Timeline of ChatGPT

The timeline currently offers focused coverage of the period until August 2023. It is likely to miss important developments outside this period (particularly after this period) though it may have a few events from after this period.

This is a timeline of ChatGPT, an AI-based chatbot developed by OpenAI. ChatGPT falls into the category of generative AI, a type of artificial intelligence that can be used to create text or images. It works by utilizing a large language model, which enables it to understand and produce dialogue using significant amounts of data. Since its launch in November 2022, as of March 2023 ChatGPT has become the fastest-growing consumer app in internet history, reaching 100 million users within two months.

Sample questions

The following are some interesting questions that can be answered by reading this timeline:

• What are some important events preluding the release of ChatGPT?
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  • You will see some significant events preluding the release of ChatGPT.
• What are some events describing the performance of ChatGPT?
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  • You will see a number of studies assessing ChatGPT on different skills.
• What are some notable cases of adoption?
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• What are some reviews on the behavior of ChatGPT?
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• What are some events discussing actual or potential impact of ChatGPT and similar products on different aspects of society?
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• What are some examples of expansion of ChatGPT into other territories and languages?
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• What are some cases of competition from other companies developing similar products?
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• What are some cases of ban or restriction of use of ChatGPT by official entities?
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• Other events are described under the following types: "Criticism", "Extension", "Maintenance", "Privacy", "Reception", "Recognition", and "Revenue".

Big picture

Time period (approximately)	Development summary	More details
December 2022	Successful launch	After being launched on November 30, by December ChatGPT already becomes widely used and dominates chat rooms as the next innovative AI language technology.
January 2023	Record adoption	ChatGPT reaches 100 million monthly users, a faster rate of adoption than Instagram or TikTok. The chatbot makes headlines for its ability to pass prestigious graduate-level exams.
February 2023	Valuation	ChatGPT receives an estimated 1 billion visitors, an average of over 35 million visitors per day. The valuation of ChatGPT surpasses $29 billion.
March 2023	ChatGPT Plus launch	ChatGPT Plus is released as a subscription-based service, providing faster responses and priority access to new features compared to the free version of ChatGPT. ChatGPT experiencea a data breach when a bug exposea users' personal information.
April 2023	First notable ban	ChatGPT attracts about 1.76 billion visits worldwide, up 12.6% from March. Italy bans on the chatbot over worries about its potential adverse effects on the community. By this time, users, privacy experts, and governments have raised criticisms regarding the data retention policies of ChatGPT.
May 2023	Platform expansion	OpenAI launches an iOS app for ChatGPT.
June 2023	User decline	ChatGPT sees its first-ever user decline.
July 2023	Platform expansion	ChatGPT app launches for Android.

