Executives at OpenAI, the company behind the viral chatbot ChatGPT, have expressed surprise at the bot’s popularity since its public release in November. The executives told Fortune that they were surprised by its popularity and that releasing it to the public was a last resort after previous setbacks.
The program developed by OpenAI made its debut in December, beginning with a test release. The chatbot was not only well-executed, but it also astounded people; it became a viral sensation due to its seemingly limitless capabilities. Since its debut, it has only gained more mainstream attention and appears to have repeatedly demonstrated the strength of its coding.
“I’ll admit that I was on the side of, like, I don’t know if this is going to work,” OpenAI co-founder and president Greg Brockman told Fortune. Mira Murati, OpenAI’s chief technology officer, added to Fortune, “This was definitely surprising.”
Brockman added that releasing ChatGPT for public use a few months ago was a last-ditch effort after OpenAI encountered some initial difficulties with the AI chatbot. For one thing, beta testers didn’t know what to ask ChatGPT in the first place, according to Brockman, and an attempt to create chatbots that were experts in specific areas failed.
According to Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, ChatGPT gathered more than 1 million users in the first five days of its release.
The sources for this piece include an article in BusinessInsider.
