The AI phenomenon has been booming in 2023 – something that is either very exciting or completely terrifying, depending on how you view technology (and perhaps what you do for work).

ChatGPT, a tool made by San Francisco-based artificial intelligence company OpenAI, has become the premier chatbot and embedded itself into many people’s everyday lives.

It is currently on iteration ChatGPT-4, which launched in March, which is able to do things as advanced as create video games on top of answering standard prompts, and can examine images as well as text.

The service, however, does sometimes experience issues. If you are struggling to connect to ChatGPT here are some potential fixes you can try.

Why is ChatGPT not working?
The simplest reason ChatGPT may not be working is because it has gone down. ChatGPT does occasionally suffer outages, and you can track these using the online tool Down Detector here. If the site is down you will often see a “failed to get service status” error message.

Sometimes ChatGPT will stop working due to high volumes of traffic. OpenAI should tell you if this is the case, and you can come back and try again later.

If neither of these are the problem then there could be an issue on your end. You may have a corrupt browser cache or cookies.

To fix this, go to chat.openai.com and click on the padlock icon in the address bar, then click site settings. Next click on the clear data option next to cookies.

Some VPN extensions in your web browser could be causing problems with ChatGPT, so try disabling extensions to see if this fixes the issue.

You can also try to access ChatGPT through a different browser, or in incognito mode.

What can Chat GPT-4 do?

Learn a language

Duolingo used GPT-4 for its new “Max” subscription, which allows users to practise conversational skills with the app’s chatbot. It is currently functional in 26 languages, but works best with European languages.

Come up with recipes

Using the new image recognition and deciphering feature, users can ask GPT-4 to recommend meals and snacks based on pictures they’ve uploaded. Even show it a picture of the inside of your fridge.

Create a video game

Gaming fans can use GPT-4 to code whole video game programmes in less than hour, with no knowledge of JavaScript. One user said he was able to create the basic ball-pinging game Pong in one minute.

Build a Google Chrome extension

Creating Google Chrome extensions – programmes that can be installed to change the browser’s functionality – can be achieved quickly without coding experience.

Plan a holiday

The chatbot can collate information from where to stay to what to do and where to eat, in addition to suggesting updates to previous plans based on the preferences it recognises from former interactions.

File your tax return

Though researchers have warned it shouldn’t be relied upon, an OpenAI employee has proven it is possible to accurately file taxes using the AI.

Pass exams

GPT-4 performs better on a range of technical questions than its predecessor, including maths problems, and can detect trick questions more consistently. In several trials it has excelled in exams, scoring 90 per cent in the Bar exam which lawyers are required to take and 88 per cent in the Law School Admissions Test.

Describe images to blind people

The new multimodal function means a user can upload a picture and ask GPT-4 to describe it. It will also accurately explain why a picture is funny or sad, for example. Be My Eyes, an assistive technology company for blind people, is using the image input feature of GPT-4 to develop a function that can describe everyday scenes and interactions and answer questions about it.

Produce a webpage from a sketch

A unique webpage can be formatted from a scrappy drawing, using the image input function. On a livestream, an OpenAI researcher drew a rough sketch of website, which generated jokes, on a piece of paper. He took a photo of his pencil drawn sketch and uploaded it into the GPT-4. The model immediately supplied an output the code for a website, which was fully functional, worked and was designed exactly as it had been drawn.