Open AI launched its much-hyped new chatbot model, GPT-4, on 14 March — and it caused quite a buzz. But if you’re feeling in the dark about what the hell GPT-4 is and what it might mean for digital marketing, I’ve put together a handy guide.
Here’s everything you need to know about Open AI’s GPT-4, including 11 Impressive GPT-4 Facts To Boost Your Knowledge — perfect if you need some material to bore your mates with down the pub.
Everything You Need To Know About OpenAI’s Latest Chatbot
Before I delve into the 11 Impressive Facts About GPT-4, here's some basic information about the language model itself...
What is GPT-4?
GPT-4 is an ‘advanced artificial intelligence language model’ developed by OpenAI. It was released on 14 March 2023, is the successor to GPT-3, and is, essentially, a massive robot brain that you can ask to do pretty much anything — it can write, translate, answer questions, and, perhaps most impressive of all, interpret images. It's been trained on a massive amount of data, which OpenAI describes as ‘publicly available data (such as internet data) as well as data we’ve licensed.’ If you’re in the market for information that’s 100% accurate all of the time, GPT-4 falls short (but more on that later). That said, it’s still an impressive tool with plenty of uses for digital marketers.
How to use GPT-4
You must subscribe to ChatGPT Plus, which costs about £20 per month. There’s currently a cap on the number of messages you can ask it (at the time of writing it’s 25 messages every 3 hours); this is to provide access to GPT-4 to as many people as possible. If that doesn’t quench your thirst for knowledge, Plus users can choose to chat with the previous model, GPT-3.5, which runs a lot faster.
Chat GPT-4 vs GPT-3
To paraphrase OpenAI's research summary on GPT-4, their latest chatbot model outshines GPT-3 in handling complex tasks, making it more reliable, creative, and responsive to nuanced instructions. GPT-4 also scores better on professional and academic benchmarks (I'll highlight some of the more interesting ones later) and has gone through rigorous fine-tuning, making it better at sticking to the facts, easier to guide in conversations, and more likely to follow the rules. As a result, it's able to tackle more challenging tasks with higher accuracy.
11 Impressive Facts About GPT-4 To Boost Your Knowledge
Drop a few of these GPT-4 facts into conversation the next time someone mentions the chatbot and you’ll sound like a worldly genius with their finger firmly on the tech pulse…
1. GPT-4 lets you super-size your messages
GPT-4 lets you use way more words in a chat input — up to 25,000 in fact, which is eight times more than the original ChatGPT model. (Source: BBC)
2. Some people said GPT-4 was built on 100 trillion parameters, but that’s ‘complete bullshit’
Parameters are the 'building blocks' of a chatbot model. The more it has, the better it is at understanding and processing complex language tasks. Before GPT-4 was released, rumours circulated that the new model boasted 100 trillion parameters, but, as this report by The Atlantic explains, that's 'bullshit'.
3. In Fact, OpenAI’s CEO admits GPT-4 isn’t perfect
In his announcement Tweet on 14 March, Sam Altman said: ‘It is still flawed, still limited, and it still seems more impressive on first use than it does after you spend more time with it.’
4. …But GPT-4 could still pass the bar exam
As part of their research, OpenAI tested GPT-4 on a whole bunch of exams, and it turns out that their latest model is a legal whiz-kid as it rocked the bar exam, scoring higher than 90% of test takers. (Source: OpenAI)
5. GPT-4 is also a wine buff
Need help with the wine list in a fancy restaurant? GPT-4 has got you covered. The chatbot scored a grape-tastic 92% in the prestigious Master Sommelier exam, proving it really knows its Pinots from its Merlots, despite having never quaffed a glass in its cyberspace existence. (Source: The Drinks Business)
6. GPT-4 can tell you what to cook tonight
GPT-4 doesn't just play with words — it can decipher images, too. One AI engineer put these capabilities to the test with a snapshot of a fridge's interior, and GPT-4 came up with a tasty recipe using the ingredients it spotted. Watch out Nigella. (Source: @sudu_cb - Twitter)
7. GPT-4 can build a website based on scribbles
In a live demo, OpenAI's president snapped a photo of a hand-drawn website sketch. GPT-4 quickly transformed it into a fully functional site with HTML and JavaScript. ( Source: @Neo19890 - Twitter)
8. GPT-4 can build a video game in less than a minute
One AI developer put GPT-4 to work to recreate the classic arcade game Pong in under 60 seconds. (Source: @skirano - Twitter)
9. Not all scientists are GPT-4 fans
As this Nature.com article reveals, scientists are reluctant to use GPT-4 for research. Sasha Luccioni, a researcher at AI company HuggingFace, said she was concerned that OpenAI keeps the source of their training data a secret. "All of these closed-source models, they are essentially dead-ends in science. You don’t know what the data is. So you can’t improve it. I mean, it’s just completely impossible to do science with a model like this.”
10. We all make mistakes — GPT-4 included
In an interview with Good Morning America, Sam Altman talked about the problem GPT-4 has with 'Hallucinations' – in other words, spitting out factual errors. "The thing that I try to caution people the most is what we call the 'hallucinations problem,'" Altman said. "The model will confidently state things as if they were facts that are entirely made up."
I can confirm Sam's right. Earlier, I asked GPT-4: 'Is there a word that's similar to productivity that begins with H?' It replied: 'One word that is similar to productivity and begins with H is "efficiency." It refers to the ability to accomplish a task or goal in the most effective and economical manner possible.'
11. But GPT-4 is 40% more accurate than GPT-3
As reported here by The Guardian, OpenAi believes GPT-4 is 40% more accurate than its predecessor. However, the company still advises users not to rely on it solely and to double-check its results.
What Might GPT-4 Mean For Marketers?
I've spoken to a few marketers who are understandably concerned that Chat-GPT is coming for their jobs. But while GPT-4 is an improvement on OpenAI's previous model, it's not time for digital marketers to panic just yet.
Instead, GPT-4 should be seen as a tool that can enhance and streamline our marketing efforts, rather than a replacement for human creativity and intuition. I've gone deeper into that particular topic in my article: Robots v Humans: Will AI Replace Copywriters?