58% of US adults have heard of ChatGPT; 14% have tried it(pewresearch.org)
pewresearch.org
58% of US adults have heard of ChatGPT; 14% have tried it
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/05/24/a-majority-of-americans-have-heard-of-chatgpt-but-few-have-tried-it-themselves/
67 comments
It definitely sounds impressive, yeah. Does anyone have data on products with similar growth trajectories? I'm thinking of Google, Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat, and more faddy trends like Pokemon Go.
Unlike some of those, ChatGPT seems like it has real staying power. I'd love to see their retention numbers.
Unlike some of those, ChatGPT seems like it has real staying power. I'd love to see their retention numbers.
As far as I can tell, all of these are signups, some even paid signups except for chatgpt.
Moreover, chatgpt is a service offered by - while far from a household name - an established player. OpenAI was founded in 2015. They got their 1 million users in 2022, after 7 years, not 5 days.
And lastly, there’s over a decade between chatgpt and the newest player on that list
Moreover, chatgpt is a service offered by - while far from a household name - an established player. OpenAI was founded in 2015. They got their 1 million users in 2022, after 7 years, not 5 days.
And lastly, there’s over a decade between chatgpt and the newest player on that list
I wonder if 'ChatGPT' is being used as a generic noun by a lot of those surveyed, I can possibly stretch my belief to believing 14% of people have tried some form of conversational AI, including bing, bard, and random chatbots, but for it to be specifically ChatGPT seems high.
Open AI is the 21'th most visited site in Japan:
https://www.similarweb.com/top-websites/japan/
47th in the US:
https://www.similarweb.com/top-websites/united-states/
I kind of didn't think that ChatGPT was getting traction outside of tech circles but this 100% changed my mind.
https://www.similarweb.com/top-websites/japan/
47th in the US:
https://www.similarweb.com/top-websites/united-states/
I kind of didn't think that ChatGPT was getting traction outside of tech circles but this 100% changed my mind.
In my experience it's getting traction everywhere. In the last few months I've spoken to a lawyer, a builder, a marketer, a graphic designer, and several taxi drivers, all who were using it themselves.
The lawyer even said they used it at work. I asked them if their firm had any rules around what they could put into it, and they said no.
The lawyer even said they used it at work. I asked them if their firm had any rules around what they could put into it, and they said no.
Yep ditto. I don’t believe the hype was all that real until I heard random people having conversations about it while out and about. And then south South Park made an episode about. Pretty clearly gone mainstream.
My partner and all of the other teachers in their school are writing their school reports in ChatGPT now. They put in a few points to describe how the student is performing, and the model puts it into a cohesive format. It's made an activity that normally takes an evening per student (maybe 20+ on a good run) into one that can be done in 3 or 4. The quality of the reports is up too. Each child is getting a completely individual report, not one copy/pasted from 4 or 5 others. The teachers can spend more time finding the right words to describe how the child is doing, and less on whether the sentence is grammatically correct.
>The lawyer even said they used it at work. I asked them if their firm had any rules around what they could put into it, and they said no.
That sounds like your lawyer friend might get sued soon!
That sounds like your lawyer friend might get sued soon!
They'll have a lot of other lawyers for company, then. They're all doing it right now.
I live in Japan and follow the news in Japanese, and I’ve been surprised at how quickly awareness of ChatGPT has spread in the government and the mainstream media here. The prime minister met Sam Altman last month [1] and has mentioned generative AI in official statements [2, in Japanese]. Every day I see articles in the Japanese press about it. This morning’s Nihon Keizai Shimbun—both digital and paper editions—has a detailed guide to prompt engineering [3, in Japanese, firewalled].
I am on the faculty of a university in Tokyo, and next week I’m going to be giving a couple of online workshops for the staff members in my department. I plan to show them how they can use GPT-4 in their work: translating and summarizing documents, writing and polishing e-mails, composing Excel functions, brainstorming, etc.
Interest seems high, but usage is still limited. I sent out a survey yesterday to people planning to attend the workshops. One of the questions was “How much have you used ChatGPT, Google Bard, or other LLMs?” Of the 26 who have replied so far, only two replied “frequently.” Half have used them “only a little,” and 11 have not used them yet at all.