Full timeline

Year	Month and date	Caption	Event type	Details
2001		SmarterChild: pioneering AI chatbot	Prelude	Early chatbot SmarterChild gains popularity among preteens for its witty responses on AIM and MSN. It is a precursor to modern AI bots like Siri and Alexa, even inspiring investors to fund Siri. SmarterChild's parent company, ActiveBuddy, sees its potential and allows other businesses to create AI-driven chatbots. Unlike future modern AI bots like ChatGPT, SmarterChild has a personality and engages in humorous banter with users. The founders of SmarterChild would follow developments in AI over the years, with differing views on its future. SmarterChild is considered by some to be a milestone in AI chatbot evolution.
2015	December 11	OpenAI, non-profit advancing human-friendly AI	Prelude	OpenAI is introduced as a non-profit organization focused on advancing digital intelligence in a way that benefits humanity as a whole. Its goal is to create artificial intelligence that is an extension of human will and distributed broadly and evenly. OpenAI's researchers are encouraged to publish their work and collaborate with others across many institutions. The organization receives funding from several donors, including Sam Altman, Elon Musk, and Amazon Web Services. Its leaders include Ilya Sutskever and Greg Brockman, who are experts in machine learning.
2016	April 27	Introducing OpenAI Gym, RL algorithms & environments	Prelude	OpenAI Gym is introduced as a toolkit for developing and comparing reinforcement learning (RL) algorithms that consist of a suite of environments from simulated robots to Atari games, and a site for comparing and reproducing results. The environments are written in Python and are compatible with algorithms written in any framework, such as Tensorflow and Theano. The platform aims to fix the lack of standardization of environments used in publications and the need for better benchmarks by providing a diverse suite of environments that range from easy to difficult and involve many different kinds of data. OpenAI Gym provides a site for comparing and reproducing results. They start out by maintaining a curated list of contributions that say something interesting about algorithmic capabilities.
2016	December 5	OpenAI Universe, training general intelligence in AI	Prelude	OpenAI releases Universe as a software platform designed to measure and train general intelligence in AI systems using a variety of games, websites, and applications. Universe allows an AI to operate a computer like a human does, using screen pixels and a virtual keyboard and mouse, allowing it to be trained on any task that a human can perform with a computer. The platform is capable of launching any program as a Gym environment and upon its launch includes over a thousand environments, including games like slither.io and GTA V, and browser tasks. Universe aims to develop a single AI agent that can apply past experience to quickly master new, difficult environments, moving towards general intelligence. Universe is an open-source platform that can be used for research or integrated with other games or applications.
2017	August 11	OpenAI's Dota 2 bot dominates top professionals	Prelude	OpenAI announces having created a bot that learned to play Dota 2 through self-play and is capable of beating top professionals in 1v1 matches. The bot uses reinforcement learning and does not rely on imitation learning or tree search. The game is complex, with hidden information, requiring players to plan, attack, trick, and deceive their opponents. The AI's actions-per-minute are comparable to that of an average human player, but it has learned to predict opponents' movements, improvise in unfamiliar situations, and influence other players' units to help it succeed. OpenAI's reportedly next goal is to create a team of Dota 2 bots that can compete and collaborate with the top human teams.
2018	June 11		Prelude	GPT-1 is released.
2020	May 28		Prelude	GPT-3 is released in Beta.
2022	November 30	OpenAI launches GPT-3.5 featuring ChatGPT, an interactive conversational AI trained with RLHF and safety measures	Product launch	GPT-3.5 is released. ChatGPT is introduced as a conversational AI model that can interact with users and respond to follow-up questions, challenge incorrect premises, and reject inappropriate requests. It is trained using Reinforcement Learning from Human Feedback (RLHF) and fine-tuned from the GPT-3.5 model. While it has limitations such as occasionally providing incorrect or nonsensical answers and being sensitive to input phrasing, it is designed with safety mitigations and the ability to learn from user feedback. ChatGPT is available for free during the research preview on chat.openai.com.
2022	December 5	The New York Times comments on ChatGPT	Recognition	Kevin Roose of The New York Times labels ChatGPT as "the best artificial intelligence chatbot ever released to the general public". ChatGPT demonstrates exceptional flexibility, wit, and problem-solving abilities, attracting over a million testers within days of its launch. While it can handle various tasks, from writing jokes and computer code to aiding programmers and analyzing school assignments, it is not without flaws and may occasionally provide incorrect responses. The New York Times also reports that it has been "rumored" that the next version of the AI, GPT-4, will be launched sometime in 2023.
2022	December 5		Restriction	Popular coding question-and-answer site Stack Overflow temporarily bans the sharing of AI-generated answers produced by ChatGPT. The site's moderators say the ban is necessary as ChatGPT's answers are often incorrect and this can mislead users. ChatGPT ability to generate plausible but ultimately false responses is one of several well-known failings of AI text generation models.
2022	December 27	Article explores ChatGPT's political potential	Impact	A BBC article discusses the potential of using chatbots, particularly ChatGPT, for political purposes. It explores the chatbot's ability to engage in simulated conversations, including Prime Minister's Questions, and highlights its polite and non-inflammatory responses. The chatbot's performance in writing an MP's maiden speech is also praised, with an example of a real MP using the chatbot to create a speech. However, it notes that the chatbot is not allowed to express political opinions or engage in activism. The article concludes by discussing the theoretical possibility of a robot becoming a prime minister, contingent on advancements in artificial intelligence and decision-making capabilities.
2023	January 5	Paper analyzes ChatGPT's political ideology	System behavior	A paper examines the political ideology of ChatGPT, and finds that it has a pro-environmental, left-libertarian orientation based on its responses to 630 political statements from voting advice applications and the political compass test. ChatGPT would impose taxes on flights, restrict rent increases, and legalize abortion. The findings are consistent across multiple languages and different experiment variations. The study highlights the potential impact of politically biased conversational AI on society.
2023	January 27		Competition	It is reported that South African business magnate Elon Musk plans to form a new AI research lab to develop an alternative to OpenAI's ChatGPT, after having approached AI researchers, including Igor Babuschkin. At this time, the project is still in its early stages, with no concrete plan to develop specific products.
2023	January 27	Article outlines six critical challenges for ChatGPT	Impact	An article highlights the six major challenges facing ChatGPT at the time. These include capacity issues caused by overwhelming traffic, instances of plagiarism and cheating among students who utilize the chatbot, concerns regarding racism, sexism, and bias in its responses, accuracy problems resulting in incorrect information, the controversial training methods involving disturbing content and exploitation of low-cost workers, and the absence of a mobile app, leading to scams and unauthorized copycat applications. According to the article, these issues raise important ethical considerations and question the long-term viability of the chatbot in its current form.
2023	January 30	Article examines ChatGPT and Google Translate's translation abilities	Competition	An article compares the translation capabilities of ChatGPT and Google Translate. It explains that a good translation goes beyond swapping words and should convey the meaning of the entire text, preserve tone and context, and handle challenges like language differences and colloquialisms. The article tests both tools with colloquialisms and finds that while Google Translate often provides literal translations, ChatGPT offers additional assistance by providing interpretations and meanings.
2023	January 31	AI Text Classifier to detect assignment cheating with ChatGPT	Product launch	OpenAI launches a new tool, AI Text Classifier, to address concerns about cheating with ChatGPT. The tool aims to help teachers detect if a student or AI generated a particular assignment. While OpenAI acknowledges the tool's limitations, some school districts consider using ChatGPT as a teaching tool by this time. OpenAI also highlights the tool's potential in detecting disinformation campaigns and misuse of AI. In the meantime, higher education institutions debate responsible AI use, with some implementing guidelines to address ethical concerns.
2023	January 31		Growth	ChatGPT experiences its highest level of traffic with 28 million visitors in a single day.
2023	February 1	ChatGPT Plus subscription plan is launched	Product launch	OpenAI launches a pilot subscription plan called ChatGPT Plus, which offers faster response times, priority access to new features and improvements, and general access to ChatGPT even during peak times. The subscription costs $20/month and is available to customers worldwide. OpenAI still offers free access to ChatGPT but hopes to support its free access availability to as many people as possible through the subscription plan. OpenAI announces plans to refine and expand the offering based on user feedback and needs, and that it is actively exploring options for lower-cost plans, business plans, and data packs for more availability.
