# Why ChatGPT doesn't understand **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Tags:** ai\ **Created:** [February 26, 2023, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-chatgpt-doesnt-understand/980404 "2023-02-26T18:13:29Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 172
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2023, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-chatgpt-doesnt-understand/980404/172 "2023-05-22T19:03:50Z")
> [@suranyi](#): > > For creative writing exercises where the validity of the output isn’t important, I guess it’s fine. I’m looking for a device that, when I ask it to solve a problem or to give me some factual information, it gives me a reliable answer. The **[main thread](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-next-page-in-the-book-of-ai-evolution-is-here-powered-by-gpt-3-5-and-i-am-very-nay-extremely-impressed/975945)** on this subject has lots of examples of ChatGPT solving problems and giving factual information. I see you’ve participated in that thread but it’s very long and you may have missed some of these examples. Granted that it has no provision for fact-checking or confidence rating so its responses can, indeed, sometimes be wrong, but even in its current form it’s a very useful general tool for comprehensively answering questions, provided you’re willing to do some quick sanity checks. I’ve long since stopped regarding it as a mere conversational toy, and I and many others actually find it genuinely useful for information retrieval because of its staggeringly vast collected body of knowledge. I think you’re vastly underestimating a major technological breakthrough with almost unimaginable potential. --- _[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-chatgpt-doesnt-understand/980404)._