompting the bot to role-play characters or participate in fictional scenarios, occasionally causing ChatGPT to generate undesirable instructions or content. Overall, ChatGPT is capable of producing surprisingly coherent and grammatically correct responses that closely resemble human speech, setting it apart from earlier chatbots. This has sparked discussions about how such systems may transform information retrieval and human–computer interaction, making communication with technology more “human-like”.

History

The development of ChatGPT continued OpenAI’s research into large language models. Between 2020 and 2022, the company trained the GPT-3 and GPT-3.5 model series on massive volumes of textual data and then applied reinforcement learning from human feedback (RLHF) to adapt the model for conversational use. The final chatbot product was publicly released on November 30, 2022 as a free online service (“research preview”) to gather feedback. The release quickly went viral: within just a few days, more than one million people had used the chatbot. Users experimented with prompts, shared impressive examples of responses on social media, and discussed potential applications. Early issues also emerged: in December 2022, moderators on Stack Overflow temporarily banned answers generated by ChatGPT, noting that while they appeared plausible, they often contained errors. Despite this, interest in the system continued to grow rapidly. In early February 2023, OpenAI announced a paid subscription, ChatGPT Plus, priced at $20 per month, offering priority access and faster response times. Subscribers also gained early access to new features and models. On March 14, 2023, the new model GPT-4 was released, and ChatGPT Plus users received access to its capabilities. GPT-4 significantly improved response quality and introduced multimodal input, allowing users to submit images as part of a prompt, although text remained the primary interaction format. ChatGPT’s rapid success prompted competitors to accelerate their own projects: Microsoft integrated OpenAI’s AI into Bing search, while Google urgently announced its own chatbot, Bard. Growth was accompanied by geographic expansion and platform diversification. In May 2023, OpenAI released an official ChatGPT app for iOS, followed by an Android version in July 2023. By mid-2023, ChatGPT officially supported voice input and plugins enabling integration with external services and web search. At the same time, access to ChatGPT was restricted in several countries: as of 2023, the service was unavailable or officially banned in China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, and others due to censorship and data security concerns. In Italy, the data protection authority temporarily suspended ChatGPT in spring 2023, demanding compliance with European privacy regulations; following changes such as chat history opt-out options, access was restored. By the end of its first year, ChatGPT’s audience continued to grow, and the service became embedded in popular culture. Estimates suggested that by autumn 2023, around 100 million people were using ChatGPT weekly. In November 2023, OpenAI held its first DevDay conference, announcing new ChatGPT features such as voice conversations, image uploads, and Custom GPTs. Development continued through 2024–2025 with enhanced GPT-4 variants (GPT-4 Turbo, GPT-4 Vision) and ultimately GPT-5 (2025), offering improved speed and accuracy. By then, ChatGPT had evolved from a simple web chat into a platform with an ecosystem of plugins and integrations, powering educational tools, business applications, and many other services.

