What is ChatGPT?

ChatGPT is an AI-powered chatbot developed by OpenAI, a renowned artificial intelligence research laboratory. It can understand and generate human-like text with remarkable proficiency. It has a user-friendly chat interface where you can enter text, ask questions, or give instructions, and ChatGPT will respond with exceptionally natural and coherent answers.

The secret behind ChatGPT's ability to mimic human communication so convincingly lies in its advanced machine learning architecture (including deep learning; notes on this below), which enables it to comprehend and generate text based on extensive training.

What's machine learning?

The name says it all. Machine learning is a process of "educating" computer systems using vast amounts of data, without the need for explicit programming.

At its core, the process involves:

• Feeding vast quantities of data into a computer system
• The system analyses the data to discover patterns and relationships

As the system is exposed to more data, it gets better at:

• Recognising patterns
• Forecasting outcomes or making decisions based on new, unseen data

Essentially, by detecting patterns in human language data, AI can not only understand the intent behind written or spoken requests but also formulate appropriate responses using the same learned patterns.

This is the foundational technology that powers tools like ChatGPT.

What's deep learning?

Deep learning takes machine learning to the next level by using artificial neural networks modelled after the human brain. While it follows the same basic principle of computers learning from data patterns, it goes a step further.

Deep learning systems have multiple layers that resemble the neurons and synapses in the human brain. These layered networks can discover complex patterns in data that would be difficult for humans to identify and describe. Over time, neural networks can continuously refine their language understanding and generation capabilities.

Neural networks have a wide range of applications, from language translation to autonomous vehicles.

When used specifically for language tasks, these deep learning systems are known as Large Language Models (LLMs).

So how was ChatGPT trained?

Similar to other LLMs, ChatGPT was trained on a massive dataset containing billions of words from diverse sources like:

• Literature
• Scholarly articles
• News reports
• Web pages
• Social media content

By analysing this vast corpus of text, ChatGPT has learned the intricacies of language - the patterns, the relationships between words, sentences, and ideas. As a result, ChatGPT can engage in freeform conversations, answer questions, help with writing and analysis, and share knowledge spanning a wide range of topics.

Importantly, ChatGPT has also been fine-tuned using techniques like Reinforcement Learning from Human Feedback (RLHF). This training approach helps ensure that ChatGPT's outputs are more natural, beneficial, safe, and socially appropriate.

What can I use ChatGPT for?

The potential applications of ChatGPT are virtually limitless. Some common use cases include:

• Generating content for articles, social media posts, ads and websites
• Assisting developers with programming tasks
• Summarising research papers and analysing data
• Translating between languages and simplifying complex topics
• Building chatbots and virtual assistants

But ChatGPT goes beyond just revolutionising the way we write. It's transforming how we work across various domains - programming, research, education, and more.

As ChatGPT evolves with each update, we're discovering novel ways it can augment human capabilities, sparking new forms of creativity and productivity.

In the next tutorial, we’ll take a closer look at ChatGPT’s technical behind-the-scenes before we move on to using it in your day-to-day tasks.