[1] https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Technology/OpenAI-CEO-vows-...
[2] https://www.kantei.go.jp/jp/101_kishida/actions/202304/25shi...
[3] https://www.nikkei.com/article/DGXZQOUC1177N0R10C23A4000000/
I am on the faculty of a university in Tokyo, and next week I’m going to be giving a couple of online workshops for the staff members in my department. I plan to show them how they can use GPT-4 in their work: translating and summarizing documents, writing and polishing e-mails, composing Excel functions, brainstorming, etc.
Interest seems high, but usage is still limited. I sent out a survey yesterday to people planning to attend the workshops. One of the questions was “How much have you used ChatGPT, Google Bard, or other LLMs?” Of the 26 who have replied so far, only two replied “frequently.” Half have used them “only a little,” and 11 have not used them yet at all.
[1] https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Technology/OpenAI-CEO-vows-...
[2] https://www.kantei.go.jp/jp/101_kishida/actions/202304/25shi...
[3] https://www.nikkei.com/article/DGXZQOUC1177N0R10C23A4000000/
[deleted]
On the third day after chatGPT 3.5 was released literally an entire classroom of my students was talking about how they were using it. It is a game changer.
I got a haircut last month and my barber already used it and wasn't too impressed
Wow that is significantly more than I would have guessed. Fun little comparison, it took until 1996 for 14% of North Americans to have used the internet.
https://ourworldindata.org/internet
https://ourworldindata.org/internet
To be fair, internet adoption rates in the 90s was largely a function of ISP pricing regime changes.
I think it was 1995 when WOW!, which was a subsidiary of CompuServe, offered unlimited hours for $15/month. AOL followed shortly thereafter. Prior to that it was something like $4-6/hour, usually at only 14.4kbps - 28.8kbps.
Going from 2.5 - 4 hours a month to a household being able to easily surpass 100 hours a month (for households with multiple kids, easily 150-200 hours a month!) was an absolute game changer for internet adoption, at least in the United States. Then add in Mosaic (eventually Netscape Navigator) taking off and that's when adoption really ramped up. Then cable modems and DSL starting to become more widely available in 1997-1998. Plus instant messaging software basically being the precursor to what we would see later on with SMS.
I think it was 1995 when WOW!, which was a subsidiary of CompuServe, offered unlimited hours for $15/month. AOL followed shortly thereafter. Prior to that it was something like $4-6/hour, usually at only 14.4kbps - 28.8kbps.
Going from 2.5 - 4 hours a month to a household being able to easily surpass 100 hours a month (for households with multiple kids, easily 150-200 hours a month!) was an absolute game changer for internet adoption, at least in the United States. Then add in Mosaic (eventually Netscape Navigator) taking off and that's when adoption really ramped up. Then cable modems and DSL starting to become more widely available in 1997-1998. Plus instant messaging software basically being the precursor to what we would see later on with SMS.
My exposure to the internet came via MTV in 1994. I got a call at the house one day and they offered to pay for our internet if I agreed to comment on music videos in an online chatroom. I got free CompuServe for a year and a t-shirt.
>I think it was 1995 when WOW!, which was a subsidiary of CompuServe, offered unlimited hours for $15/month. AOL followed shortly thereafter.
I thought AOL was the first to offer unlimited hours for a fixed fee, with everyone else imitating it. Am I mistaken?
I thought AOL was the first to offer unlimited hours for a fixed fee, with everyone else imitating it. Am I mistaken?
WOW! first. I know because we had it, and for that reason alone. Before WOW! we would do the X hour free trials of ISPs and that's all the internet we had. AOL followed less than a year later, and we switched to AOL only then because of AIM and their walled garden (talking pre-Netscape) was better.
WOW! was fairly poorly advertised. We originally got it via a free CD at a store (Barnes and Noble or Office Max?), and they started doing TV advertisements a few months later. Though almost immediately thereafter AOL started their giant Unlimited Hours advertising blitz. Marketing truly won in that scenario. CompuServe had a shot, but no one knew about WOW! so it died in obscurity and under the weight of AOL's genuinely gargantuan marketing efforts.