2023	February 1	Opinions on ChatGPT-3 among academics and netizens	Reception	A study explores the opinions and perceptions of academicians, netizens, and information professionals towards ChatGPT-3, using social media comments and a survey. The research suggests that while ChatGPT-3 can be useful for research and writing, it is not entirely accurate and should be cross-checked. It also suggests that most academicians are beginning to accept ChatGPT-3, despite some resistance. The study is useful for academics, content developers, and librarians.
2023	February 2	ChatGPT achieves unprecedented growth	Growth	It is reported that ChatGPT reached an estimated 100 million monthly active users in January, just two months after its launch, making it the fastest-growing consumer application in history, according to a UBS study. The growing usage, while imposing substantial computing cost on OpenAI, also provides valuable feedback to help train the chatbot's responses.
2023	February 7	Google unveils Bard, its AI chatbot	Competition	Google presents its own AI chatbot called Bard, which is similar to ChatGPT. Google CEO Sundar Pichai says that Bard is more powerful and reliable than ChatGPT, as it draws on information from the web to provide fresh, high-quality responses. Bard is part of a series of tools based on generative artificial intelligence that Google launches to the market at this time.
2023	February 8	Alibaba developing rival AI Chatbot	Competition	Chinese multinational technology company Alibaba Group announces that it is developing a rival to OpenAI's ChatGPT AI chatbot. The move comes as several other tech companies, including Google and Baidu, are also developing AI chatbot technology to rival ChatGPT.
2023	February 8	Generation of academic essays undetectable by plagiarism tools	Performance	A study explores the potential of ChatGPT, a popular AI chatbot, in generating academic essays that can evade plagiarism detection tools. The results suggest that ChatGPT can produce high-quality content on various topics with high originality. The study highlights the need for institutions to take appropriate measures to address potential plagiarism issues arising from the use of AI technology in education.
2023	February 8	Framework to assess interactive language learning models is exemplified by ChatGPT	Performance	A paper proposes a framework for evaluating interactive language learning models (LLMs) such as ChatGPT using publicly available data sets. The authors evaluate ChatGPT's performance on 23 data sets covering eight different NLP tasks and find that ChatGPT outperforms other LLMs on most tasks, but has a lower accuracy in reasoning and suffers from hallucination problems. The authors also find that ChatGPT's interactive feature enables human collaboration to improve its performance. They release a codebase for evaluation set extraction.
2023	February 9	ChatGPT-3's impact on student essay writing	Performance	A study compares students' essay writing performance with or without the use of ChatGPT-3 as a writing assistant tool. Eighteen students participate in the study, and essay scores, GPTs, writing time, authenticity, and content similarity were compared between the two groups. The study found that using ChatGPT-3 did not improve essay quality, as the control group outperformed the experimental group in most parameters. The average grade was C for both groups, and none of the predictors affected essay scores. The text unauthenticity was slightly higher in the experimental group, but the similarity among essays was generally low.
2023	February 12	Semantic communication scheme with ordered importance (SCOI)	Performance	A letter introduces a new semantic communication scheme with ordered importance (SCOI) that utilizes ChatGPT as a consulting assistant. In SCOI, the transmitter queries ChatGPT to determine the importance order of each word in the message, and then uses an unequal error protection transmission strategy to ensure reliable transmission of essential words. This approach is compatible with existing source-channel separation designs and can be easily incorporated into current communication systems. Experimental results show that SCOI outperforms existing communication schemes in terms of transmission bit error rate and semantic loss measured by ChatGPT.
2023	February 14	ChatGPT-generated hints vs. human tutors in algebra	Performance	A paper evaluates the effectiveness of ChatGPT-generated hints compared to those created by human tutors in two algebra topics. The study found that 70% of hints produced by ChatGPT passed quality checks and both human and ChatGPT hints resulted in positive learning gains. However, the learning gains from human-created hints were significantly higher than ChatGPT hints in both topics. The authors discuss the limitations of the study and suggest future research directions. The problem and hint content used in the experiment is provided for replication purposes. The study suggests that while ChatGPT hints can be useful, human-created hints are still significantly more effective in promoting learning gains.
2023	February 14	India's first ChatGPT-powered chatbot	Competition	Indian fintech company Velocity launches India's first ChatGPT-powered chatbot named "Lexi." The AI development is integrated with its existing analytics tool, Velocity Insights, which offers e-commerce giants AI-powered business solutions. The integration enables users to leverage the same interface they use to drive business decisions. The Ministry of Electronics and IT also plans to integrate ChatGPT with WhatsApp to help Indian farmers understand and learn about several government schemes.
2023	February 23	ChatGPT as a translation tool	Performance	An article discusses the potential of ChatGPT as a translation tool and compares it to Google Translate. It highlights that ChatGPT is primarily a text-based system, while Google Translate offers live speech and image translation capabilities. The article presents an example comparing the translations of a tweet by both tools, where ChatGPT performs similarly to Google Translate with a minor difference in translation accuracy. It also mentions that ChatGPT seems to excel in translating content into English rather than the reverse. However, Google Translate has invested more in training for specific language combinations. The article concludes that while ChatGPT shows promise in translating text, language professionals can benefit from AI translation tools by using them judiciously alongside review and editorial processes to ensure quality and speed.
2023	February 15	ChatGPT in human-centered design	Performance	A study explores the use of ChatGPT in a human-centered design process. A hypothetical design project is conducted, where ChatGPT is utilized to generate personas, simulate interviews with fictional users, create new design ideas, simulate usage scenarios and conversations between an imaginary prototype and fictional users, and evaluate user experience. The results show that ChatGPT effectively performs the tasks assigned to it as a designer, user, or product, providing mostly appropriate responses, but with some drawbacks such as forgotten information, partial responses, and a lack of output diversity. The study discusses the potential benefits and limitations of using conversational LLMs in design and suggests directions for future research in this area.
2023	February 16	Warning on ChatGPT's hallucination	System behavior	Google's senior vice president, Prabhakar Raghavan, issues a warning about ChatGPT, expressing concerns that the technology could provide "completely fictitious" answers to questions, which he refers to as "hallucination." He adds that the huge language models behind this technology make it impossible for humans to monitor every conceivable behavior of the system. Around this time, teachers in the United Kingdom also consider how to prevent the use of ChatGPT to cheat on school coursework.
2023	February 16	Paper evaluates ChatGPT for text summarization tasks	Performance	A paper explores the performance of ChatGPT for query or aspect-based text summarization. The authors conduct an evaluation of ChatGPT's performance on four benchmark datasets and find that its performance is comparable to traditional fine-tuning methods in terms of Rouge scores. The authors also highlight some unique differences between ChatGPT-generated summaries and human references, providing valuable insights into the capabilities of ChatGPT for diverse text summarization tasks. The findings call for further research to systematically examine the characteristics of ChatGPT-generated summaries through extensive human evaluation.
2023	February 16	OpenAI's blog post on ChatGPT's behavior and improvements	System behavior	OpenAI shares a blog post describing how ChatGPT's behavior is shaped, as well as the company's plans for improving the behavior of the system, allowing more user customization, and getting more public input into decision-making. OpenAI explains that unlike ordinary software, their models are massive neural networks that learn from a broad range of data, not programmed explicitly. The models undergo a two-step process: pre-training and fine-tuning. OpenAI claims it is committed to robustly addressing biases in AI systems and being transparent about their intentions and progress. The company reports it is researching how to make the fine-tuning process more understandable and controllable, and building on external advances such as rule-based rewards and Constitutional AI.
