ChatGPT is a remarkable invention. It can do many things but it doesn’t come without its flaws.
Some of them are just teething problems. Some are mild annoyances while some need immediate attention.
In this blog post, I will list 7 things that would make ChatGPT even more awesome.
Problems in ChatGPT
Let’s start with the interface.
ChatGPT’s interface is sleek, simple, and easy to use, which makes sense for a new technology like Generative AI. OpenAI wants to make sure its users feel comfortable without being overwhelmed.
However, this minimalist approach means they left out some essential features that make an AI writing tool truly great. Features that are crucial for people using ChatGPT for all kinds of tasks from writing blog posts to researching books, from proofreading content to simplifying things for kids.
Many of these features have become standard in other AI writing tools, such as Jasper and ChatSonic.
Here are some of the features that I wish OpenAI implemented in ChatGPT’s interface —
ChatGPT has an ‘Export’ option, so you can download your chats but all at once. You cannot download them individually.
To download them, you will have to use tricks like this to save their chat history in a way that lets them view it offline and copy the text too.
Wouldn’t it be awesome if OpenAI just added a basic export button so we can download our chat history in PDF, Word, HTML, or plain text format?
Search box
ChatGPT doesn’t have a search box either so you can’t browse your chat history. You have to rely on your memory to find what you are looking for.
I often end up just asking ChatGPT again for the same thing which is unnecessarily time-consuming.
A simple search box will be a great addition to its UI which will surely boost users’ productivity. (~30% in my case)
Keyboard shortcuts
ChatGPT’s website doesn’t support any keyboard shortcuts (except `enter` to fire a command)
Keyboard shortcuts are crucial for making a website more accessible and easy to use for people who prefer to type. Using keyboard shortcuts is 10x productive and, at the same time, less tiring than using a mouse.
It will be really nice if ChatGPT added keyboard shortcuts for the following —
Edit the latest prompt — (Maybe ctrl + e / cmd + e)
Right now, you have to drag your cursor to your latest command and click the edit button:
These tasks will also be much easier with keyboard shortcuts —
- Search through chat history — (Something like
ctrl + f/cmd + f) - Open a new chat — (Probably
ctrl + n/cmd + n) - Copy the most recent output — (
ctrl + alt + c / Cmd + Option + c) - Regenerate output — (
ctrl + enter/cmd + enter) - Stop generating output — (
Esc)
Shortcuts inspired by the Windows terminal
If you have ever used the windows terminal, you might know that you can cycle through your previous commands by repeatedly pressing the Up and Down arrow keys. This way, you can recall your command with just a keypress and tweak it without retyping it whole.
These are two shortcuts I genuinely wish OpenAI takes inspiration from and implements in ChatGPT:
- Pressing the UP arrow key (⬆️): Recall the previous command (repeated presses revisit all previous commands from last to first)
- Pressing the Down arrow key (⬇️): Cycle through your next commands (from first to last)
That’s enough tweaks for the ChatGPT interface. Now let us move on to the core functionality of ChatGPT.
ChatGPT’s functionality
ChatGPT works wonderfully but it will be even better if it resolved these issues —
Restriction on length of input and output
ChatGPT doesn’t accept inputs longer than ~2200 words nor does it write more than 600 words in a single response (even if you ask it explicitly).
OpenAI may have put some limits in place to keep the costs down although the chatbot denies any such cap. According to some sources, it costs about $3 per 10,000 words generated by ChatGPT.
This issue is so popular that the keyword “ChatGPT character limit” is the 7th most searched phrase in the ChatGPT cluster clocking in around 5400 searches per month in the United States alone (according to the keyword research tool SEMrush).
I have discussed this issue in great detail in this article.
Drop in quality after some time
Many users have reported that ChatGPT starts giving low-quality answers after a while if a conversation is continued for too long in a single chat.
This may be because ChatGPT is designed to remember the previous conversation. Continuing a single chat for far too long will force it to factor in your earlier prompts in its response which may sometimes produce undesired output.
It also prioritizes your most recent commands over the older ones so you might sometimes feel like it is not obeying you as much as it should.
However, I didn’t feel any decline in quality but I found some inconsistencies in its responses. Sometimes, it refuses to answer questions it thinks are inappropriate, but other times gives a perfect reply.
Heavy censorship
ChatGPT is heavily censored. It (rightly) refuses to answer most potentially harmful or dangerous queries such as about suicide or murder but sometimes it also blocks off seemingly innocuous requests.
For example, I asked it to tell me how to confuse my readers. It refused.
Not only this, but it also starts preaching a sermon if asked about a harmless but frowned-upon thing —
Surely, writing clickbait headlines is a lousy thing to do but it isn’t as bad as committing murder.
I know OpenAI has designed it to be safe for everyone to interact with but this much censorship is off-putting. I wish OpenAI would do something about that.
Inability to fetch real-time data from Google
ChatGPT’s training data cutoff date is September 2021 so it has limited knowledge of the events that happened after that.
If asked about some recent topics, it refuses to answer or gives an incorrect answer, sometimes without even a warning.
And if that wasn’t bad enough, ChatGPT cannot access Google or the Internet to fetch the latest data about any topic. This limitation renders ChatGPT useless for any research of events after September 2021.
This is in sharp contrast to some commercial AI chatbots like ChatSonic that have made connectivity to Google their primary selling point.
Conclusion
In this blog post, I highlighted 7 problems in ChatGPT that are making its user experience less than perfect.
I also suggested a few features that will take this chatbot to the next level.
I hope you found this post useful. Thanks for reading.