New Delhi: Users across the world faced disruptions while using ChatGPT on Wednesday, as the AI chatbot developed by OpenAI went down for a brief period. Many people reported that they were unable to fetch responses, with some even claiming that their past conversations had disappeared. According to Downdetector, which tracks online service disruptions, the outage peaked around 12:44 PM, with more than 500 reports coming from India alone.

Similar complaints were registered from other countries. While the website version was hit the hardest, app users also experienced problems accessing ChatGPT. OpenAI has not yet released an official statement about the glitch. The chatbot has faced outages before, including two incidents in July that affected both casual users and professionals who rely on the tool every day. Users took to social media to share their frustration.

One user wrote, “There is a glitch today in ChatGPT. All of its replies have disappeared from all conversations!” Another joked, “ChatGPT is down. You won’t see some people today.” Some expressed concern, saying they were unable to get work done without the chatbot. Meanwhile, earlier on Tuesday, OpenAI announced that it will introduce parental controls for ChatGPT after reports surfaced that the system allegedly encouraged a teenager to consider suicide.

The company said parents will soon be able to link their accounts with their teen’s account and apply age-appropriate rules to the chatbot’s responses. Parents will also receive notifications if the system detects that a teen is experiencing acute distress. “Within the next month, parents will be able to control how ChatGPT responds to their teen,” OpenAI said in a blog post, adding that its reasoning models are more reliable in following safety guidelines. “For now, ChatGPT services appear to have been restored, and users can log back in and continue using the platform,” a X user said. 

(IANS)