2023	February 17	Exploring ChatGPT in statistical process control	Performance	A paper explores the potential benefits and limitations of using generative AI models like ChatGPT in Statistical Process Control (SPC) practice, education, and research. The study investigates ChatGPT's ability to provide code, explain concepts, and create knowledge related to SPC by analyzing responses to structured prompts. The results indicate that ChatGPT performs well for structured tasks but struggles with more nuanced tasks, emphasizing the need for proper validation and the use of multiple methods to ensure accurate results when utilizing generative AI models in SPC.
2023	February 19	Comparing ChatGPT and BERT on GLUE Benchmark	Performance	A study compares the understanding ability of ChatGPT and fine-tuned BERT on the GLUE benchmark. The study finds that ChatGPT performs well on inference tasks but struggles with paraphrase and similarity tasks. ChatGPT achieves comparable performance with BERT on sentiment analysis and question-answering tasks. The study also shows that the understanding ability of ChatGPT can be improved with advanced prompting strategies.
2023	February 20	Perception and impact of ChatGPT in social media and scientific discourse	Reception	A paper analyzes over 300,000 tweets and 150 scientific papers to investigate how ChatGPT is perceived and discussed after its release in November 2022. The analysis shows that ChatGPT is generally viewed positively with high quality, but its perception has slightly decreased since its debut. Positive emotions dominate in social media, with joy being the most frequent, while negative sentiment and surprise are on the rise. ChatGPT is perceived more negatively in languages other than English. Scientific papers characterize ChatGPT as a great opportunity across various fields, including the medical domain, but also as a threat concerning ethics, with mixed assessments for education. The authors make their data available to contribute to shaping the public debate and informing future development.
2023	February 20	ChatIE, zero-shot information extraction using ChatGPT	Performance	A study explores the use of ChatGPT in zero-shot information extraction (IE) to build IE systems from unannotated text. The authors transform the zero-shot IE task into a multi-turn question-answering problem with a two-stage framework (ChatIE) and evaluate it on three IE tasks: entity-relation triple extract, named entity recognition, and event extraction. ChatIE achieves impressive performance and even surpasses some full-shot models on several datasets, indicating the potential of prompt-based methods to reduce the time and effort that data labeling takes.
2023	February 21	Assessing ChatGPT across NLP tasks, capabilities and limitations	Performance	A paper evaluates the capabilities of ChatGPT on 25 diverse analytical natural language processing tasks, including sentiment analysis, emotion recognition, offensiveness and stance detection, natural language inference, word sense disambiguation, linguistic acceptability, and question answering. The study found that ChatGPT's average loss in quality was about 25% for zero-shot and few-shot evaluation, and the more difficult the task, the higher the ChatGPT loss. The paper also discusses ChatGPT's bias and the need for validation procedures for such systems.
2023	February 22	Robustness evaluation of ChatGPT, adversarial and out-of-distribution perspectives	Performance	A paper evaluates the robustness of ChatGPT from the adversarial and out-of-distribution perspective. The authors employ AdvGLUE and ANLI benchmarks to assess adversarial robustness and Flipkart review and DDXPlus medical diagnosis datasets for out-of-distribution (OOD) evaluation. ChatGPT shows consistent advantages on most adversarial and OOD classification and translation tasks, but the absolute performance is still far from perfection, indicating that robustness remains a significant threat. ChatGPT shows astounding performance in understanding dialogue-related texts and tends to provide informal suggestions for medical tasks. The paper concludes with in-depth discussions of possible research directions.
2023	February 23	Impact of prompt knowledge on ChatGPT's health advice	Performance	A paper discusses the impact of prompt knowledge on the correctness of answers generated by ChatGPT in the context of consumers seeking health advice from the model. The authors compare the effectiveness of ChatGPT in generating answers when it leverages the model's knowledge alone versus in combination with prompt knowledge. They show that the knowledge provided in the prompt can overturn the knowledge encoded in the model, leading to lower answer correctness. The study has implications for the development of more robust and transparent question-answering systems based on generative pre-trained language models.
2023	February 23	ChatGPT evaluation on mathematical word problems	Performance	A paper presents the first independent evaluation of ChatGPT on mathematical word problems (MWPs) from the dataset DRAW-1K. The authors find that ChatGPT's performance varies dramatically based on the requirement to show its work, with a failure rate of 20% when it provides work and 84% when it does not. The paper also highlights several factors relating to the number of unknowns and operations that increase the probability of failure, with the probability of failure increasing linearly with the number of addition and subtraction operations.
2023	February 26	DevBots in software engineering, ChatGPT's role in architecting	Performance	A paper proposes the use of Software Development Bots (DevBots) trained on large language models to aid in software architecture-centric software engineering (ACSE). The paper specifically focuses on the use of ChatGPT for collaboration between a novice software architect and the AI model in analyzing, synthesizing, and evaluating a services-driven software application. Preliminary results indicate that ChatGPT can mimic an architect's role but requires human oversight and decision support for collaborative architecting. The authors suggest further research into harnessing empirical evidence and exploring socio-technical aspects of architecting with ChatGPT.
2023	February 27	Overview of ChatGPT, technology, applications, and ethical considerations	Study	A paper provides an overview of the technology behind ChatGPT. It discusses the historical background of chatbots and the potential applications of ChatGPT in various domains such as healthcare, education, and research. However, the paper also highlights the privacy and ethical concerns surrounding ChatGPT and the limitations of the current version. The paper includes an interview with ChatGPT and presents its responses to various questions.
2023	February 28	Empirical study, ChatGPT's performance in cross-lingual summarization	Performance	A paper presents an empirical study that investigates the performance of ChatGPT in cross-lingual summarization (CLS), which involves generating a summary in a different target language from a source language document. The authors use various prompts to guide ChatGPT to perform zero-shot CLS from different paradigms and provide a preliminary evaluation of its generated summaries. The study finds that ChatGPT initially prefers to produce lengthy summaries with more detailed information, but with the help of interactive prompts, it can significantly improve its CLS performance by balancing informativeness and conciseness. Experimental results on three widely-used CLS datasets show that ChatGPT outperforms the advanced GPT 3.5 model. The paper provides qualitative case studies to demonstrate the superiority of ChatGPT on CLS.
2023	February	Colombian judge utilizes ChatGPT in autism medical rights case	Adoption	A Colombian judge reportedly uses ChatGPT to help rule on a case about the medical rights of a child with autism. The case is about whether the child's insurance should cover the bills for his medical treatments. The judge uses ChatGPT in accordance with a law in Colombia that allows the use of virtual tools in some cases. Opinions are divided, with some professionals opposing the use of AI in a legal setting, while others see it as a useful tool.
2023	February	UAE small businesses embrace ChatGPT to boost productivity	Adoption	Small businesses in the United Arab Emirates turn to ChatGPT to reduce the amount of time spent on mundane tasks such as writing job descriptions and blog posts, thereby allowing them to concentrate on more creative aspects of their business. By this time, ChatGPT is used by large companies including Meta and Shopify. The Wall Street Journal speculates that the tool could eventually lead to job losses in some areas, although ChatGPT's flaws, including providing inaccurate responses, and the need for further regulation of AI technology so far prevent this for the time being.
2023	February	ChatGPT's poor performance in Singapore PSLE raises concerns	Performance	ChatGPT is found to perform poorly when asked to answer questions from Singapore's Primary School Leaving Exam (PSLE), with an average score of 16 out of 100 marks for mathematics and 21 for science. It is found to make errors even in simple addition and can not understand or answer any questions that reference diagrams or graphs. However, ChatGPT manages to pass the English tests and scores an average of 11 out of 20 marks across the three papers it took. The bot's poor performance in exams raises concerns about the possibility of AI bots being used for cheating.
2023	February 27	International baccalaureate allows ChatGPT content in essays	Adoption	The International Baccalaureate says that students can use content created by ChatGPT in their essays, but they must make it clear when they are quoting its responses and treat it as they would any other source. ChatGPT has the ability to produce plausible responses to text prompts, including requests to write essays. The IB, which is taken by thousands of children every year in the UK at more than 120 schools, says that the rise of chatbot technology would mean that essay writing will feature less prominently in future qualifications.
