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ChatGPT has gone from a niche online tool to 100 million monthly active users, in 12 months.
It’s officially been a year since OpenAI launched ChatGPT and freed us from having to write our friends’ birthday messages or farewell emails ever again.
In a sign of just how popular it’s become, ChatGPT is widely reported to be the fastest growing consumer app of all time.
Those who took the time to wish the program a happy birthday got this response:
“Thank you for the birthday wishes! However, it’s important to note that as a computer program, I don’t have feelings or consciousness, so I don’t experience emotions like humans do.”
A modest response from a software which has gone from a niche online tool to 100 million monthly active users, in 12 months.
Danu Abeysuriya, the founder of Auckland tech company Rush Digital told Newsable ChatGPT can take a little bit of pain out of modern day life.
“We live in a society that has evolved to be just constantly on and constantly demanding your time…ChatGPT can alleviate those micro-decisions and make things like ‘What am I going to cook for dinner?’ a lot easier.”
Aside from assisting with the mundane, Abeysuriya said ChatGPT has proved a useful teaching tool for schools and businesses, because people aren’t arrived to look silly.
“Everybody listening can probably relate to this, when you didn’t understand something and you really wanted to put your hand up, but you were too embarrassed to ask.”
“You can ask one of these bots or coach systems the same question 50 times and it’s not going to call you dumb”
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Abeysuriya said the program has continually evolved since its inception, and OpenAI has been hands-on in its development.
“In the early days of ChatGPT it could give you the instructions to cook meth. That’s not doable now, because OpenAI has taken common sense approaches to fixing problems as they arise.”
However, with still so much unknown about how AI works, Abeysuriya warned that our enthusiastic acceptance of it could see us sleepwalking into problems down the track.
“There’s possible side effects that we’re just not aware of yet.”
“We are rushing to use it for profit, and we need to really think about this Pandora’s box, because as Jeff Bezos put it, it’s a one-way door, not a two-way door.”
Listen to the full interview here.
Newsable is Stuff’s daily news podcast, wrapping up what’s worth talking about in a short package every weekday morning. Make sure to like and follow us wherever you get your podcasts and across Instagram and TikTok.
