ChatGPT makes a typo, and the Internet just can’t ignore it | Trending

Since its launch in November last year, ChatGPT has become a popular tool among people for a wide range of tasks. From writing essays and poetries to generating business ideas and solving exam questions, users have been actively using this AI chatbot and sharing their experiences on social media. Recently, an individual shared a screenshot showcasing a noticeable typo made ChatGPT. Expectedly, it quickly gained traction, sparking discussions and generating humorous responses.

Screenshot highlighting the typo made ChatGPT. (Reddit/@hairball201)

While sharing a screenshot in Reddit’s ‘r/ChatGPT’ community, an individual wrote, “Anyone has ever seen GPT-4 make a typo before?” The screenshot shared online features a prompt on ‘pet shop recording concerns,’ which appeared fine at first glance. However, there’s a typo. The user noticed it and expressed curiosity about its meaning. They asked ChatGPT, “I’ve not seen the word infrishing before, what does that mean?” The AI chatbot then clarified that the correct term should be ‘infringing’ and even provided its definition.
Take a look at the Reddit post here:

The screenshot, since being shared a day ago, has received over 9,100 upvotes and a flurry of responses from Reddit users. “Busted! ChatGPT is just humans,” reads a comment on the post. An individual wrote, “Its training data must be riddled with typos. I wonder if that is where it is from.” To this, the original poster replied, “In its own words, ‘As an AI developed OpenAI, I don’t make typographical errors in the same way a human typing on a keyboard might. However, I sometimes generate incorrect or unexpected outputs due to the way I was trained. For instance, if a word or phrase is used infrequently or inconsently in the data I was trained on, I might use it incorrectly. Alternatively, sometimes words can get mixed up or combined during the generation process. In this case, ‘infrishing’ seems to have been a mix-up of ‘infringing’ and potentially some other word or phrase. I apologise for any confusion caused.”“It was at this point they realised ChatGPT was just a typing farm in a far away land,” commented another. A third shared, “Yes and sometimes it creates whole new words.” “Maybe it’s the Turing test kind of situation but in reverse. The API is periodically switched with an actual human to see if you would notice,” posted a fourth. A fifth remarked, “Wait a second? Is Chatgpt just some dude in a basement?”A few even chimed in to share their own experiences of encountering typos generated ChatGPT. “Yes. Yesterday it spelled dam bursting as ‘damn bursting’. The other day it used the word ‘aguish’ and a while back it got phased and fazed mixed up. Just because it’s machine produced doesn’t mean it’s perfect,” wrote a Reddit user. Another joined, “It makes typos in other languages. GPT 3.5 makes a lot of typos in e.g. Swedish. GPT4 is much better and rarely makes typos in Swedish, but it happens. I had never seen one in English yet, but obviously it can happen.”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Arfa Javaid is a journal working with the Hindustan Times’ Delhi team. She covers trending topics, human interest stories, and viral content online.
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