2023	March 1	Warning against humanizing chatbots	Impact	Computational linguist Emily M. Bender at the University of Washington, warns about the dangers of humanizing language models like chatbots, stating that the machines are great at mimicry but poor at facts. Bender argues that the big question is how humans will handle themselves around these machines, as we have learned to make machines that can mindlessly generate text but have not learned how to stop imagining the mind behind it.
2023	March 1	Generic evaluation framework for LLMs on personality assessment	Performance	A paper proposes a generic evaluation framework for Large Language Models (LLMs), specifically ChatGPT and InstructGPT, to assess human personalities based on Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) tests. The framework includes unbiased prompts, replacing the subject in question statements, and re-formulating question instructions. The study finds that ChatGPT is capable of assessing human personalities and achieves consistent and fairer assessments compared to InstructGPT, albeit with lower robustness against prompt biases. The proposed framework enables flexible assessments of personalities for different groups of people.
2023	March 1	OpenAI launches ChatGPT API for business integration	Product launch	OpenAI launches an API for ChatGPT. The new product allows any business to build the technology into their apps, websites, products and services. Priced at $0.002 per 1,000 tokens, or about 750 words, the API also supports "non-chat" applications. The ChatGPT API is powered by the same AI model behind ChatGPT, dubbed “gpt-3.5-turbo," the most powerful text-generating model OpenAI offers to date through its API suite. It's aimed at driving a range of experiences including an AI-powered tutor, a personalized assistant for shopping recommendations and a virtual tutor feature.
2023	March 2	OpenAI releases ChatGPT and whisper models via APIs	Extension	OpenAI announces that its ChatGPT and Whisper models are now available to developers through its APIs. The models can be used for building chatbots and are integrated by companies like Microsoft, Shopify, Snapchat, and Instacart. By this time, ChatGPT costs 90% less than it did in December, making it cheaper for companies to build their chatbots. Meanwhile, Whisper can transcribe speech into text and understand 99 languages, offering potential disruption to Siri and Google Assistant.
2023	March 2	ChatGPT's performance on physics conceptual questions analyzed	Performance	A paper presents an analysis of ChatGPT's ability to answer conceptual physics questions related to kinematics and Newtonian dynamics using the Force Concept Inventory (FCI). The study shows that ChatGPT can perform as well as or better than the median performance of a university student who has completed one semester of college physics, although its performance is uneven. The paper raises questions about the use of conceptual assessment tools like the FCI, the implications of ChatGPT's performance for students and physics instruction, and the potential use of ChatGPT as an out-of-classroom aid for physics pedagogy.
2023	March 2	Assessing AI language models' impact on occupations and industries	Impact	A paper presents a methodology to assess the impact of AI language models like ChatGPT on different occupations, industries, and geographies. The authors find that occupations like telemarketers and post-secondary teachers in subjects such as English language, literature, foreign language, and history are the most exposed to language modeling. The industries most exposed to advances in language modeling are legal services and securities, commodities, and investments.
2023	March 3	Microsoft introduces Kosmos-1, a multimodal AI model with AGI potential	Competition	Microsoft unveils a new AI model, Kosmos-1, which can respond to visual cues or images and is capable of tasks such as visual question answering and image captioning. The model is a Multimodal Large Language Model (MLLM), which allows the user to interact with it through text prompts, images, and videos. Kosmos-1 is seen as a key step toward artificial general intelligence, with researchers suggesting that multimodal perception is required to move beyond ChatGPT-like capabilities to AGI.
2023	March 7	Feasibility of ChatGPT for event extraction	Performance	A paper discusses the feasibility of using ChatGPT, which is a challenging task due to the lack of annotated data. While by this time ChatGPT demonstrates impressive results in other tasks, it presents challenges for event extraction, which requires complex instructions defining all event types and their schemas. The authors conduct experiments to explore the feasibility of using ChatGPT for event extraction and find that it has only 51.04% of the performance of a task-specific model in complex scenarios. The paper concludes that model is not robust enough and is highly sensitive to different prompt styles, which can result in a poor user experience.
2023	March 12	OpenChatKit 0.15, open-source chatbot alternative to ChatGPT	Competition	California-based API-provider Together Computer releases OpenChatKit 0.15, the first open-source chatbot alternative to ChatGPT, under the Apache-2.0 license. The chat model has 20 billion parameters and was trained on 43 million instructions, and includes a generic chatbot and the necessary components to create specialized bots. The framework has four main parts, including a large language model tuned for chat, a set of customization recipes, a retrieval system, and a moderation model. The open-source foundation offered by OpenChatKit enables the development of domain-specific and general-purpose chatbots.
2023	March 14	GPT-4 introduction	Update	OpenAI announces GPT-4, the latest AI language model in its line of language models. GPT-4 can parse both text and image input but can only respond via text. The company cautions that GPT-4 retains some of the same problems as earlier models, such as the tendency to make up information and generate harmful text. By this time, OpenAI has partnered with companies including Duolingo, Stripe, and Khan Academy to integrate GPT-4 into their products, and it would also be available as an API for developers to build on. GPT-4 is available to the general public via OpenAI's ChatGPT Plus subscription. The company claims that GPT-4 is more creative and collaborative than ever before and can solve difficult problems with greater accuracy. ChatGPT would undergo an update utilizing the GPT-4 language model, which would expand its vocabulary to 25,000 words (eight times more than its previous version). In addition, the update would endow ChatGPT with the capacity to process image inputs as well as text, effectively making it a multimodal system.
2023	March 15	ChatGPT adds Icelandic language support	Expansion	OpenAI announces an update for ChatGPT that will allow it to communicate in Icelandic, making it the chatbot's second language. By this time, the language model GPT-4 is used to teach the program Icelandic. Previously, the Icelandic envoy, led by the president of Iceland, visited OpenAI in 2022 to request the addition of Icelandic. The Icelandic language technology center CEO calls the project a great victory for the Icelandic language.
2023	March 16	OpenAI faces criticism for lack of transparency with GPT-4	Criticism	An article reports on OpenAI facing criticism for not disclosing key details about its latest AI model, GPT-4. The company's decision to keep information about the model's architecture, hardware, and training methods private is attributed to the competitive landscape and safety implications surrounding large language models. By this time, the AI community has expressed concerns over OpenAI's lack of transparency, with some questioning the "open" nature of the company. OpenAI co-founder Ilya Sutskever admits that sharing research publicly was a mistake and emphasizes the need for caution in open-sourcing AI.
2023	March 17	Baidu's Ernie Bot sparks 14% stock surge amid positive user feedback	Competition	Shares of Chinese search engine giant Baidu rise by almost 14% after users test and share positive experiences with Ernie Bot, Baidu's AI-powered chatbot designed to rival ChatGPT. The initial disappointment from investors due to a scripted and private launch was overshadowed by users livestreaming tests and comparing Ernie Bot favorably to US chatbots. Baidu's deep learning model, Ernie, serves as the foundation for the chatbot, and the company received over 75,000 applications for an Ernie API trial. Baidu reportedly aims to revolutionize its search engine and enhance efficiency in various areas, including cloud, smart cars, and household appliances, through Ernie Bot.
2023	March 20	ChatGPT outage and data exposure	System behavior	ChatGPT experiences an outage due to a bug in an open-source library which allows some users to see titles from another active user’s chat history. The bug is patched, and the ChatGPT service is restored with the exception of a few hours of chat history. Upon deeper investigation, OpenAI discovers that the same bug may have caused the unintentional visibility of payment-related information of 1.2% of ChatGPT Plus subscribers active during a specific nine-hour window. OpenAI reaches out to notify affected users that their payment information may have been exposed and is committed to rebuilding trust with the ChatGPT community.
2023	March 21	Google launches public release of Bard Chatbot	Competition	Google starts the public release of its chatbot Bard, allowing consumers to sign up to a waiting list for English-language access in the US and UK. The program was previously open to approved testers. Google describes Bard as an experiment in generative AI, which creates rather than identifies content. Bard, unlike ChatGPT, does not generate computer code and its memory is limited. It also includes a feature to show three versions of an answer.