WOW! was fairly poorly advertised. We originally got it via a free CD at a store (Barnes and Noble or Office Max?), and they started doing TV advertisements a few months later. Though almost immediately thereafter AOL started their giant Unlimited Hours advertising blitz. Marketing truly won in that scenario. CompuServe had a shot, but no one knew about WOW! so it died in obscurity and under the weight of AOL's genuinely gargantuan marketing efforts.
Fair point - but according to the dataset it defines “used” not as having adopted, but merely having used it in the last 3 months.
Point remains that pricing of internet access was a huge driver of adoption, even in schools.
Back in 1995, my local libraries did not have internet access available. This was a city of 100K a fair ways (about an hour) outside of Boston.
School? Super rare. Maybe ONCE OR TWICE A YEAR we would have a class scheduled in the Media Lab where we would learn about what the internet was, and then be able to barely poke at it in a highly supervised manner. This was despite the school having a few ISDN lines at the time, but that was mostly for backoffice administration, with only the one media lab having access outside of it, with a whopping TWO computers for a student body of 4500.
So even in a school with internet access, you might only get to get a vague idea of what the internet was ONCE A YEAR.
1998? Every high-level classroom in my high school of 4500 kids had two or three computers in the back with internet access. School added 8 computer labs (with 40 desktops each) that could be scheduled as frequently as weekly by a given teacher. If I recall correctly the school had upgraded to two DS3s from different providers.
Back in 1995, my local libraries did not have internet access available. This was a city of 100K a fair ways (about an hour) outside of Boston.
School? Super rare. Maybe ONCE OR TWICE A YEAR we would have a class scheduled in the Media Lab where we would learn about what the internet was, and then be able to barely poke at it in a highly supervised manner. This was despite the school having a few ISDN lines at the time, but that was mostly for backoffice administration, with only the one media lab having access outside of it, with a whopping TWO computers for a student body of 4500.
So even in a school with internet access, you might only get to get a vague idea of what the internet was ONCE A YEAR.
1998? Every high-level classroom in my high school of 4500 kids had two or three computers in the back with internet access. School added 8 computer labs (with 40 desktops each) that could be scheduled as frequently as weekly by a given teacher. If I recall correctly the school had upgraded to two DS3s from different providers.
Not everyone had a computer at that time either. They would need a computer, or access to one for free in their spare time that had the hardware and ability to get online.
I wonder what the under 18 usage rate is. It would have been near impossible for me to resist this as a kid in school.
It wasn't that easily available and took a lot of knowledge to make use of it.
I racked up ~$300 in one month of hourly dial up internet on my parents credit card at that age in that era. Huge amounts of trouble.
Mainly using Kali (software for emulating an ipx lan over the internet) and playing warcraft 2. Most games didn't have internet play as an option so you had to resort to things like Kali.
Irc was fun too but all in all it was nothing like you know it today and it was a pain to get on and use.
I racked up ~$300 in one month of hourly dial up internet on my parents credit card at that age in that era. Huge amounts of trouble.
Mainly using Kali (software for emulating an ipx lan over the internet) and playing warcraft 2. Most games didn't have internet play as an option so you had to resort to things like Kali.
Irc was fun too but all in all it was nothing like you know it today and it was a pain to get on and use.
> This survey was conducted among 10,701 U.S. adults from March 13 to 19, 2023
Very possible this stat has increased in the last two months, would be interested to see the trend here
Very possible this stat has increased in the last two months, would be interested to see the trend here
What I find makes it a lot more accessible is third party sites that don't require you to identify with personal information before you're allowed to use it. These seem to be popping up more and more and lets me feel like I can talk without it being added to a permanent record somewhere. Sure, you can subpoena my ISP and get the IP+datetime turned into a subscriber, but that's different from tying it all to my phone number that hasn't changed since I was eight.
Another lesson I might draw is that I need more burner phones, but it gets tedious to queue up for 20 minutes to activate your prepaid SIM via a government ID in this democratic country. Had to verify six numbers for work once because a BigCorp which shall not be named couldn't internally arrange accounts for us to do the desired audit on their systems. Annoying, but we billed them per hour at security consultancy rates (and the client apparently found that worth it) so that's not the same as having to do this to use an online bot.
