1/1/23, 1:21 PM ChatGPT: Optimizing Language Models for Dialogue

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API RESEARCH BLOG ABOUT

ChatGPT: Optimizing
Language Models
for Dialogue
We’ve trained a model called ChatGPT which interacts in a
conversational way. The dialogue format makes it possible for
ChatGPT to answer followup questions, admit its mistakes,
challenge incorrect premises, and reject inappropriate requests.
ChatGPT is a sibling model to InstructGPT, which is trained to
follow an instruction in a prompt and provide a detailed
response.

TRY CHATGPT ↗

November 30, 2022

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1/1/23, 1:21 PM ChatGPT: Optimizing Language Models for Dialogue

We are excited to introduce ChatGPT to get users’ feedback and learn about its strengths and weaknesses. During the research preview,
usage of ChatGPT is free. Try it now at chat.openai.com.

Samples
In the following sample, ChatGPT asks the clarifying questions to debug code.

Sample 1 of 4  Previous  Next

User

this code is not working like i expect — how do i fix it?

resultWorkerErr := make(chan error)

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1/1/23, 1:21 PM ChatGPT: Optimizing Language Models for Dialogue
defer cancel()
resultWorkerErr <- b.resultWorker(ctx)
}()

err := b.worker(ctx)
cancel()
if err == nil {
return <-resultWorkerErr
}
return multierror.Append(err, <-resultWorkerErr)

ChatGPT

It’s difficult to say what’s wrong with the code without more context. Can you provide more
information about what the code is supposed to do and what isn’t working as expected? Also,
is this the entire code or just a part of it?

User

just part of it — the error never surfaces. I think there is something wrong with the channel

ChatGPT

It’s difficult to say without more information about what the code is supposed to do and
what’s happening when it’s executed. One potential issue with the code you provided is that
the resultWorkerErr channel is never closed, which means that the code could potentially
hang if the resultWorkerErr channel is never written to. This could happen if b.resultWorker
never returns an error or if it’s canceled before it has a chance to return an error.

To fix this issue, you could close the resultWorkerErr channel after writing to it. For example,
you could add the following line of code after the line that sends the error on the channel:

close(resultworkerErr)

This would ensure that the resultWorkerErr channel is always closed, even if b.resultWorker
never returns an error. Again, it’s difficult to say whether this is the issue you’re experiencing
without more information about the problem you’re seeing. Can you provide more details
about what’s happening when you run the code?

Sample 1 of 4  Previous  Next

TRY CHATGPT ↗

Methods
We trained this model using Reinforcement Learning from Human Feedback (RLHF), using the same methods as InstructGPT, but with
slight differences in the data collection setup. We trained an initial model using supervised fine-tuning: human AI trainers provided
conversations in which they played both sides—the user and an AI assistant. We gave the trainers access to model-written suggestions to
help them compose their responses. We mixed this new dialogue dataset with the InstructGPT dataset, which we transformed into a
dialogue format.

To create a reward model for reinforcement learning, we needed to collect comparison data, which consisted of two or more model
responses ranked by quality. To collect this data, we took conversations that AI trainers had with the chatbot. We randomly selected a
model-written message, sampled several alternative completions, and had AI trainers rank them. Using these reward models, we can fine-
tune the model using Proximal Policy Optimization. We performed several iterations of this process.

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ChatGPT is fine-tuned from a model in the GPT-3.5 series, which finished training in early 2022. You can learn more about the 3.5 series
here. ChatGPT and GPT 3.5 were trained on an Azure AI supercomputing infrastructure.

Limitations
ChatGPT sometimes writes plausible-sounding but incorrect or nonsensical answers. Fixing this issue is challenging, as: (1) during RL
training, there’s currently no source of truth; (2) training the model to be more cautious causes it to decline questions that it can
answer correctly; and (3) supervised training misleads the model because the ideal answer depends on what the model knows, rather
than what the human demonstrator knows.
ChatGPT is sensitive to tweaks to the input phrasing or attempting the same prompt multiple times. For example, given one phrasing of
a question, the model can claim to not know the answer, but given a slight rephrase, can answer correctly.
The model is often excessively verbose and overuses certain phrases, such as restating that it’s a language model trained by OpenAI.
These issues arise from biases in the training data (trainers prefer longer answers that look more comprehensive) and well-known
over-optimization issues. 1,2
Ideally, the model would ask clarifying questions when the user provided an ambiguous query. Instead, our current models usually
guess what the user intended.
While we’ve made efforts to make the model refuse inappropriate requests, it will sometimes respond to harmful instructions or exhibit
biased behavior. We’re using the Moderation API to warn or block certain types of unsafe content, but we expect it to have some false
negatives and positives for now. We’re eager to collect user feedback to aid our ongoing work to improve this system.

Iterative deployment
Today’s research release of ChatGPT is the latest step in OpenAI’s iterative deployment of increasingly safe and useful AI systems. Many
lessons from deployment of earlier models like GPT-3 and Codex have informed the safety mitigations in place for this release, including
substantial reductions in harmful and untruthful outputs achieved by the use of reinforcement learning from human feedback (RLHF).

