Like many others you may have seen the countless references to ChatGPT and AI chatbots over the last few months, but weren't sure how to sign up for ChatGPT or whether it was worth your time.
We're going to help you with that first part with a quick walkthrough on signing up. The latter is more of an open question that we are continuing to explore ourselves. We've covered how ChatGPT can write emails based on Zoom calls and how you can use ChatGPT to create an entire PowerPoint presentation, but the possibilities are just about limitless, so chances are there's a use case out there for you.
But whatever uses for ChatGPT might be, the journey starts with just a few simple steps, so follow along and we'll show you how to sign up for ChatGPT.
How to sign up for ChatGPT
1. Go to https://chat.openai.com/
Navigate to https://chat.openai.com/ in your preferred browser.
2. Enter your email address or use single sign-on via Google or Microsoft account
Enter your email address if you would prefer to have a standalone OpenAI account or you can opt to use either your Google or Microsoft account for single sign-on (SSO). If you chose to enter your email address you will need to click Continue when you're done, otherwise simply follow the instructions for SSO.
3. That's it, start using ChatGPT!
You've arrived at the main chat screen for ChatGPT.
Signing up was the easy part, now you need to think about how you want to use ChatGPT. OpenAI gives you a few sample ideas to give you a general sense of what you can ask it and how to shape the answers.
So "Explain quantum computing in simple terms" is one way to make it give you a more basic answer to a complex question. You could also phrase it as "Explain quantum computing like I'm 10." I did exactly that and it tried to relate to my theoretical 10-year-old self by centering the explanation around Legos, which seems like a rational tactic.
You can ask it to answer questions, write content for you, and much more. Just remember some of the warnings as well, it will get things wrong at times, it may produce offensive or ill-advised content, and it doesn't know much about anything that's happened since 2021.
We'll be delving more into uses for ChatGPT, Google Bard, and some of the other AI chatbots in the coming weeks and months, but for now welcome to the world of ChatGPT, have fun.
