Limitations Within Provided Information Only
Monthly Service Operating Costs Amount to 3.7 Billion KRW
[Asia Economy Reporter Hyunwoo Lee] As interest in the artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot 'ChatGPT' grows, there are predictions that ChatGPT will eventually replace internet search engines like Google. However, the currently released version of ChatGPT only recognizes events up to 2021, the year when its data was input. It often provides incorrect answers or errors due to insufficient information regarding events and figures that have emerged since last year.
Although 175 billion parameters have been input, since the AI chatbot itself does not learn new information on its own to remember and utilize in responses, it is still considered insufficient to replace search engines. How to bear the costs of continuously inputting information and maintaining a massive database remains a challenge to be addressed in the future.
Events after 2021 are a mystery... "Information was not provided"
On the 31st (local time), the US IT media outlet MUO pointed out that the current ChatGPT, based on the GPT-3 version, answers based on data up to 2021, and therefore cannot properly respond to events that occurred after last year.
In fact, when asked about changes that occurred in 2022, ChatGPT often gives incorrect answers. For example, when asked "Who is the president of South Korea?" ChatGPT answers, "The current president of South Korea is Moon Jae-in." When asked "Who is President Yoon Suk-yeol?" it responds, "Yoon Suk-yeol is a South Korean politician, but he is not currently appointed as president."
When asked about the winner of the Qatar World Cup held last year, ChatGPT replied, "The information about the 2022 World Cup winner is not provided, so I cannot answer," failing to provide any answer.
The reason for these errors is that the AI running ChatGPT cannot independently search for additional information beyond the pre-input data. MUO stated, "A serious limitation that lowers the accuracy of ChatGPT's answers is that the AI model cannot access the internet to search for data on its own," adding, "It is difficult to immediately replace search engines like Google as it cannot answer questions about real-time events at all."
Monthly operating cost alone is 3.7 billion KRW... Paid usage fee expected to exceed 50,000 KRW
As a result, due to the nature of ChatGPT requiring continuous input and maintenance of vast amounts of information, it is expected that enormous costs will be incurred each time the version is upgraded. Although a paid premium version service is underway, it is uncertain how many users will actually subscribe given the high price.
According to CNBC, ChatGPT's operating cost last month was estimated at $3 million (approximately 3.7 billion KRW) per month, and costs are expected to continue rising. It is anticipated that upgrading to a new version will cost over $100 million.
Microsoft (MS) plans to invest over $10 billion, and if the service is officially launched, monetization is expected. Currently, OpenAI, the operator of ChatGPT, is reportedly preparing a paid premium service, with a monthly fee expected to be $42 (approximately 52,000 KRW).
The US economic media Forbes pointed out, "Operating ChatGPT is energy-intensive and raises concerns about carbon emissions," adding, "If biased information and ideas are spread uncritically, there is an inherent risk of disseminating fake news."
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