On the other hand, these third parties might also muddle any survey results that ask about ChatGPT specifically, when people use something like a virtual career coaching site without realizing this was "Open"AI they were using.
Another lesson I might draw is that I need more burner phones, but it gets tedious to queue up for 20 minutes to activate your prepaid SIM via a government ID in this democratic country. Had to verify six numbers for work once because a BigCorp which shall not be named couldn't internally arrange accounts for us to do the desired audit on their systems. Annoying, but we billed them per hour at security consultancy rates (and the client apparently found that worth it) so that's not the same as having to do this to use an online bot.
On the other hand, these third parties might also muddle any survey results that ask about ChatGPT specifically, when people use something like a virtual career coaching site without realizing this was "Open"AI they were using.
I didn't need to provide a phone number to OpenAI when I signed up for ChatGPT via OAuth with my Google account (which also has no device or phone number associated with it). But maybe I was just lucky enough to register before the requirement existed.
I did need to put some effort into configuring TOTP 2FA for the Google account without first giving Google a phone number, but I was able to do it by simulating a WebAuthn device with DevTools, which satisfied the pre-requisite of an existing hardware token or phone number method of 2FA that I needed to gain the ability to enable TOTP 2FA.
I did need to put some effort into configuring TOTP 2FA for the Google account without first giving Google a phone number, but I was able to do it by simulating a WebAuthn device with DevTools, which satisfied the pre-requisite of an existing hardware token or phone number method of 2FA that I needed to gain the ability to enable TOTP 2FA.
Google is one of the bigcorps that has required a phone number based on secret sauce for quite a few years now, I think they may have been one of the first to demand it. Back then, one of the factors was whether your IP address had been used for signups previously but there were and are probably more ingredients that go into the formula. Registering from a clean phone without any SIM would often work when the web registration form did not on that same IP address, but again, only once or twice, and the account iirc often asked for a phone number if you then use it outside of that phone.
You also can't keep signing up for a Google account with the same phone number. It'll say it has been used too often for a few days iirc and then back off again (not sure how often you can repeat that). Otherwise that could be a usable proxy for hiding the phone number from the target site, depending on whether Google gives that information to the third party you're signing up for.
Some of my old Google accounts also don't have a phone number attached, but using that for signups in various places would be an identity as stable as having a phone number.
You also can't keep signing up for a Google account with the same phone number. It'll say it has been used too often for a few days iirc and then back off again (not sure how often you can repeat that). Otherwise that could be a usable proxy for hiding the phone number from the target site, depending on whether Google gives that information to the third party you're signing up for.
Some of my old Google accounts also don't have a phone number attached, but using that for signups in various places would be an identity as stable as having a phone number.
Yeah, I haven't gone to great lengths to hide my identity. I just wanted an account for shitposting on YouTube comments. I'm sure the feds can find me if they don't like what I'm asking Chat GPT, but at least my conversations won't show up in the results of any JOIN queries for my phone number or email address.
Exactly. I have "nothing to hide" when there is reasonable suspicion, but service operators these days are just too nosy.
I think in terms of privacy, you are worse off giving them a used Google account than a phone number. By using Google for this, you let Google know what you are logging in to OpenAI.
More generally I'm just getting tired of corps requiring phone numbers. If only there is something like SimpleLogin but for phone numbers (generating single purpose numbers for each source) to prevent phone number collection and spam.
More generally I'm just getting tired of corps requiring phone numbers. If only there is something like SimpleLogin but for phone numbers (generating single purpose numbers for each source) to prevent phone number collection and spam.
I wonder how many have paid for access to GPT-4. GPT-4 was a total game changer for me.
I'd guess well under 1%. It's at 15% extremely useful for the users - maybe 5% of those are willing to pay?
That still is huge though. 500k paying American users alone.
Fwiw, I think people's experiences may vary to be willing to pay. I find the slowness of GPT-4 to mostly offset the intelligence gains on net - hasn't been a game changer for most applications (and bing covers the rest)
That still is huge though. 500k paying American users alone.
