Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Computing
  3. News

This powerful ChatGPT feature is back from the dead — with a few key changes

Alex Blake
By

ChatGPT has just regained the ability to browse the internet to help you find information. That should (hopefully) help you get more accurate, up-to-date data right when you need it, rather than solely relying on the artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot’s rather outdated training data.

As well as giving straight-up answers to your questions based on info found online, ChatGPT developer OpenAI revealed that the tool will provide a link to its sources so you can check the facts yourself. If it turns out that ChatGPT was wrong or misleading, well, that’s just another one for the chatbot’s long list of missteps.

A laptop screen shows the home page for ChatGPT, OpenAI's artificial intelligence chatbot.
Rolf van Root / Unsplash

Before the change, ChatGPT could only answer questions based on data from before September 2021. That’s the latest information it was trained on, so if you asked it when the iPhone 15 was released, it wouldn’t be able to give you an accurate date.

Recommended Videos

Now, that should no longer be a problem. It’s taken a long time to get to this point, but given ChatGPT’s history of breaking things, it’s probably better to be safe than sorry.

Related

A returning feature

A person's hand holding a smartphone. The smartphone is showing the website for the ChatGPT generative AI.
Sanket Mishra / Pexels

Interestingly, it’s not the first time ChatGPT has had the ability to surf the web in its hunt for answers. OpenAI originally added this capability in spring 2023, hoping that it would expand the usefulness of its AI tool.

Things didn’t quite go according to plan, though. Crafty users discovered that it could be used to bypass paywalls in order to read paid-for content without stumping up the cash. OpenAI swiftly pulled the feature in July.

Now it’s back, and OpenAI has presumably taken steps to curb such errant behavior on its chatbot. If you want to take it for a spin, one thing remains unchanged, however: you’ll need to have a paid ChatGPT Plus or Enterprise account.

The change comes hot on the heels of ChatGPT maker OpenAI adding the ability for the chatbot to interact with images and audio, and marks another entry in a feature-heavy few days.

Whether or not it will be able to address some of the biggest criticisms of ChatGPT — mainly surrounding the accuracy of its responses and its tendency to spread misinformation — will presumably become clear over the next few weeks and months.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
Alex Blake
Alex Blake
Computing Writer
In ancient times, people like Alex would have been shunned for their nerdy ways and strange opinions on cheese. Today, he…
Apple may finally beef up Siri with AI smarts next year
The Siri activation animation on an iPhone running iOS 14.

As the world has been taken over by generative artificial intelligence (AI) tools like ChatGPT, Apple has stayed almost entirely out of the game. That could all change soon, though, as a new report claims the company is about to bring its own AI -- dubbed “Apple GPT” -- to a massive range of products and services.

That’s all according to reporter Mark Gurman, who has a strong track record when it comes to Apple leaks and rumors. In his latest Power On newsletter, Gurman alleges that “Apple executives were caught off guard by the industry’s sudden AI fever and have been scrambling since late last year to make up for lost time.”

Read more
OpenAI’s new tool can spot fake AI images, but there’s a catch
OpenAI Dall-E 3 alpha test version image.

Images generated by artificial intelligence (AI) have been causing plenty of consternation in recent months, with people understandably worried that they could be used to spread misinformation and deceive the public. Now, ChatGPT maker OpenAI is apparently working on a tool that can detect AI-generated images with 99% accuracy.

According to Bloomberg, OpenAI’s tool is designed to root out user-made pictures created by its own Dall-E 3 image generator. Speaking at the Wall Street Journal’s Tech Live event, Mira Murati, chief technology officer at OpenAI, claimed the tool is “99% reliable.” While the tech is being tested internally, there’s no release date yet.

Read more
Bing Chat just beat a security check to stop hackers and spammers
A depiction of a hacker breaking into a system via the use of code.

Bing Chat is no stranger to controversy -- in fact, sometimes it feels like there’s a never-ending stream of scandals surrounding it and tools like ChatGPT -- and now the artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot has found itself in hot water over its ability to defeat a common cybersecurity measure.

According to Denis Shiryaev, the CEO of AI startup Neural.love, chatbots like Bing Chat and ChatGPT can potentially be used to bypass a CAPTCHA code if you just ask them the right set of questions. If this turns out to be a widespread issue, it could have worrying implications for everyone’s online security.

Read more