Sam Altman called ChatGPT a ‘horrible product’

Co-founder and chief executive of OpenAI, Sam Altman, considers ChatGPT a ‘cool technology’, but ‘a horrible product’, citing problems with the chatbot. He said this on the podcast Hard Fork.

“Yes, ChatGPT is a horrible product. It was not designed for people,” he said.

ChatGPT has been a hit online since its launch in November. The tool has already affected educational processes, helping students write essays and take exams. The bot also handles writing lines of code.

However, ChatGPT is prone to outages. The bot often says it is overloaded or unexpectedly declines user requests.

Altman acknowledged that the artificial-intelligence technology behind ChatGPT is ‘undoubtedly cool’.

“People really like it, which makes us very happy. But no one would say it’s a great, well-integrated product […]. But there is so much value here that people are willing to put up with it,” he added.

Another OpenAI co-founder, Greg Brockman shared, that the launch of ChatGPT in its current form was something of a last resort for the company amid beta testers’ problems.

Nevertheless, despite the seemingly unsystematic launch, the chatbot became a viral sensation. Nearly overnight, the number of ChatGPT users reached 1 million, making it the fastest-growing service.

Earlier in February, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak urged caution about the chatbot because of its ‘horrendous errors’.

In the same month, Bill Gates dubbed generative AI ‘most important’ innovation of modern times.

In January, Altman discussed the future of OpenAI and its relationship with Microsoft.