Impact and reception

The rapid emergence of ChatGPT on the global stage triggered widespread discussion across society, business, and academia. Many observers welcomed the chatbot as a breakthrough in artificial intelligence. Some commentators claimed that the launch of ChatGPT marked the beginning of a new era—comparable in significance to the Industrial Revolution or the Age of Enlightenment. According to these assessments, the mass adoption of generative AI could radically transform a wide range of fields, from education and creativity to everyday work. ChatGPT quickly entered popular culture: it was widely discussed in news media, appeared in entertainment shows and memes, and was quoted by politicians. Millions of people began using the chatbot for a wide variety of tasks—writing letters, résumés, academic assignments, brainstorming ideas, translating texts, and more. For businesses, ChatGPT opened new opportunities for automation: companies began integrating it via API for customer support, content generation, and programming assistance. Analysts noted that the viral success of ChatGPT gave OpenAI a valuable “first-mover advantage” in the market and triggered a wave of investment in AI projects worldwide. In January 2023, Microsoft announced a new multibillion-dollar investment round in OpenAI, strengthening their partnership and reaffirming its commitment to integrating GPT technologies into Microsoft products. At the same time, some experts and journalists reacted skeptically to the hype, arguing that ChatGPT was an overestimated novelty. They pointed out that similar technologies had existed before (for example, language models developed by Google and others), and that ChatGPT mainly stood out due to its open accessibility. Nevertheless, the launch of ChatGPT is often described as the catalyst for the “AI race” in the industry: competing tech giants revised their strategies within months. At Google, the release of ChatGPT was reportedly perceived as a threat to the company’s dominance in search, prompting leadership to declare a “code red” and accelerate internal AI development. By spring 2023, Google, Meta, Baidu, and many others had introduced similar chatbots or integrated generative AI into their services, fearing competitive lag. The launch of ChatGPT was compared to a “Pearl Harbor moment” for the industry—an unexpected shock that forced all major players to respond urgently. ChatGPT had a particularly strong impact on education and science. On one hand, the chatbot became a useful learning tool: it can explain complex topics, assist with language learning, and function as a tutor. Nonprofit organizations and startups began incorporating ChatGPT into educational platforms and applications (for example, personalized assistants for students). On the other hand, serious concerns arose regarding academic integrity. Teachers and professors observed that students were using ChatGPT to write essays, complete homework, and even take exams, passing generated answers off as their own. Some schools and universities banned ChatGPT on their networks and introduced rules restricting AI use in coursework. Demand emerged for systems capable of detecting AI-generated text. However, no definitive solution was found: while some educators view AI assistants as a threat to traditional teaching methods, others attempt to integrate them into the learning process to improve educational efficiency. In journalism and online content creation, ChatGPT also prompted mixed reactions. Several media outlets experimented with AI-generated articles and reports, but the results were often superficial or contained inaccuracies. The science fiction magazine Clarkesworld temporarily suspended submissions in early 2023 after being flooded with stories generated using ChatGPT. Similar concerns were raised by moderators of online platforms, who feared an influx of AI-generated spam. Nevertheless, some experts argued that the real negative consequences were less severe than initially feared: society and moderation systems largely adapted to the emergence of the new tool. At the same time, ChatGPT demonstrated positive use cases: it helps with routine writing, saves time when drafting texts, serves as a conversational companion for lonely individuals, and acts as an assistive tool for people with disabilities (for example, those who have difficulty typing).

Criticism

Although ChatGPT revolutionized access to artificial intelligence, its operation is accompanied by significant shortcomings and has sparked substantial criticism from experts. One of the main issues is the model’s tendency toward so-called “hallucinations,” meaning the confident generation of false or inaccurate information. ChatGPT often produces responses containing factual errors while presenting them in a highly convincing and authoritative tone. In practice, this requires users to independently verify information provided by the chatbot, as failure to do so may lead to the spread of misinformation. Specialists describe such models as “stochastic parrots,” emphasizing that the AI does not truly “understand” the meaning of its answers but instead statistically generates text based on training data. The combination of fluent language and potential inaccuracies makes ChatGPT a “confidently wrong” conversational partner—one user famously remarked that “the bot is very convincing when it’s mistaken”. This limits the applicability of ChatGPT in critical domains without human oversight. Another area of criticism concerns potential bias and ethical issues in ChatGPT’s responses. Because the model is trained on large-scale internet text corpora, it inevitably reflects stereotypes and biases present in the data. At times, ChatGPT has generated discriminatory or inappropriate statements mirroring prejudices embedded in its training materials. OpenAI has implemented filters to reduce such behavior, but it has not been entirely eliminated. In 2023, debates emerged regarding ChatGPT’s “political neutrality,” with some commentators claiming that the chatbot avoids certain topics or adopts “liberal” positions on contentious issues. The developer responded that it strives to make responses as neutral and helpful as possible, while acknowledging that complete objectivity is unattainable. Transparency is another frequent point of criticism. ChatGPT functions as a “black box”: it does not explain how it arrives at specific facts and cannot reliably cite sources. When the chatbot provides concrete data (such as historical dates or financial figures), users must either trust the response or independently verify it. Attempts to request sources from ChatGPT often result in the model fabricating non-existent references that merely imitate real ones. This significantly complicates the use of the chatbot for serious research and undermines trust in its outputs. Ethical and legal concerns have also fueled criticism. The exact composition of the training data remains unclear, prompting debates about copyright and privacy: it is widely assumed that millions of web pages were included without explicit consent from authors. Writers, journalists, and artists have expressed concern that AI models like ChatGPT may use their work without attribution while competing with human labor. Additionally, ChatGPT has been criticized for privacy risks, as users frequently input personal or corporate information without clear guarantees regarding how such data may be used. When Italy’s data protection authority temporarily banned ChatGPT in 2023, it cited OpenAI’s lack of a lawful basis for collecting and storing users’ personal data. In response, the company introduced options to disable chat history storage and stated its willingness to delete specific data upon request. A substantial portion of criticism is also related to the potential social consequences of widespread AI adoption. Experts warn that ChatGPT and similar systems could facilitate the mass production of plausible disinformation, spam, and phishing messages. While no definitive evidence of large-scale abuse has emerged so far, risks to the information ecosystem remain a concern. There are also fears regarding the labor market: as models improve, they may perform tasks previously assigned to humans (such as writing routine texts or coding simple programs). Some professions may change significantly or shrink in the long term, prompting calls for careful monitoring of AI’s impact on employment. In March 2023, a group of prominent researchers and entrepreneurs (including Elon Musk and Steve Wozniak) published an open letter calling for a six-month moratorium on training systems more powerful than GPT-4, citing an “out-of-control race” in AI development. The letter argued that such models already rival humans in many tasks and could pose serious risks, including misinformation, job automation, and, in the distant future, loss of control over AI. Although many experts disagreed with the most pessimistic forecasts, the appeal itself highlighted the level of concern even among technology creators. OpenAI responded by emphasizing its focus on safety, noting that more than six months were spent refining GPT-4 prior to release. Discussions about AI regulation have since intensified, with several jurisdictions, including the European Union, beginning to develop rules for generative models.

