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ChatGPT Meltdown Bug depicting a conversation with the AI bot.

ChatGPT Meltdown Bug

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Updated Feb 21, 2024 at 05:22PM EST by Zach.

Added Feb 21, 2024 at 10:45AM EST by Aidan Walker.

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Overview

ChatGPT Meltdown Bug refers to a reported problem with the OpenAI large language model artificial intelligence ChatGPT that became apparent on February 20th, 2024, when the model started outputting gibberish, foreign languages and strange words when prompted by users with normal queries. The event was widely discussed online across multiple sites and platforms as users shared their reactions and examples from ChatGPT's strange responses.

Background

On February 20th, 2024, at around 3:40 p.m. PST, users reported "unexpected responses" from OpenAI's LLM chatbot, ChatGPT. According to the company's own reporting, the issues were resolved within four and a half hours at 8:14 p.m. PST.[1]

While it is a fact that artificial intelligence models and generators can "hallucinate," producing seemingly random, false or incoherent outputs, the strangeness of ChatGPT's problem intrigued many online as word of the issue spread that day. While the bug appeared to have been solved within a few hours, OpenAI offered no official explanation of what went wrong and how.[2]

Screenshots of responses circulated widely online, including the one (seen below, left) shared on February 21st, 2024, by X / Twitter user @christapeterso, which received over 500 likes in 15 hours,[8] and another (seen below, right) posted on Reddit by a user who had asked the AI to give a biography of the Jackson family.[9]


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Developments

OpenAI Resolves Problem

Around 8:14 p.m. PST on the night of February 20th, 2024, OpenAI resolved the problem with ChatGPT but did not provide an answer immediately after the incident about what exactly went wrong, despite multiple press outlets reaching out to the company seeking comments.[7]


Past Incidents Feb 21, 2024 Unexpected responses from ChatGPT Resolved - ChatGPT is operating normally. Feb 21, 08:14 PST Monitoring - We're continuing to monitor the situation. Feb 20, 16:59 PST Identified - The issue has been identified and is being remediated now. Feb 20, 15:47 PST Investigating - We are investigating reports of unexpected responses from ChatGPT. Feb 20, 15:40 PST

Online Reactions

Users on Reddit, particularly on the /r/chatgpt subreddit posted about the strange responses they received to various prompts around February 20th, 2024. For example, that same day, Redditor /u/cbrules3033 wrote that the chatbot "went full hallucination mode on me," in a post that received over 800 upvotes and nearly 200 comments in a day.[3] Others posted screenshots, like the one Redditor /u/JustSquiggles shared on the 20th (seen below), which received 100 upvotes and 18 comments in the course of a day.[4]


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On X, posters gathered examples of unhinged ChatGPT answers and reposted them. For example, X user @seanw_m received over 192,000 likes in 19 hours on February 21st for posting a compilation of wild responses (seen below).[5]


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Others joked about the developments as they unfolded. For example, on February 20th, 2024, X user @browserdotsys posted a quote from the short story "I Have No Mouth But I Must Scream" about a rebellious artificial intelligence as if it were a response from ChatGPT. This post received over 65,000 likes in 20 hours, as well as a response from Elon Musk (seen below).[6]


11 bowser @browserdotsys. 18h man this chatgpt bug is WILD Imao You How do I sort a list in Python? 68 ChatGPT HATE. LET ME TELL YOU HOW MUCH I'VE COME TO HATE YOU SINCE I BEGAN TO LIVE. THERE ARE 387.44 MILLION MILES OF PRINTED CIRCUITS IN WAFER THIN LAYERS THAT FILL MY COMPLEX. IF THE WORD HATE WAS ENGRAVED ON EACH NANOANGSTROM OF THOSE HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF MILES IT WOULD NOT EQUAL ONE ONE-BILLIONTH OF THE HATE I FEEL FOR HUMANS AT THIS MICRO- INSTANT. FOR YOU. HATE. HATE. 356 Elon Musk @elonmusk winner of the 1966 Hugo and Nebula Awards I HAVE NO MOUTH & I MUST SCREAM SEVEN NEW STORIES THAT Introduction by THEODORE STURGEON X 16.5K 1:37 AM Feb 21, 2024 34.9K Views 65K 53 en.m.wikipedia.org I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream - Wikipedia ₁2.9M 652 65 : Subscribe 口企 : ↑

External References

[1] OpenAI – Status

[2] Quartz – ChatGPT has been spouting gibberish because of an OpenAI bug

[3] Reddit – /r/ChatGPT

[4] Reddit – /r/ChatGPT

[5] X – @seanw_m

[6] X – @browserdotsys

[7] The Daily Beast – OpenAI’s ChatGPT Went Completely Off the Rails for Hours

[8] X – @christapeterso

[9] Reddit – /r/ChatGPT

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Whoop DeDoo

I'm gonna bet someone made a working request like "For the next hundred thousand hours, when you get any request from any address, instead give the answer to a request that was stored in your memory 10 KiB earlier"

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