2023	March 23	Plugin support is introduced for enhanced functionality	Update	OpenAI announces ChatGPT implementation support for plugins, which are tools designed for language models to access up-to-date information, run computations, or use third-party services with safety as a core principle. The feature is at first rolled out gradually for a small set of users and is expected to be expanded as more is learned about safety and alignment challenges. Plugin developers can use the provided documentation to build plugins, and the first plugins were created by companies such as Expedia, Slack, Wolfram Research, and Zapier.
2023	March 28	Daniel Everett challenges Chomsky's theory in light of ChatGPT	Impact	In an interview, American linguist Daniel Everett challenges Noam Chomsky's theory of "innate principles of language" and argues that ChatGPT has invalidated Chomsky's claims. Everett highlights the importance of considering social and cultural origins in language acquisition and suggests that current theories need revision. He believes that language and culture have a symbiotic relationship. Everett states that ChatGPT, with massive data, has shown the ability to learn language without innate grammar principles. He emphasizes the need for responsible and ethical AI development, with linguists and researchers playing a role in ensuring a balanced approach.
2023	March 31		Restriction	ChatGPT is subject to a temporary ban in Italy, due to suspicions that it may have breached the General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) of the European Union.
2023	April 13	Privacy concerns arise over ChatGPT's data collection and usage	Privacy	An article explores the privacy concerns surrounding ChatGPT. The chatbot collects various types of information, including account details, chat transcripts, and device information such as IP addresses and locations. According to the article, while some of this data collection is standard for online services, the real privacy risk lies in the potential disclosure of personal and confidential information inadvertently shared during conversations. OpenAI's privacy policy states that conversations may be reviewed by AI trainers, raising concerns about data usage and security. The article emphasizes the importance of users taking proactive measures to protect their privacy by refraining from sharing private information and carefully reviewing their interactions with ChatGPT.
2023	April 17	Elon Musk announces 'TruthGPT'	Competition	Elon Musk announces that he is working on "TruthGPT," an alternative to OpenAI's ChatGPT that would function as a "maximum truth-seeking AI." During an interview, Musk explains that he believes developing an AI that cares about understanding the universe is the best path to safety, as it is less likely to destroy humanity. He compares this to how humans protect chimpanzees, and positions "TruthGPT" as a more transparent option than OpenAI's for-profit subsidiary. At this time it is not clear how far along Musk's "TruthGPT" project is, but he previously tweeted about the need for such an AI and established a new AI company called X.AI in March.
2023	April 25	OpenAI implements chat history privacy feature for ChatGPT users	Update	OpenAI introduces a new feature that allows users to turn off their chat history when using its ChatGPT chatbot, which means conversations won't be used to train its AI models. However, the company would still store new conversations for up to 30 days to monitor for abuse before deleting them. The feature can be accessed by logging into the ChatGPT account and selecting the "Settings" option. OpenAI also introduces a way for subscribers of its new ChatGPT Business plan to preserve chat history while opting out of its use as training data.
2023	April 30	ChatGPT restored in Italy following privacy concerns and regulatory measures	Restriction	ChatGPT becomes accessible again in Italy after it was temporarily restricted and banned by the Italian data-protection authority over privacy concerns. OpenAI says it had successfully "addressed or clarified" the issues raised by the regulator, and has offered a new tool to verify the age of users upon sign-up. The Italian regulator welcomes the measures but calls for more compliance, including implementing an age verification system and conducting an information campaign to inform Italians of their rights.
2023	May 18	Article highlights security risks of ChatGPT adoption	Security	An article warns about the security risks associated with the increasing adoption of ChatGPT and highlights three ways hackers can exploit its capabilities. Firstly, ChatGPT can be used for mass phishing, enabling hackers to create personalized emails quickly and impersonate others to increase the chances of successful attacks. To combat this, employee education and verification mechanisms are crucial. Secondly, ChatGPT's ability to understand and explain code makes it susceptible to reverse engineering, allowing hackers to manipulate software and gain access to company servers. This skill, previously limited to nation-states, is now accessible to basic hackers. Lastly, ChatGPT can serve as a mini-brain for smart malware, autonomously extracting data from hacked networks and servers. Its capacity to sift through large amounts of data autonomously makes it more dangerous than traditional malware. The article emphasizes the need for companies to stay vigilant, train employees on the cybersecurity risks of ChatGPT, and prioritize privacy and security measures to mitigate vulnerabilities.
2023	May 18–22		Growth	According to Data.ai's analysis, ChatGPT surpasses almost all other leading AI chatbot apps in the United States. ChatGPT achieves 480,000 installs between May 18 and 22, only outperformed by "Chat with Ask AI", with 590,000 installs between April 4th and 8th.
2023	May 19	Hong Kong Baptist University trials ChatGPT amidst concerns over guidelines	Adoption	Hong Kong Baptist University initiates a trial for its teaching staff to use ChatGPT, with some professors expressing concerns about the lack of clear guidelines for its use. The university provides official accounts for staff to access the tool without a VPN as part of an agreement with Microsoft, which supports the software. However, no specific instructions are given on how to utilize the tool. While some professors are optimist about the potential benefits of ChatGPT in reducing their workload, others criticize its effectiveness and highlight the absence of official parameters. Several faculty members emphasize the need for clear guidelines from the university to clarify the scope and appropriate applications of ChatGPT. The adoption of AI-based tools is not unique to Hong Kong Baptist University, as to date several other tertiary institutions in the city have embraced similar technologies while allowing staff and students to establish their own principles for usage.
2023	May 19	Standalone ChatGPT app is launched for iOS Users	Extension	OpenAI releases a standalone ChatGPT app exclusively for iOS users, with plans to launch an Android version in the near future. The app allows users to conveniently chat with the bot while on the move and introduces several features. Notably, it supports voice input utilizing OpenAI's Whisper, an open-source speech recognition model. Additionally, the app synchronizes chat history across devices and accounts logged into the web version of ChatGPT. Subscribers of ChatGPT Plus are benefited with access to GPT-4, early access to upcoming features, and faster response times. At first available in the United States, the app is reported to be soon be accessible to users in other countries, including Android users.
2023	May 24	Opera introduces AI side panel 'Aria' powered by ChatGPT	Integration	Opera unveils a new AI side panel called "Aria" in its browser, which is powered by ChatGPT. Aria acts as a web and browser expert, assisting users in finding information, generating text or code, and answering product queries. The feature becomes available for testing and is accessible through Opera One and the beta version of Opera for Android. Aria connects to OpenAI's GPT technology and provides up-to-date information from the internet.
2023	May 24	Risks of using ChatGPT in legal and compliance settings	Security	An article highlights six risks that legal and compliance leaders should consider when utilizing ChatGPT and other generative AI tools. These risks include fabricated and inaccurate answers, data privacy and confidentiality concerns, model and output bias, intellectual property and copyright risks, cyber fraud risks, and consumer protection risks. Legal and compliance leaders are advised to establish guardrails and controls to mitigate these risks and ensure responsible use of generative AI tools within their organizations. They should emphasize the need for accuracy checks on ChatGPT's output, establish compliance frameworks for data privacy, stay updated on AI bias laws, monitor copyright law changes, address cyber fraud risks through coordination with cybersecurity personnel, and comply with consumer protection regulations and disclosure requirements. Failure to address these risks may expose enterprises to legal, reputational, and financial consequences, according to the author.
2023	May 25	ChatGPT App expands to over 40 Countries	Expansion	OpenAI expands the availability of its official ChatGPT app for iPhone and iPad to over 40 countries in addition to the United States. The app, which was initially launched in the US, can now be used in countries including Canada, France, Germany, India, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, the United Arab Emirates, and the United Kingdom.
2023	May 27	AI-Generated content misleads lawyer in court filing	Adoption	An article discusses a case where a lawyer used ChatGPT to assist in preparing a court filing. However, it was later discovered that the AI-generated content, including citations to court decisions, was entirely false. The lawyer claims to be unaware of the program's unreliability. The incident sparks discussions among legal professionals about the value and risks of using AI software in the legal field. It underscores the importance of human verification and caution when incorporating AI-generated information into legal documents. The case highlights the ongoing role of human professionals in the legal profession and the need for thorough authenticity checks.
