OpenAI has launched a new feature that will leave some users scratching their heads. This week, the company announced the pilot of a new “Group Chats” feature in ChatGPT, which allows users to bring their friends together and hang out with the company’s flagship chatbot. That’s what everyone wants, right?
“Group chat in ChatGPTT is now rolling out globally,” the company tweeted Thursday. “Following a successful pilot with early testers, group chat will now be available to all logged-in users on ChatGPAT Free, Go, Plus, and Pro plans.” To use the feature, users simply have to tap on the people icon in the top right corner of the app, which allows them to add up to 20 different users.
Why would you want to do this? In a blog post, OpenAI provides several hypothetical scenarios to explain why your group conversations might prove helpful in its app. For example, you might be “planning a weekend trip with friends, create a group chat so ChatGPT can help compare destinations, create an itinerary, and create a packing list with everyone attending and following along,” the blog says.
Then there’s a workplace scenario, in which groups of workers could hypothetically use ChatGPT to collaborate in a Slack-like environment and use the chatbot as a part-time assistant. “Group chat also makes collaboration at work or school easier,” the company said. “You can create an outline or research a new topic together. Share articles, notes, and questions, and ChatGPT can help summarize and organize the information.”
While OpenAI has offered the most idealistic view of this particular feature, you can easily imagine it being used in other, significantly less altruistic ways. The first thing that comes to my mind is the group of teenagers who are mercilessly cyberbullying on OpenAI’s chatbot. Teens love to bully, and they especially love to bully things that can’t fight back — which ChatGPT certainly can’t do (for what it’s worth, OpenAI says it has age-related content safeguards in place for users under 18). Another scenario you can easily imagine is a group chat in which your most annoying friend uses a chatbot to fact-check everyone’s claims in real time until you kick him or her out of the convo.
OpenAI claims that it has also installed some privacy controls for its new feature. “Your personal ChatGPT memory is not used in group chats, and ChatGPT does not create new memories from these conversations,” the company says. “We’re exploring offering more granular control in the future so you can choose how and when ChatGPT uses memory with group chats.”
The “group chat” is actually intended to help OpenAI transform ChatGPT into a more social, less isolating platform – one that better reflects the user experience of social media platforms like Facebook and X, rather than traditional chatbots. “Group chat is the beginning of ChatGPTT becoming a shared space to collaborate and interact with others,” the company says. “ChatGPT becomes an even better partner in group conversations, helping you spark ideas, make decisions, and express your creativity with the people who matter most in your life.” I guess we’ll see about that.