ChatGPT has been spouting gibberish because of an OpenAI bug

OpenAI's ChatGPT was experiencing an unusual bug on Tuesday night

By
We may earn a commission from links on this page.
Image for article titled ChatGPT has been spouting gibberish because of an OpenAI bug
Photo: PeachY Photograph (Shutterstock)

ChatGPT started throwing out “unexpected responses” on Tuesday night according to OpenAI’s status page. Users posted screenshots of their ChatGPT conversations full of wild, nonsensical answers from the AI chatbot. The issue appears to be continuing into Wednesday morning.

“We are investigating reports of unexpected responses from ChatGPT,” said OpenAI on its status page at 6:40 p.m. EST Tuesday night. “We’re continuing to monitor the situation,” the company updated the page at 7:59 p.m. EST.

Advertisement
Advertisement

“Clearly, something is very wrong with ChatGPT right now,” posted one user on the ChatGPT subreddit. The poster noted responses begin normally, then “devolve into nonsense.”

Advertisement

“Is my GPT having a stroke?” said another user. “The responses are getting progressively more incomprehensible,” followed by a nonsense response from ChatGPT.

Many shocking, nonsensical responses from ChatGPT were posted on X and Reddit from Tuesday night into Wednesday morning. ChatGPT’s responses were some mix of English, Spanish, and straight jibberish. There were also a few emojis thrown in there. In some cases, ChatGPT was simply repeating the same phrase over and over again, until it filled up a user’s screen. The bug even affected ChatGPT Enterprise, according to one user’s post on X. One user posted a video of ChatGPT writing a lengthy, manic essay in response to a simple question.

Advertisement

OpenAI did not immediately respond to Gizmodo’s request for comment.

It’s unclear at this time what is causing this bug with ChatGPT, but it appears to be widespread and different from typical outages. OpenAI’s status page is typically used to report outages and heavy traffic, but the “unexpected responses” warning is unusual.

Advertisement

Gizmodo did not have any trouble with ChatGPT as of Wednesday morning, but other user complaints are still flowing in. The problem appears to be active on OpenAI’s status page as of 8:45 a.m. EST.

This article originally appeared on Gizmodo.