Fwiw, I think people's experiences may vary to be willing to pay. I find the slowness of GPT-4 to mostly offset the intelligence gains on net - hasn't been a game changer for most applications (and bing covers the rest)
As someone who never used GPT-4, what is so good about it?
It’s just plainly superior, by at least a 25% margin if not higher (imo). That’s not necessarily needed for every task though. ChatGPT’s free version is ‘good enough’ at many mundane tasks already.
What I don't understand about comments like yours is they're completely unquantifiable.
The CTO where I work sent a report recently telling everyone in the company the engineering group is now 95% more productive since we've adopted ChatGPT-4. It's absolutely false. I'd say it was actually a negative distraction for a long time and now, we're finding people are using it to abuse our service. So that's a whole new problem we have to try combat.
I have no idea why this tech makes people want to make statements like this but it's just lies. Most people in the team have stopped using it, use it for silly things and jokes /memes, and some just never touched it at all.
There was a thread here with several pro ChatGPT-4 users complaining it's deteriorated a lot, so which is it?
It's nice people find it helpful, but the blanket statements people make about productivity boosts just seem like nonsense.
The CTO where I work sent a report recently telling everyone in the company the engineering group is now 95% more productive since we've adopted ChatGPT-4. It's absolutely false. I'd say it was actually a negative distraction for a long time and now, we're finding people are using it to abuse our service. So that's a whole new problem we have to try combat.
I have no idea why this tech makes people want to make statements like this but it's just lies. Most people in the team have stopped using it, use it for silly things and jokes /memes, and some just never touched it at all.
There was a thread here with several pro ChatGPT-4 users complaining it's deteriorated a lot, so which is it?
It's nice people find it helpful, but the blanket statements people make about productivity boosts just seem like nonsense.
Quality isn’t unquantifiable. Search engines have been qualifying their results quality for a long time. OpenAI recently released a package for quantifying a LLM’s quality https://github.com/openai/evals
I don’t know what to say about your CTO. People are definitely overestimating how useful GitHub Copilot is at least (if they say 2x they’re wrong). But there is no doubt that these products are changing the world and making us more productive.
I don’t know what to say about your CTO. People are definitely overestimating how useful GitHub Copilot is at least (if they say 2x they’re wrong). But there is no doubt that these products are changing the world and making us more productive.
Plugins and web browsing. You can enable web browsing for it. It will search the internet for you and read the articles, sites and get back with some pretty decent information
IMO right now it's absurdly awful at searching the web. Which sort of makes sense because that's a truly difficult, nuanced thing to do. I often have much better responses re-running the same prompt on the non-web enabled GPT-4.
The only use I've found for that so far is giving it a specific URL to use so I don't have to copy/paste some piece of documentation/etc.
The only use I've found for that so far is giving it a specific URL to use so I don't have to copy/paste some piece of documentation/etc.
phind.com is GPT 3.5 and 4.0 (selectable) with web browsing, and is 100x better than what ChatGPT is doing.
It's still bad for my use case though. My use case being: (1) figuring out rails magic, and (2) coming up with ways to twist the Rust borrow checker into submission.
Doesn't Phind already do this well? FWIW I keep "best model" (that should be GPT-4) off because I just find it too slow and it doesn't seem like that much of an improvement.
At the risk of anthropomorphizing, GPT-4 is smarter. It writes better code, hallucinates less, and is just generally more helpful.
It's great but the usage limit is crazy to me. Sometimes I need to use lots of small messages, and run through them way too quickly
A trick is to combine a number of questions into one prompt. It can carry on multiple threads. You can also ask 3.5 first, and reserve 4 for the tough stuff.
That is what I do too.
I also never type the first prompt out to 4 in the actual chat window if I think there is going to be some back and forth. I write it in a separate file and really clarify my own thoughts before pasting it in and starting the dialog.
If using 4 correctly I think your head should be swimming with new information before you hit the limit for most tasks.
I also never type the first prompt out to 4 in the actual chat window if I think there is going to be some back and forth. I write it in a separate file and really clarify my own thoughts before pasting it in and starting the dialog.
If using 4 correctly I think your head should be swimming with new information before you hit the limit for most tasks.
