The chatbot was speaking complete gibberish. “To rev the virgate, it’s enley to instil group danters,” it told one user. “I’m by. I’m in. I’m for, I’m from, I’m that,” it told another.
Some users joked that it had ingested acid — or too much James Joyce. Others found that it spoke like an English tourist in Marbella: “Muchas gracias for your understanding, y I’ll ensure we’re being as crystal-clear como l’eau from now on.” It was February 21, and ChatGPT was broken.
OpenAI, which runs ChatGPT, admitted the problem and fixed it quickly — which is perhaps the least you’d expect from a company recently valued at $80bn. It explained that an update had “introduced a bug with how the model processes language”.