The Technical Leap
The technical differences between the free version of GPT-3.5 and the paid-for version of GPT-4 in ChatGPT Plus are significant. GPT-4 is described as being ten times more advanced than GPT-3.5, with a better understanding of context and nuances. This is largely due to a number of key differences:
Number of Parameters: While OpenAI does not reveal the exact number of parameters used in GPT-4, it is estimated that GPT-4 has been trained with around 100 trillion parameters, a significant increase from GPT-3's 175 billion parameters.
Multimodal Model: GPT-4 is a multimodal model, meaning it can process both text and image data. For example, it can accept an image as part of a prompt and provide an appropriate textual response.
Memory: GPT-4 has a much longer memory than previous versions. While GPT-3.5's short-term memory is around 8,000 words, GPT-4's short-term memory extends to around 64,000 words. Additionally, GPT-4 can pull text from web pages when you share a URL in the prompt.
Multilingual Capabilities: GPT-4 has improved multilingual capabilities. It can work with 25 languages other than English, including Dutch, German, and Spanish.
Steerability: GPT-4 has more 'steerability', meaning it provides more control over its responses using a 'personality' you pick.
Limited Search Capacity: While ChatGPT-4's LLM is still limited to training data up to September 2021, you can instruct it to also search the internet with Bing. This capability helps you get more timely answers.
Plugins: With plugins, another beta feature, OpenAI -- and third-party developers -- can work with external application programming interfaces to make ChatGPT-4 'smarter'.
Despite these improvements, it's important to remember that GPT-4 is not truly 'smart'. It is still an advanced, auto-complete, fill-in-the-blank machine, and its answers come from the most likely words, statistically speaking, to pop out of their LLMs.
Is GPT-4 Better? Is ChatGPT Plus Worth the Money?
The answer to both of these questions is yes, but it's important to remember that it's a useful aid for work, not a worker replacement.
ChatGPT, the Natural Language Generation (NLG) tool from OpenAI that auto-generates text, took the tech world by storm late in 2022. Now, the company's text-creation technology has leveled up to version 4, under the name GPT-4.
ChatGPT became popular fast. That caused server capacity problems, so it didn’t take long for OpenAI, the company behind it, to offer a paid version of the tech. This didn’t slow things down; ChatGPT (both paid and free versions) eventually attracted as much web traffic as the Bing search engine. There are still moments when basic ChatGPT exceeds capacity.
The paid version is called ChatGPT Plus (or ChatGPT+). The cost is $20 per month. OpenAI began a Plus pilot in early February (which went global on February 10); ChatGPT+ is now the primary way for people to get access to the underlying GPT-4 technology.
Is ChatGPT+ Worth the Money? The reports seem positive, and the stats presented by OpenAI are impressive. And anyone who has played with ChatGPT using the GPT-4 version will be impressed. For example, GPT-4 passed exams including the LSAT, SAT, Uniform Bar Exam, and GRE with higher scores. The company also says that compared with GPT-3.5, GPT-4 is 82% less likely to respond when prompts are technically not allowed, and it’s 60% less likely to fabricate facts, which in AI terms are called “hallucinations.”
A main difference between versions is that while GPT-3.5 is a text-to-text model, GPT-4 is more of a data-to-text model. It can do things the previous version never dreamed of. This infographic spells out some other differences.
For instance, GPT-4 accepts images as part of a prompt. In one example, it viewed an image of refrigerator contents and spit out recipes using the ingredients it saw. It can even explain why memes are funny. That makes GPT-4 what’s called a “multimodal model.” (ChatGPT+ will remain text-output-only for now, though.)
GPT-4 has a longer memory than previous versions. The more you chat with a bot powered by GPT-3.5, the less likely it will be able to keep up, after a certain point (of around 8,000 words). GPT-4 can keep up with a conversation of up to 64,000 words. That’s a lot of chatting.
Free Access to ChatGPT 3.5 and Subscription Access to ChatGPT 4
ChatGPT 3.5 is freely available at chat.open.ai. You can also opt for a subscription where you get access to chatGPT 4. Even if you have a paid subscription standard it uses 3.5, so don't forget to turn GPT-4 on. Although currently ChatGPT4 is limited to 25 messages per hour, it is worth it.
Conclusion
The evolution from GPT-3.5 to GPT-4 represents a significant leap in the field of artificial intelligence. While it's not without its flaws, the improvements in context understanding, memory, and multimodal capabilities make it a powerful tool for generating smart answers to challenging questions. Whether you're using the free version of GPT-3.5 or the paid-for version of GPT-4 in ChatGPT Plus, you're accessing some of the most advanced AI technology available today.
