Update, 2:40 PM: ChatGPT was inaccessible to some users until noon. The status page that OpenAI maintains has now turned green again, so the problem has been resolved.
ChatGPT was unavailable or less accessible for some users between 9 AM and 12:30 PM. OpenAI reported that it had found the cause of the problem around 10:30 AM and was moving to mitigation. A message followed half an hour later because it was not that easy to solve the malfunction. The disruption then continued for at least two hours.
The last word on the outage should not have been said yet. Naturally, the question arises as to the nature of the problem and what made it difficult to resolve it quickly.
Original, 10:45 AM: OpenAI reports that ChatGPT is currently experiencing an outage. As a result, the service is not working for all users. The outage should not last too long, as the company provided an update around 10:30 AM stating that the cause of the problem was found.
On OpenAI’s status page, the company reported investigating an outage at ChatGPT. The AI tool is “unavailable for some users. According to the latest update, the problem is currently being fixed.
Source: OpenAI
Watch out for hallucinations
Reports of the outage began surfacing on Tuesday morning around 9:30 AM GMT. Reports of the problems started showing at Downdetector before 9 AM. Users would not be able to log in or get a response but an error message about an internal server error. In a test of our own, we could log in to the chat service but did not get a summary of our call history, and it was impossible to send questions to the chatbot.
Not all users get the error message, but longer loading times may be required, and the AI service seems to hallucinate or give wrong answers more often.
Previous outage in May
On May 23, the service also experienced an outage. The outage involved the Bing search engine and the Bing API, both from Microsoft. ChatGPT also responded with outdated information during that outage. It shows that the output of AI tools should always be checked carefully. After all, AIs can always make mistakes. Google’s AI search function also showed that after sending advice about glue on pizza out into the world.
Also read: Google limits AI search results to combat advice of glue on pizza