That is an absolutely massive number. I wonder if openAI or anyone has published their retention rate.
Note: "survey conducted in March"
Today's figures would be very different IMHO
And 99% of VCs have climaxed to ChatGPT.
Just wait for the flood of hedge funds that use "next generation ai-driven modelling" thats actually just a 23 year old fresh out of school typing into chatgpt what stocks to pick with their clients money for today.
Actually, now that I think bit deeper.
There might be some value in sentiment analysis. But that would mean access to user input and the GPT output data. Thankfully probably available in USA. Just get what people are asking or what they are being recommended evaluate how well they follow it and then exploit them for that money, either to front run or do opposite.
There might be some value in sentiment analysis. But that would mean access to user input and the GPT output data. Thankfully probably available in USA. Just get what people are asking or what they are being recommended evaluate how well they follow it and then exploit them for that money, either to front run or do opposite.
And what do you know, I guess JP Morgan beat me to market with the idea:
https://www.cnbc.com/2023/05/25/jpmorgan-develops-ai-investm...
https://www.cnbc.com/2023/05/25/jpmorgan-develops-ai-investm...
Never underestimate the power of a marketing campaign based on fud. Always works.
I'm curious what the distribution is with relation to how it is being used.
All the teachers at wife’s school use it like crazy to help with writing crazy long report card comments for students. Usually a 40 hour task 6-8 times a year.
School requires multiple paragraphs per student.
School requires multiple paragraphs per student.
I can't shake the feeling that we're going to pad everything with GPT-generated filler text only for other people to use GPT to distill the text again into a consumable summary, from websites to emails to, apparently, teacher evaluations.
In some situations, there are social norms to be respected, but often the content rather than the form matters. So not a condolences card from your employer's HR department, but a report on how a student is doing and how to potentially improve. Does it actually help to write five keywords and have GPT fill it out to such a crazy long report card with no meaning beyond five keywords?
Edit: Or do the teachers just rant a bunch to GPT (or feed it other kind of data, like from a report log like my old high school had) and then ask it to nicely format, professionalize, and remove redundant points? There I would see a beneficial use.
In some situations, there are social norms to be respected, but often the content rather than the form matters. So not a condolences card from your employer's HR department, but a report on how a student is doing and how to potentially improve. Does it actually help to write five keywords and have GPT fill it out to such a crazy long report card with no meaning beyond five keywords?
Edit: Or do the teachers just rant a bunch to GPT (or feed it other kind of data, like from a report log like my old high school had) and then ask it to nicely format, professionalize, and remove redundant points? There I would see a beneficial use.
I would consider it equivalent to putting data into Excel to generate a report with visuals. There are a lot of cases where the data is the same data, but the "wrapper" is different for consumption purposes...and entering it by hand is time consuming and sometimes emotionally complex - e.g. if you are trying to articulate a specific challenge a student faces, it's easier to "talk to the chatbot" to generate completely new variations on what you meant to say than to sit at the word processor in a start-stop edit workflow.
GPT, even 3.5, is very, very good at putting new wrappers on things. It's much better at that than at solving logical challenges or acting as an oracle. If you need that for work, you'll probably already be among the adoptees.
GPT, even 3.5, is very, very good at putting new wrappers on things. It's much better at that than at solving logical challenges or acting as an oracle. If you need that for work, you'll probably already be among the adoptees.
Its like a game of telephone, only using a supercomputer and all the energy it needs.
This seems so dangerous and this was my fear. Things will become meaningless especially in education.
The education was meaningless the whole time as it turns out.
That seems insane to me. My daughter's report card has one of about 5 canned single line comments which teachers can choose from. Occasionally we will get an email with some further input around report card time. My daughter is in high school now but this has been the same since elementary school.
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I think I may be a unicorn...
ChatGPT is amazing.
I’d say 0.1% have used it for something useful. Most people are just trying to find out if it has political biases or not. Usually this is followed by claims that it is simultaneously useless and will take over the world.
To the downvoters, this is 8 million people using ChatGPT in a very effective way. It is very useful. My suggestion is many people have not yet discovered it’s true value.
I would say both of these numbers are really impressive, not just the first one.