Future

The future of ChatGPT and similar artificial intelligence systems is widely regarded as highly promising, albeit accompanied by significant challenges. OpenAI continues active research aimed at improving its models; new versions (GPT-5 and beyond) are expected to become more accurate, reduce error rates, and expand functionality. According to developers, ChatGPT is likely to evolve from a convenient application into a full-fledged assistant platform capable of performing complex multi-step tasks at a user’s instruction. Deeper integration with external tools is planned: already, the chatbot can interact with plugins (query search engines, call third-party services), and these capabilities are expected to expand further. The ultimate goal is to create a universal virtual assistant that simplifies a wide range of activities—from everyday tasks (ordering goods, managing schedules) to professional work (data analysis, programming assistance, consulting). One major direction of development is multimodality and voice interaction. ChatGPT already supports voice input and output, effectively turning it into a voice assistant and placing it in competition with Siri, Alexa, and similar systems. Improvements in speech recognition and synthesis are expected to make interaction even more natural. In addition, the integration of visual capabilities (image recognition and graphic generation) opens new application scenarios, such as describing surroundings for visually impaired users or generating illustrations on demand. At the same time, future versions of ChatGPT will require solutions to several unresolved issues. Communities and regulators are likely to demand greater transparency regarding algorithms and training data to reduce misinformation risks and protect content creators’ rights. International standards or certification schemes for generative AI may emerge, defining quality and safety requirements. OpenAI and other companies emphasize their commitment to developing “aligned AI,” meaning systems whose goals and behavior are consistent with human values. This entails stronger safeguards against harmful content, enhanced privacy protection, and prevention of uncontrolled model behavior. The commercial future of ChatGPT is also under close scrutiny. The model is already embedded in Microsoft products (Bing search, office applications), and numerous startups offer services built on its API. Competition in the AI chatbot market is expected to intensify: alternatives are being developed by Google (Bard), Meta (LLaMA-based chatbots), Anthropic (Claude), and others. To maintain leadership, OpenAI is likely to continue expanding the ChatGPT ecosystem and may even release dedicated AI-powered hardware. In 2023, reports emerged of a collaboration between OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and designer Jony Ive on a project aimed at creating a new type of consumer device with an integrated AI assistant. Although details remain undisclosed, such developments underscore efforts to make interaction with ChatGPT more ubiquitous and intuitive. Ultimately, ChatGPT’s future is inseparable from societal response. Ethical debates continue over how to integrate AI into daily life in ways that maximize benefits and minimize harm. Optimists believe that ChatGPT and its successors will become indispensable human assistants, boosting productivity and unlocking new creative possibilities. Skeptics caution that constant vigilance and human oversight are essential as machines grow increasingly capable. In any case, the launch of ChatGPT has already become a turning point, and the coming years will reveal how this and similar tools reshape reality.