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What is ChatGPT 4? – OpenAI chatbot LLM explained

What's the difference between ChatGPT and GPT-4?

Reviewed By: Kevin Pocock

Last Updated on December 5, 2023
Introducing ChatGPT 4, an advanced conversational AI model.
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The unofficial term ChatGPT 4 sprouted in 2023. Despite no product or service existing by that name, the term has become one of the most searched in all of artificial intelligence. So, if OpenAI didn’t make it, then what is ChatGPT 4?

What is ChatGPT 4?

ChatGPT 4 is a portmanteau of ChatGPT and GPT-4. The former being the AI chatbot, and the latter being the AI model itself. The two are very commonly conflated, but are not in fact the same thing.

An AI chatbot (commonly stylized as chat bot) is a user interface (UI). This will be a website or app like the official ChatGPT app, where users can enter a text prompt and receive a text response. An AI model is the machine learning technology that handles all the processing in the back-end. In the case of ChatGPT (and indeed Google Bard or Bing Chat) that AI model is a specific type called a large language model (LLM). An LLM is a generative AI which deals with text input and text output, performing natural language processing (NLP) in between.

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In conclusion, ChatGPT 4 does not officially exist. That is to say, there is no official product or service or intellectual property of OpenAI called “ChatGPT 4”. The portmanteau is only used casually, to specifically refer to ChatGPT with the GPT-4 model enabled.

What does ChatGPT 4 stand for?

GPT stands for Generative Pre-trained Transformer. Therefore, ChatGPT 4 means Chat Generative Pre-trained Transformer 4 (the 4th iteration of the OpenAI model). It’s predecessor, GPT-3, is available free forever through the free version of ChatGPT. A paid subscription is required for the human-level performance of Chat GPT-4 technology.

Transformer here means a type of AI technology that uses reinforcement learning (such as human feedback) to train the AI model. This is the precisely what X (formerly Twitter) plans to use when training xAI models on user data.

What is GPT-4 vs ChatGPT?

OpenAI’s GPT-4 is an AI model. It’s a type of neural network capable of natural language processing (NLP) called a large language model (LLM).

By contrast, OpenAI’s ChatGPT is an internet service. It’s available via browser or via mobile app, and provides the user interface to a range of AI models, notably including GPT-4.

While we’re on the subject, OpenAI is the company that owns and operates both. OpenAI refers to both a non-profit organisation (OpenAI Inc.) and a for-profit subsidiary (OpenAI LP.). The AI research and development firm was co-founded in 2015 by Sam Altman, Greg Brockman, Ilya Sutskever, and more – who collectively created ChatGPT in 2022.

Is ChatGPT using GPT-4?

Yes, ChatGPT uses GPT-4. The AI chatbot also uses GPT-3, which is the default setting, and the only model available to users of the free version of ChatGPT. Paid subscribers to ChatGPT Plus and ChatGPT Enterprise gain the ability to enable the GPT-4 model. This applies to both the browser-based web version of ChatGPT and the official app for Android and iOS.

Is GPT-4 replacing ChatGPT?

No, GPT-4 is not replacing ChatGPT. Instead, GPT-4 (often stylised as GPT 4) is one of the AI models ChatGPT has access to. Consider the service itself, ChatGPT, a fixed variable, whereas the LLM’s will change over time (GPT-5 will become available in 2024, and GPT-3 will eventually be discontinued).

Is there a better AI than ChatGPT 4?

There are multiple competitors to ChatGPT 4. These include Bing Chat from Microsoft, and Google Bard, by the creators of the worlds favourite search engine. Each comes with a different level of capability in any given task.

The new Bing also runs on GPT-4, whereas Bard uses Google’s in-house model LLaMa 2. Each of these are a large multimodal model (unlike GPT-4) with advanced reasoning capabilities. In addition, these two ChatGPT alternatives are have better functionality for image input, image analysis, and image output. This includes image classification and captions, making them better than ChatGPT for multimodal purposes.

Bing and Bard can also be used for language translation, Human test-takers may be surprised to hear the GPT-4 can pass the bar exam, and potentially the Turing test.

That said, nothing can beat the ChatGPT plugins selection – and the world of third-party functionality alone makes this extremely hard to beat!

Steve is an AI Content Writer for PC Guide, writing about all things artificial intelligence. He currently leads the AI reviews on the website.