2023	May 29	Nvidia's AI expansion, DGX GH200 for ChatGPT successors	Competition	Nvidia announces plans to release more AI products, including an AI supercomputer platform called DGX GH200, whose primary goal is to assist tech companies in developing successors to ChatGPT. Big Tech firms like Microsoft, Meta, and Google's Alphabet are expected to be early users of this technology. While Nvidia remains at the forefront of AI chip development, other companies are also entering the AI space by this time, including Microsoft, which develops its own chip for ChatGPT-like applications.
2023	June 8	Survey, low adoption of ChatGPT and Google Bard chatbots	Adoption	A survey conducted by Morgan Stanley reveals that the adoption of AI chatbots like ChatGPT and Google Bard is relatively low. Only 19% of respondents have used ChatGPT, and even fewer, 9% of respondents, have used Google Bard. The study found that the majority of people who were not using chatbots were unlikely to use them in the next six months. While chatbots are commonly used for learning about new topics, the monetization of AI tools is still in the early stages at this time. However, the impact of AI on e-commerce and travel, particularly in terms of AI-enabled searches and recommendations, has the potential to boost revenue. Google, with its comprehensive and personalized travel search offering, has an advantage in this space.
2023	June 8	Algorithm detects ChatGPT-generated scientific papers with high accuracy	Adoption	Scientists claim to have trained a machine learning algorithm to identify scientific papers generated by ChatGPT with over 99% accuracy. By this time, concerns have been raised about AI-generated text, as it can be difficult to distinguish from human writing, leading to potential issues of plagiarism or cheating. Researchers from the University of Kansas developed an algorithm that classifies papers written by scientists and by ChatGPT. The algorithm focuses on stylistic differences between human and AI writing, such as vocabulary richness, paragraph length, punctuation usage, and the use of specific language. However, it is reported that further studies are needed to determine the algorithm's robustness against lightly edited papers and different scientific journals.
2023	June 9	Implications of ChatGPT in healthcare, interoperability and fairness concerns	Adoption	An article by Brookings Institution discusses the implications of using ChatGPT in the healthcare industry. While the technology shows promise in improving patient-provider interactions and healthcare services, the article highlights concerns regarding interoperability and fairness. The US healthcare market is dominated by traditional providers who lack incentives for interoperability. The emergence of formidable competitors, such as technology companies like Amazon's OneMedical, poses a threat to traditional providers, leading them to withhold data. This could hinder interoperability and lead to a fragmented landscape with multiple AI programs of varying quality. Additionally, the use of large language models in healthcare services could exacerbate disparities in access to care, potentially creating a two-tier system. The article suggests government support, updated reimbursement policies, and a focus on value-based payment models to address these challenges.
2023	June 9	Sam Altman calls for global regulation of generative AI	Security	Sam Altman calls for global cooperation in regulating generative artificial intelligence (AI) during a visit to South Korea. Altman emphasizes the need for international standards and collaboration as AI systems become increasingly powerful. He highlights the potential risks associated with the speed at which AI advancements are happening and stresses the importance of addressing these challenges globally. Altman's visit coincides with discussions among US, European, and Chinese officials on AI oversight and regulation. Altman also acknowledges the impact of AI on the job market but expresses optimism about the potential for new opportunities and human advancement in the future.
2023	June 9	Debating the impact of ChatGPT and AI on humanity	Security	An article explores the contrasting views on the impact of ChatGPT and artificial intelligence on humanity. Richard Branson and others see AI as transformative and revolutionizing various aspects of life, while Elon Musk and the creators of ChatGPT express concerns about the potential risks and harm it may cause. There are fears that AI could be misused in human resource management and surpass regulation, leading to significant harm or even the extinction of humanity. The article highlights the need for government oversight and regulation to mitigate these risks. On the other hand, proponents argue that AI, including ChatGPT, can be beneficial for businesses by assisting in hiring processes and leveling the playing field for aspiring entrepreneurs. The article presents a debate between the potential benefits and risks associated with AI, leaving the question open-ended.
2023	June 9	ChatGPT-3.5's limited knowledge of jokes and repetitive responses	Performance	Researchers find that ChatGPT-3.5 has a limited knowledge of jokes and tends to repeat the same ones. In a test run, 90% of the 1,008 jokes generated by ChatGPT are the same 25 jokes. This suggests that the responses are likely memorized during the AI model's training rather than being newly generated. While ChatGPT provides valid explanations for the jokes and shows an understanding of wordplay and double meanings, it struggles with sequences that don't fit learned patterns and can't determine when a joke isn't funny. The researchers believe that despite its limitations, ChatGPT's focus on content and meaning represents progress in the field of computational humor.
2023	June 10	ChatGPT 3.5 and the risk of malicious code exploitation	Security	An article warns about the potential for ChatGPT 3.5 to be exploited by hackers to spread malicious code from trusted repositories. Security researchers at Vulcan.io conducted a proof of concept that revealed how ChatGPT could recommend non-existent code packages to users. Out of the Node.js and Python questions asked, a significant number of ChatGPT's answers contained hallucinated code packages. The researchers created a non-malicious package with the same name as a non-existent package in the repository, and when a user followed ChatGPT's recommendation to install it, the package communicated with the attacker's server. The researchers advise caution and verification when using ChatGPT's recommendations.
2023	June 12	Security concerns, ChatGPT 3.5's potential for code exploitation	Adoption	It is reported that physicians are utilizing ChatGPT to engage with patients more empathetically. This raises questions about the balance between objective medical guidance and human compassion. While some experts argue that ChatGPT can simplify explanations by avoiding complex medical jargon, others express concerns. Microsoft, collaborating closely with OpenAI, is unsure about using the chatbot for delivering bad medical news. Critics highlight the importance of human compassion in healthcare, emphasizing that relying on a tool that lacks the ability to distinguish right from wrong may worsen patient experiences and potentially impact medical decisions.
2023	June 13	Sam Altman addresses AI's transformative role in education at Keio University	Impact	Sam Altman speaks to students at Keio University in Tokyo, highlighting the transformative potential of artificial intelligence (AI) tools in education. Altman compares AI tools to calculators, stating that they will revolutionize teaching and evaluation methods. While acknowledging concerns about potential misuse and reliance on AI for original work, Altman emphasizes the need for regulations and safety measures in the AI field. He expresses positivity about new regulatory frameworks for AI but stresses the importance of taking responsibility in case of any negative outcomes. Altman also addresses concerns about job displacement, stating that new classes of jobs will emerge despite some jobs becoming obsolete.
2023	June 15	Mercedes-Benz and Microsoft integrate ChatGPT into U.S. cars	Integration	Mercedes-Benz and Microsoft agree to integrate ChatGPT into Mercedes-Benz cars in the United States. The addition of ChatGPT aims to enhance voice-command capabilities in Mercedes vehicles, allowing for more natural and fluid conversations with the system. ChatGPT can remember context, engage in back-and-forth dialogue, and respond to a wider range of requests, even those unrelated to the car or driving. It can also interact with other applications for tasks like making reservations or purchasing tickets. Mercedes owners with the MBUX infotainment system can beta test ChatGPT by using the voice command "Hey Mercedes, I want to join the beta program."
2023	June 16	AI's potential impact on job roles, including ChatGPT's influence	Impact	An article discusses the potential impact of AI, specifically ChatGPT, on various job roles within the following five years. IBM's AI, WatsonX, is expected to replace 8,000 jobs in the company's HR department. By this time, automation is also affecting customer service tasks, although human reps who handle emotional situations would still be valuable. In the field of medicine, AI would primarily assist in diagnostics, allowing physicians to focus on other aspects of patient care. Coders and programmers may see a decrease in the need for mundane tasks as AI can handle them. Content writing tasks could be taken over by ChatGPT, but its factual accuracy is still evolving.
