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by CORY SMITH | The National News Desk
(TNND) — ChatGPT will mark its third anniversary this weekend.
While artificial intelligence predates ChatGPT by decades, one expert credited OpenAI's "game changer" chatbot with ushering in a breakthrough period for AI.
Anton Dahbura, an AI expert and the co-director of the Johns Hopkins Institute for Assured Autonomy, said ChatGPT has both expanded and been tamed, to some degree, since its release on Nov. 30, 2022.
It’s capable of doing more things and doing them better, he said.
But he said there are still plenty of pitfalls in the evolutionary technology.
ChatGPT can hallucinate, and it can sound so authoritative that people run the risk of missing inaccurate information or mistakes if they let their guard down.
Dahbura said he asked ChatGPT the other day to write him a letter, and it made up a middle initial for his signature.
“For some reason, it signed the letter Anton J. Dahbura. That's not my middle initial,” he said.
That’s a harmless example of ChatGPT’s reliability challenges.
But experts say blind reliance on ChatGPT could carry with it more serious consequences.
Dahbura noted reports of lawyers getting burned by legal briefings they generated with ChatGPT.
And Deborah Lee, a professor and director of research impact and AI strategy at Mississippi State University Libraries, said people shouldn’t rely solely on ChatGPT for big, important decisions.
“If I'm trying to figure out how to time out Thanksgiving dinner, ChatGPT is excellent for that. OK?” Lee said. “It gives you shopping lists. It tells you how to cook it. It tells you what order to cook it. That's great. If I'm trying to decide whether to stay on a medication or not, that's not the place to get that information. It's not a substitute for having a meaningful conversation with my doctor.”
Lee wrote an article that appeared this week in The Conversation about how ChatGPT “has become the new front door to information.”
It’s been a sea change in the way people search for information online, she said.
Within months of its introduction three years ago, ChatGPT had 100 million weekly users, she said.
Now, it boasts 800 million active weekly users.
And about a third of American adults have now used ChatGPT.
Nearly 60% of adults under 30 have used ChatGPT, according to the Pew Research Center.
Both Dahbura and Lee said ChatGPT is increasingly being integrated into other applications.
“And as that continues, it won't be a matter of whether or not you use generative AI, but it's going to be a matter of how much are you using it,” Lee said.
OpenAI’s latest version is GPT-5.
And ChatGPT, like other generative AI models, is moving into the browser space.
Dahbura said accompanying technologies, such as the chips from Nvidia and memory storage, have accelerated quickly to enable AI’s rapid development.
ChatGPT, like any technology, can be used for good or bad, Dahbura said.
“It's opened up a box of opportunities and a Pandora's box simultaneously,” he said.
On balance, it’s been more good for the world than bad, he said.
But Dahbura said oversight is inevitable for the AI industry.
“It just can't be jungle rules for this kind of technology,” he said.
2025 Sinclair, Inc.