What Is ChatGPT?
ChatGPT is an AI system developed by OpenAI that can engage in human-like conversations, answer questions, write code, and generate creative content.
It's based on a technology called Large Language Models (LLMs).
How Does It Work?
At its core, ChatGPT does one thing: predict the next word.
Given "The capital of France is ___", it predicts "Paris" because that pattern appears frequently in its training data.
But this simple mechanism, at scale, produces remarkable results.
Training Process
- Trained on billions of words from the internet
- Learns patterns, facts, grammar, reasoning styles
- Purely predicting next words — unsupervised
- Human trainers provide example conversations
- Model learns the format and style expected
- Humans rate responses as good or bad
- Model learns what humans prefer
- This makes it helpful, harmless, and honest (ideally)
What Makes It Impressive?
- Following complex instructions
- Writing code
- Reasoning through problems
- Adjusting tone and style
What It Can't Do
- No true understanding: It manipulates symbols, not concepts
- Hallucinations: Confidently states false information
- No real-time knowledge: Training data has a cutoff date
- No memory: Each conversation starts fresh (in base version)
Is It "Intelligent"?
Philosophers debate. It passes many tests previously thought to require intelligence — but it's doing sophisticated pattern matching, not reasoning as humans do.
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