VII · Generative systems and tools, 2020s to the cutoff
The interface
What happens when people can converse with generative systems?
On 30 November 2022 OpenAI released ChatGPT, a conversational interface on a model tuned with human feedback, and by one estimate a hundred million people used it within two months. The interface changed who was in the conversation. Fluent text is not the same as true text: the same model that writes a working program will invent a court case that never happened, in the same confident sentences. A third property arrived with tools. Models that call a calculator, search the web or run code can act, and an action can succeed or fail separately from whether the words were right. Regulation followed the interface: the European Union's AI Act entered into force on 1 August 2024. By 2025 "agents" meant models running multi-step tasks with software of their own, and the argument moved from what the models could say to what they should be allowed to do.
Artefacts
Introducing ChatGPT
30 November 2022 · document, image to follow
The opening lines of OpenAI's "Introducing ChatGPT" (30 November 2022), quoted under fair dealing for review, set in the exhibition's type. OpenAI, 'Introducing ChatGPT', 30 November 2022. authentic · OpenAI, 'Introducing ChatGPT', 30 November 2022 · quotation under fair dealing for criticism and review (CDPA 1988 s.30) · source
From the archive
Claims in this chapter
By one estimate ChatGPT reached a hundred million monthly users within two months of launch.
unverified · ChatGPT sets record for fastest-growing user base — analyst note (Reuters, 1 February 2023)