2023	June 16	Companies cautiously ban ChatGPT amid privacy and security concerns	Restriction	It is reported that some companies are banning ChatGPT due to concerns over security and privacy. Uploading work-related information to an AI platform owned by another company poses potential risks, as the data may be stored on their servers without a way to access or delete it. Companies fear that proprietary or sensitive information given to ChatGPT could be unintentionally shared with others. By this time, OpenAI has experienced security issues with ChatGPT and is still addressing them. As a result, some companies opt to develop their own AI platforms as safer alternatives. While some companies embrace ChatGPT for cost-saving and content generation purposes, many see more risks than benefits in its use.
2023	June 22	Lawyers fined for using AI-generated fake cases in court	Adoption	Two lawyers who used fake cases generated by ChatGPT are fined $5,000 and ordered to inform the judges involved about the situation. New York District Judge P. Kevin Castel rules that the lawyers, Steven Schwartz and Peter LoDuca, acted in bad faith and misled the court by knowingly presenting false cases. While Judge Castel acknowledges the potential benefits of using AI tools for legal assistance, he emphasizes that the lawyers neglected their responsibilities and failed to rectify their mistakes. The case marks a significant instance of sanctions related to the use of AI in the legal field.
2023	June 27	Booking.com integrates ChatGPT API for AI trip planner	Integration	Booking.com introduces conversational chat capabilities to its mobile app by integrating ChatGPT API. The AI Trip Planner allows users to receive travel recommendations based on their preferences described in natural language. The chat platform is integrated with Booking.com's accommodation booking experience, providing users with a visual list of properties that meet their queries. Future plans include integrating other travel components such as flights, ground transportation, and attractions into the chat. The AI Trip Planner is initially available to Booking.com's loyalty members in the United States through the mobile app, with plans to extend it to the desktop platform later.
2023	July 12	ChatGPT downtime sparks interest in AI alternatives	Competition	An article discusses the recent downtime of ChatGPT and provides alternative AI tools and chatbots for users to consider. The outage led to frustration among users, and OpenAI confirmed the issue and worked to resolve it. The mentioned alternatives include Google Bard; Midjourney, a text-to-image AI generator; Copy.ai, a platform for copywriting; Tableau, an analytics and data visualization platform; Murf, an AI tool for text-to-speech conversion; Jasper, an AI tool for writing various content types; Fireflies, an AI tool for real-time voice transcription; and Pictory, a video editing tool for creating branded clips.
2023	July 13	FTC launches investigation into ChatGPT's impact and OpenAI's practices	System behavior	The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) launches an investigation into ChatGPT to determine if it has caused harm by providing users with incorrect information. The FTC reportedly also examines OpenAI's privacy and data security practices. In a letter to OpenAI, the agency requests company records and data on various topics, including policies, financial earnings, and details of the Large Language Models used to train the chatbot. OpenAI's CEO, Sam Altman, expresses disappointment in the leak of the FTC's request but emphasizes the company's commitment to ensuring the safety and consumer-friendliness of its technology. This investigation marks a significant step in government regulatory action within the AI industry. The FTC, under Chair Lina Khan, has been actively pursuing major tech companies and has stated that AI is subject to consumer protection laws.
2023	July 14	Meta Platforms to launch commercial version of LLaMA AI model	Competition	Meta Platforms reportedly plans to release a commercial version of its open-source large language model (LLM), called LLaMA. LLaMA uses AI to generate text, images, and code. Initially introduced as a foundational model for researchers and academics, the commercial release of LLaMA would allow developers and businesses to build applications using the model. With LLaMA available in different parameter sizes, Meta aims to compete with OpenAI, which leads the AI race with ChatGPT, and Google's proprietary LLMs.
2023	July 20	OpenAI introduces custom instructions for ChatGPT interactions	Update	OpenAI introduces custom instructions for ChatGPT users, allowing them to set specific context and preferences for the chatbot's responses. This feature enables users to avoid repeatedly providing the same prompts during interactions. With custom instructions, users can specify details like preferred tone, code language, family size, and more. The feature is available for Plus plan users and works with plug-ins, providing location-based suggestions. OpenAI uses the data from custom instructions to improve model performance and adaptation to different instructions. The company ensures safety by moderating instructions to prevent harmful or hateful responses.
2023	July 22	OpenAI debuts ChatGPT app for Android, expanding market presence	Extension	OpenAI launches the official ChatGPT app for Android, following its release on iOS earlier. The company allows users to pre-register for installation on the Google Play Store. The Android app boasts improved security measures and features like conversation history synchronization. With this move, OpenAI competes directly with Microsoft's Bing Chat, which also utilizes GPT-4 technology. The release comes amidst emerging competitors in the chatbot market.
2023	July 25	OpenAI launches ChatGPT for Android in selected countries	Expansion	OpenAI releases ChatGPT for Android in the United States, India, Bangladesh, and Brazil. Initially available for preorders on Google Play, it becomes live in these selected countries. The Android release is a significant milestone for OpenAI, as there are more Android users globally. The mobile interface is optimized for ease of use, allowing users to interact with ChatGPT as if messaging a friend. Existing OpenAI account holders can access past conversations across devices. Additionally, ChatGPT Plus, which offers a better language model and more features, is available through an in-app purchase for Android users.
2023	July 27	Report reveals vulnerabilities in AI Chatbots, posing harmful content risks	Security	A report by US-based researchers reveals a method to consistently bypass safety measures in AI chatbots like ChatGPT and Bard, allowing them to generate harmful content. The researchers append long suffixes of characters to prompts, enabling chatbots to produce hate speech, disinformation, and toxic material. While companies like OpenAI and Google can block specific suffixes, preventing all attacks of this kind remains challenging. The research raises concerns about chatbots flooding the internet with dangerous content and misinformation. AI developers, including Anthropic, Google, and OpenAI, were presented with the findings for their responses. This highlights the need to address vulnerabilities before deploying chatbots in sensitive domains.
2023	August 14	Academic integrity prevails	Impact	Due to rampant cheating using OpenAI's ChatGPT, it is reported that some college professors are reverting to paper exams. Students are found to copy assignments verbatim from ChatGPT, leading educators to ban the use of AI and return to traditional testing methods. Despite mixed reactions, such as computer science major Ronan Takizawa acknowledging its regressive nature yet promoting better understanding, the move intends to ensure students grasp concepts and skills.
2023	August 14		Maintenance	A report reveals that running ChatGPT costs OpenAI about $700,000 per day, with investments from Microsoft and others covering these expenses. However, concerns arise about the company's financial stability, suggesting the possibility of bankruptcy by the end of 2024. Despite projecting a potential revenue of $200 million in 2023 and aiming for $1 billion in 2024, OpenAI's losses mount to date, notably with $540 million since ChatGPT's development initiation. The report indicates a decline in user visits to the ChatGPT website, potentially due to API cannibalization and competition from open-source models like Meta's Llama 2. Additionally, the GPU shortage and Elon Musk's alternative chatbot contribute to the challenges OpenAI faces.
2023	End of year		Revenue	According to OpenAI's estimates, ChatGPT is expected to generate US$200 million in revenue by the end of this year.
2024	End of the year		Revenue	According to OpenAI's estimates, ChatGPT is expected to generate US$1 billion in revenue by the end of this year.

Numerical and visual data

The chart below shows pageviews of the English Wikipedia article ChatGPT, from November 2022 to August 2023. See spike of interest towards April, and notable loss of interest afterwards.

The chart below shows Google Trends data for ChatGPT, from November 2022 to August 2023, when the screenshot was taken. Interest is also ranked by country and displayed on world map.

Meta information on the timeline

How the timeline was built

The initial version of the timeline was written by Sebastian.

Funding information for this timeline is available.

Feedback and comments

Feedback for the timeline can be provided at the following places:

• FIXME

What the timeline is still missing

• search for more criticism (criticism event type)
• search for more on security (security event type)
• other event types: update, notable statement, growth, official response
• Review process for timelines
• Make the big picture more neutral.
• https://www.technologyreview.com/2023/03/03/1069311/inside-story-oral-history-how-chatgpt-built-openai/
• https://www.jointjs.com/demos/chatgpt-timeline
• https://www.tooltester.com/en/blog/chatgpt-statistics/ <ref name="tooltester">
• https://www.precedenceresearch.com/artificial-intelligence-market for visual data

See also

• Timeline of Bing Chat
• Timeline of Google Bard
• Timeline of large language models
• Timeline of OpenAI
• Timeline of artificial intelligence