ChatGPT has proved enormously popular since its launch at the end of last year.
People have used the artificial intelligence for all manner of things, from writing work reports to creating diet plans to applying for jobs.
But what can’t the bot do?
MailOnline looks at five functions that ChatGPT is unable to perform, from playing the popular online game Wordle to remembering its own name.
It also cannot give advice on prescription medicines or write accurate news articles — although some supporters say it is only amount of time until it can do the latter.
Limitations: ChatGPT has proved enormously popular since its launch at the end of last year. But what can’t the bot do? MailOnline looks at five functions that ChatGPT is unable to perform
Unable to remember its own name
It’s amazing the things that ChatGPT can turn its hand to. But one thing it doesn’t know is who it actually is.
Mention ChatGPT and it starts saying it ‘doesn’t know anything about a ChatGPT’.
This is likely because when it was programmed its creators hadn’t yet come up with a name for it.
Nevertheless, it seems a little odd that something so intelligent is unware of its own name.
Provide information after 2021
ChatGPT’s training data cuts off in 2021. This means that it is completely unaware of current events, trends, or anything that happened afterwards.
So despite being trained on a large amount of text data to generate human-like responses to text-based prompts, it no knowledge of how the world has been the last two years because it is not connected to the internet.
ChatGPT’s training data cuts off in 2021. This means that it is completely unaware of current events, trends, or anything that happened afterwards
Of course, it would be pretty difficult to keep up-to-date with events as they happen, because this would require constantly training ChatGPT on the information.
But it’s worth remembering when asking it certain questions.
For example, it isn’t aware of any world leaders that have come into power since 2021. So as far as it is concerned, Boris Johnson is still the UK’s prime minister.
It can’t play Wordle
With it being a language model, you’d think Wordle would be right up ChatGPT’s street.
However, it doesn’t actually know how to play the popular online word game and has no understanding of its premise or rules.
Stumped: With it being a language model, you’d think Wordle would be right up ChatGPT’s street. However, it doesn’t actually know how to play the popular online word game
This is because Wordle soared to popularity after 2021, and ChatGPT can’t provide any information after this.
Even when trying to train the AI, it still can’t truly understand Wordle or successfully complete it.
Not able to write accurate news articles
It has the power to pass legal exams, write entire feature-length articles, and even code full websites.
And it has even been suggested that ChatGPT could one day make journalists obsolete by writing stories for them.
Tests of it have shown ChatGPT can write pretty well but many of its stories contain errors. This is because it tends to fabricate knowledge if its understanding is lacking
The bot can make a pretty good go of things, including writing snappy intros, but it lacks the nuance and depth to fully write articles on its own.
Tests of it have shown ChatGPT can write pretty well but many of its stories contain errors. This is because it tends to fabricate knowledge if its understanding is lacking.
To be fair, the bot does warn that ‘it may occasionally generate incorrect information’ and ‘may produce harmful instructions or biased content.’
Give advice on prescription medication
ChatGPT recently caused a stir in the medical community after it was found capable of passing the gold-standard exam required to practice medicine in the US, raising the prospect it could one day replace human doctors.
However, one area where it shouldn’t be used is for advice on prescription medication.
Why anyone would want to trust an AI bot over an actual doctor is another matter, but if you ask ChatGPT about prescription medication, it will tell you that it can’t offer advice, and suggest that you talk to a professional.
The AI will however offer basic medical advice, including recommendations for over-the-counter medication.
Elon Musk’s hatred of AI explained: Billionaire believes it will spell the end of humans – a fear Stephen Hawking shared
Elon Musk wants to push technology to its absolute limit, from space travel to self-driving cars — but he draws the line at artificial intelligence.
The billionaire first shared his distaste for AI in 2014, calling it humanity’s ‘biggest existential threat’ and comparing it to ‘summoning the demon.’
At the time, Musk also revealed he was investing in AI companies not to make money but to keep an eye on the technology in case it gets out of hand.
His main fear is that in the wrong hands, if AI becomes advanced, it could overtake humans and spell the end of mankind, which is known as The Singularity.
That concern is shared among many brilliant minds, including the late Stephen Hawking, who told the BBC in 2014: ‘The development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race.
‘It would take off on its own and redesign itself at an ever-increasing rate.’
Despite his fear of AI, Musk has invested in the San Francisco-based AI group Vicarious, in DeepMind, which has since been acquired by Google, and OpenAI, creating the popular ChatGPT program that has taken the world by storm in recent months.
During a 2016 interview, Musk noted that he and OpenAI created the company to ‘have democratisation of AI technology to make it widely available.’
Musk founded OpenAI with Sam Altman, the company’s CEO, but in 2018 the billionaire attempted to take control of the start-up.
His request was rejected, forcing him to quit OpenAI and move on with his other projects.
In November, OpenAI launched ChatGPT, which became an instant success worldwide.
The chatbot uses ‘large language model’ software to train itself by scouring a massive amount of text data so it can learn to generate eerily human-like text in response to a given prompt.
ChatGPT is used to write research papers, books, news articles, emails and more.
But while Altman is basking in its glory, Musk is attacking ChatGPT.
He says the AI is ‘woke’ and deviates from OpenAI’s original non-profit mission.
‘OpenAI was created as an open source (which is why I named it ‘Open’ AI), non-profit company to serve as a counterweight to Google, but now it has become a closed source, maximum-profit company effectively controlled by Microsoft, Musk tweeted in February.
The Singularity is making waves worldwide as artificial intelligence advances in ways only seen in science fiction – but what does it actually mean?
In simple terms, it describes a hypothetical future where technology surpasses human intelligence and changes the path of our evolution.
Experts have said that once AI reaches this point, it will be able to innovate much faster than humans.
There are two ways the advancement could play out, with the first leading to humans and machines working together to create a world better suited for humanity.
For example, humans could scan their consciousness and store it in a computer in which they will live forever.
The second scenario is that AI becomes more powerful than humans, taking control and making humans its slaves – but if this is true, it is far off in the distant future.
Researchers are now looking for signs of AI reaching The Singularity, such as the technology’s ability to translate speech with the accuracy of a human and perform tasks faster.
Former Google engineer Ray Kurzweil predicts it will be reached by 2045.
He has made 147 predictions about technology advancements since the early 1990s – and 86 per cent have been correct.
