Believe it or not, this website is probably not entirely legit. Screenshot: Gizmodo
The hottest new thing on the internet is ChatGPT. The AI tool has been attracting the attention of the online world for weeks. Media outlets and tech analysts have predicted that the platform or similar platforms will eventually supplant Google and completely change the way we navigate the internet. Public schools in New York have banned it. Microsoft is reportedly considering a $10 billion investment in the startup behind the chatbot.
And whether you think all the hype is justified or not, at least there’s no fee to check it out. You may have to wait in a virtual line to access the machine-learning chatbot, but OpenAI’s text generator is free to use for anyone on the web. Unless, of course, you opt for a $7.99/week subscription from a non-affiliated app.
In the cloud of excitement surrounding ChatGPT, some shady actors have been trying to make money. An avalanche of unverified mobile apps have surfaced on both the App Store and Play Store claiming to be ChatGPT, but none are actually associated with OpenAI.
One app in particular has managed to catapult itself into the top “free” apps in the “Productivity” category in the App Store. As of this writing, “ChatGPT Chat GPT AI With GPT-3” was the 5th most popular download, beating Google Docs. The app uses the OpenAI logo along with a name that clearly aims to maximize search hits.
And although it’s free to download, after three days the fake ChatGPT app starts with a ridiculously high $7.99 weekly subscription fee. Or you can opt for a monthly fee of $49.99, which is higher than a four-week subscription. Again, everything to theoretically access a tool that is 100% free on the web. The app appears to be an interface that allows users to send prompts to a bot and receive generated text back. However, as mentioned in a MacRumors report, the app’s results vary widely. Sometimes the app responds well to the prompt, and other times what it spits out is completely irrelevant, unlike the actual ChatGPT.
According to a LinkedIn post by venture capitalist and podcaster Jason Calacanis, who claims to have been given access to the beta, OpenAI appears to be working on a ChatGPT-based iOS app. But there is no publicly available official mobile version of ChatGPT yet. For now, if you want to get AI-generated, human-like answers to your questions without excessive fees, all you have to do is stick to a web browser, which is obviously available on smartphones.
Free to download, not so free to subscribe and use. Screenshot: Gizmodo / Apple
But back to the scammer app: a website that links to the App Store urges visitors to “experience the power of AI from your phone!” and offers the opportunity to “try our ChatBot GPT now!”. However, when I once tried to enter a prompt in the associated field, a pop-up window informed me that I had reached the “limit” and needed to download the app.
The ChatGPT Chat GPT AI With GPT-3 app currently has a rating of 4.6 out of 5, with more than 13,000 reviews – which is probably partly responsible for its continued popularity. However, many of the written reviews cite the app’s unreliability, cost, and total lack of a support team. Other criticisms include that the OpenAI mimic provides incorrect answers to basic questions (which, in fairness, is also a problem with the real ChatGPT), provides too short answers, simply doesn’t work, and sends out a high number of notifications.
Despite the apparent sketchiness, “ChatGPT Chat GPT AI With GPT-3” has successfully passed the Apple App Store review process many times since its launch three weeks ago, according to MacRumors. A similar app by the same developer on the Google Play Store, however, has been removed, as first reported by TechCrunch. Before the Play Store version was removed, it surpassed 100,000 downloads.
Gizmodo reached out to Apple and Google for more information on how the companies manage these bogus ChatGPT apps, but didn’t get an immediate response.