In very simple terms, it’s an AI that can process requests made in plain English and produce pretty good results. You can ask it to write an essay on a certain topic and it will give you a pretty good one, even more, you can ask it to code something for you and it will do a very decent job at it

ChatGPT is a chatbot based on GTP-3, which is a large language model, a relatively recent approach to machine-learned language processing. What it really does well is understand context, and have a large vocabulary and knowledge base. This lets it give relatively human-like responses to prompts from a user. It can combine different bits of knowledge in interesting ways that appear intelligent.

This has gotten people really existed, like the bot is approaching being able to pass the Turning Test. The problem is there isn't any real intellect behind it, it basically repeats things that people frequently say. That means, quite frequently it's quite wrong, and wrong in ways that people believe, making its answers believable, but still false.

So it does have some really breakthrough capabilities, but its impact is being overstated at the moment.

You can play with it here

https://chat.openai.com/chat

Ask it a question. tell it to tell you a joke. give it an essay question. it's quite impressive. but don't believe everything it says-- just because it sounds incredibly convincing doesn't mean it's true. it has a habit of making up facts and sounding really confident its correct

If you want an example, here is how ChatGPT answers if I give it your question (after correcting the typo, otherwise it doesn't understand the question).

GPT (short for "Generative Pre-trained Transformer") is a type of artificial intelligence technology that uses machine learning to generate natural language text. It does this by using a large dataset of text as a starting point and then training a model to predict the next word in a sequence of words, based on the context of the words that come before it.
The GPT model was developed by OpenAI, a research organization that focuses on artificial intelligence and machine learning. It has become a significant advancement in the field of natural language processing (NLP), as it has achieved impressive results in generating coherent and coherently structured text that can be difficult for humans to distinguish from text written by a person.
GPT-3 (short for "Generative Pre-trained Transformer 3") is a more recent version of the GPT model that has even more capabilities and has received a lot of attention in the media and in the tech industry. It is currently one of the most advanced language models available, and it has the ability to generate text in a wide range of styles and formats, including articles, stories, poems, and even code.
It is not clear what you are referring to when you say "ChatGPT." If you are interested in learning more about GPT or GPT-3, there is a wealth of information available online, including articles, research papers, and demos of the technology in action.

And here is what it does if I tell it to "Answer the question 'Can someone please explain what ChatGPT is and why it's such a big deal at the moment?' in a short humorous way"

ChatGPT is like a magical genie that lives inside your computer and can hold real-life conversations with you. It's basically a chatbot that's been supercharged with artificial intelligence, so it can understand what you're saying and respond in a way that's almost as good as a real person. ChatGPT is such a big deal right now because it's the closest thing we have to a sentient computer (well, besides the ones that are already trying to take over the world). So if you're tired of talking to your friends or family, just fire up ChatGPT and let it do the talking for you!