Why the T in ChatGPT is AI’s biggest breakthrough – and greatest risk


New Scientist. Science news and long reads from expert journalists, covering developments in science, technology, health and the environment on the website and the magazine.

A good neural network architecture is vital when developing artificial intelligence

SHUTTERSTOCK/Qpt

When ChatGPT first took the world by storm in 2022, its capabilities were so impressive that people happily looked past its awkward name. Yet hidden within those initials lies a key breakthrough responsible for sending artificial intelligence rocketing these past few years – and potentially a limitation that could see it crashing back to Earth.

GPT stands for generative pre-trained transformer, and it is the last word that matters most. The term was coined in a 2017 paper by a team at Google, which introduced a concept called…

Related Posts