Tech

Sam Altman hates the name ChatGPT

Sam Altman
Sam Altman apparently hates the name "ChatGPT." Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
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ChatGPT might be a household name now, but that doesn't mean OpenAI CEO Sam Altman likes the name itself.

"It's a horrible name but it may be too ubiquitous to ever change," Altman recently told Trevor Noah on the comedian's podcast, "What Now? with Trevor Noah."

Altman jokingly asked Noah for alternate name ideas, and wondered aloud if it could be shortened to just "GPT" or just "Chat."

The chatbot is just over a year old now — it first launched in November 2022. ChatGPT's initial launch was described internally as "low-key," so much so that some employees at OpenAI weren't even aware that it had launched at the time, Business Insider previously reported. But by January, it had amassed an estimated 100 million monthly active users by January 2023. And now, as Altman said, it's ubiquitous.

"No marketer ever would've picked ChatGPT as the name for this, but we may be stuck with it," Altman said. "And that might be alright."

On the bright side, "ChatGPT" for sure has a better ring to it than its previous working title, as reported by Time, "Chat With GPT-3.5."

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Kylie was a reporting fellow at Business Insider, where she covered business news and tech. She received her MA in Journalism and International Relations from NYU, reporting on how rural indigenous communities in Borneo are being impacted by climate change and environmental degradation for her Master's thesis. She has previously worked at Forbes, Acuris, and Payload. Outside of the business news world, she's interested in climate, education, and food.Adobe is selling AI-generated images of the Israel-Hamas war, and some websites are using them without marking that they're fakeI visited the viral tinned fish store in NYC's Times Square that sells $19.60 cans of tuna and $44 hand-deboned sardines with edible gold flakesApple's new screen-distance feature taught me I was holding my iPhone wrongThis e-bike for 4-year-olds can do 15 miles an hour, costs $1,300 – and sold out in a monthAs-Told-To: I work as a fire lookout, living in a remote cabin with no plumbing or electricity. Here's why I want to be here as long as there are humans doing this job.