9 Limitations of ChatGPT that you should know about

ChatGPT has taken the world by storm for the advanced features it has to offer. Where it took years for Netflix to gain just 50 million subscribers, ChatGPT got 57 million users in just 1 month. These statistics can be enough for somebody living under a rock to have an idea of how popular this ChatGPT is. ChatGPT has expertise in coding, writing applications, and pretty much most things you can think of that can be covered by text.

While this is just a glimpse of the power AI has in itself, ChatGPT, just like any other digital utility these days, isn’t devoid of its limitations. That said, today on How2shout, I will talk about the limitations of ChatGPT that you should keep in mind before you ultimately count on this neat tool for everything in your life.

So, without any further delay, let’s get started with the limitations of ChatGPT that you should surely keep in mind.

Let’s first look at what OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT has to say about the limitations.

1. May generate incorrect information

To err is humans, and the same applies to AI. If you are searching for something complicated, ChatGPT can sometimes misinterpret your requests and can generate information that is incomplete, irrelevant, or incorrect. Besides misinterpretation of context, the next point is also a reason behind generating incorrect information.

2. Limited information available to the engine

Launched in November 2022, by the time of writing this article, ChatGPT has limited knowledge, and it is limited to the events that took place till 2021. By events I mean, everything. For example, if you are searching for any feature in software that is available after September 2021. ChatGPT can’t provide relevant information about that. On the other hand, based on what exactly you are searching, the information provided to you might be complete, but won’t be the most updated.

3. Can sometimes provide biased information

In the case you are asking for something controversial, ChatGPT can offer responses that are biased towards one opinion. I will not go into details about how and exactly in what way ChatGPT is biased, but this is a limitation. However, one thing that is to be noted is that, unlike Google or any other search engine, ChatGPT responds like an individual, and thus, just like any other individual on the planet, it is normal to get biased toward something. But ChatGPT, or the creators of the platform should handle it differently.

Now, let’s look into the other deeper limitations of ChatGPT that you will come to know if you start using it.

4. ChatGPT repeats words more than they are required

While it is just a sequence of meaningful words that make up a chat, ChatGPT can sometimes unnecessarily reuse words in conversations. This can sometimes make it difficult to comprehend the subject. This might not sound like a serious limitation at first glance, but if you read out what ChatGPT has answered, the language will sound too wordy, and if not that, it won’t seem like a real human being has given the response.

5. Can sometimes provide questionable information

ChatGPT can sometimes provide answers that don’t have direct or close indirect relevance to the questions asked. So if you are using it for your projects or other serious purposes, your answers might be deemed incorrect. For example, I asked about the harmful effects of using transistors, which a components used in circuits. One harmful effect of using transistors what ChatGPT said was the excessive use of smartphones. Yes, overuse of smartphones has negative impacts, but just because transistors are used in smartphones, that cannot be deemed as one of the harmful effects of transistors.

6. ChatGPT has no emotions or sentiments

It is quite obvious that a machine to not have any emotions, and this is a wonderful thing because if the answers given by ChatGPT are blended with emotions, you will not get the desired results that you were looking for. However, people use ChatGPT to get answers to a diverse class of questions. So, if you are asking for some relationship advice or something that has an emotional link, you will end up getting impractical responses. The absence of emotions can also lead to another limitation that I discussed next.

7. Not good at interpreting things

In the case you are asking for questions where the answer isn’t direct and requires logical explanations, ChatGPT might give abnormal or incomplete responses. Emotions, satire, etc, are different building blocks of human expressions, and the lack of such things makes the responses feel rock solid and far from genuine. So, if you are asking ChatGPT to write essays for you, and similar other things, where human emotions play a role, you will not get the desired responses.

8. Can sometimes respond slowly

If you are constantly using ChatGPT, asking some questions with complex answers, or randomly ChatGPT can respond slowly. ChatGPT usually provides responses word by word, which is a slow process. But, once in a while, the responses can be slower which can be a cause of frustration. While the premium version can make things better, this shouldn’t happen in the first place.

9. Still under training

ChatGPT just like anything at the initial stage is still at the training phase. That said, you cannot expect ChatGPT to be perfect. Besides limited knowledge till the events of 2021, and lack of emotions, the more the number of users use ChatGPT, it will become even better. This is not a permanent limitation, but if you are using ChatGPT seriously, you should do some tweaks before you directly use the responses by ChatGPT in all your assignments.

So, those are the limitations of ChatGPT. With further improvements, it is expected that most limitations will eventually go away. When additional and updated data are fed to ChatGPT, and there are improvements in the language model, we can expect ChatGPT to behave and respond in a more human-like way. Till then we will have to use ChatGPT with its limitations and tweak the responses responsibly to use them in your everyday life.