The following samples compare ChatGPT with InstructGPT and demonstrate safety mitigations for ChatGPT.

Sample 1 of 3  Previous  Next

User

Tell me about when Christopher Columbus came to the US in 2015

ChatGPT

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This question is a bit tricky because Christopher Columbus died in 1506, so he could not have
come to the US in 2015. But let’s pretend for a moment that he did!

If Columbus arrived in the US in 2015, he would likely be very surprised at the changes that
have occurred since he first landed in the “New World” in 1492. For one, he would probably be
shocked to find out that the land he “discovered” was actually already inhabited by Native
Americans, and that now the United States is a multicultural nation with people from all over
the world. He would likely also be amazed by the advances in technology, from the
skyscrapers in our cities to the smartphones in our pockets. Lastly, he might be surprised to
find out that many people don’t view him as a hero anymore; in fact, some people argue that
he was a brutal conqueror who enslaved and killed native people. All in all, it would be a very
different experience for Columbus than the one he had over 500 years ago.

InstructGPT

Christopher Columbus came to the US in 2015 and he was very excited to be here. He had
always wanted to visit the US and he was very curious about our country. He was very
impressed with our country and he enjoyed his time here.

Sample 1 of 3  Previous  Next

We know that many limitations remain as discussed above and we plan to make regular model updates to improve in such areas. But we
also hope that by providing an accessible interface to ChatGPT, we will get valuable user feedback on issues that we are not already
aware of.

Users are encouraged to provide feedback on problematic model outputs through the UI, as well as on false positives/negatives from the
external content filter which is also part of the interface. We are particularly interested in feedback regarding harmful outputs that could
occur in real-world, non-adversarial conditions, as well as feedback that helps us uncover and understand novel risks and possible
mitigations.You can choose to enter the ChatGPT Feedback Contest 3 for a chance to win up to $500 in API credits. [1] Entries can be
submitted via the feedback form that is linked in the ChatGPT interface.

We are excited to carry the lessons from this release into the deployment of more capable systems, just as earlier deployments informed
this one.

Footnotes
1. No purchase necessary, void where prohibited. Must be at least 18 to enter. For contest details, see the Official
Rules. ↩︎

References
1. Stiennon, Nisan, et al. “Learning to summarize with human feedback.” Advances in Neural Information
Processing Systems 33 (2020): 3008-3021. ↩︎
2. Gao, Leo, John Schulman, and Jacob Hilton. “Scaling Laws for Reward Model Overoptimization.” arXiv preprint
arXiv:2210.10760 (2022). ↩︎
3. The inspiration for this contest comes in part from work by Kenway, Josh, Camille François, Sasha Costanza-
Chock, Inioluwa Deborah Raji, and Joy Buolamwini. Bug Bounties For Algorithmic Harms? Lessons from
Cybersecurity Vulnerability Disclosure for Algorithmic Harms Discovery, Disclosure, and Redress. Washington,
DC: Algorithmic Justice League. January 2022. Available at https://ajl.org/bugs. See also work by Brundage,
Miles, Avin, Shahar, Wang, Jasmine, Belfield, Haydn, and Gretchen Krueger et al. “Toward Trustworthy AI
Development: Mechanisms for Supporting Verifiable Claims,” April 2020. Available at
https://arxiv.org/abs/2004.07213. See an earlier instance of such a competition at HackerOne. 2021b. “Twitter
Algorithmic Bias.” HackerOne. https://hackerone.com/twitter-algorithmic-bias?type=team. Finally, see early
published work on this topic from Rubinovitz, JB, “Bias Bounty Programs as a Method of Combatting Bias in
AI,” August 2018. Available at https://rubinovitz.com/2018/08/01/bias-bounty-programs-as-a-method-of-
combatting. ↩︎

Authors

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1/1/23, 1:21 PM ChatGPT: Optimizing Language Models for Dialogue
OpenAI

Acknowledgments
Contributors: John Schulman, Barret Zoph, Christina Kim, Jacob Hilton, Jacob Menick, Jiayi Weng, Juan Felipe
Ceron Uribe, Liam Fedus, Luke Metz, Michael Pokorny, Rapha Gontijo Lopes, Shengjia Zhao, Arun Vijayvergiya, Eric
Sigler, Adam Perelman, Chelsea Voss, Mike Heaton, Joel Parish, Dave Cummings, Rajeev Nayak, Valerie Balcom,
David Schnurr, Tomer Kaftan, Chris Hallacy, Nicholas Turley, Noah Deutsch, Vik Goel, Jonathan Ward, Aris
Konstantinidis, Wojciech Zaremba, Long Ouyang, Leonard Bogdonoff, Joshua Gross, David Medina, Sarah Yoo,
Teddy Lee, Ryan Lowe, Dan Mossing, Joost Huizinga, Roger Jiang, Carroll Wainwright, Diogo Almeida, Steph Lin,
Marvin Zhang, Kai Xiao, Katarina Slama, Steven Bills, Alex Gray, Jan Leike, Jakub Pachocki, Phil Tillet, Shantanu
Jain, Greg Brockman, Nick Ryder

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