November 30, 2022, is a day that marked the start of a new era in the world of digitization. The launch of ChatGPT by OpenAI on this day was a major technological leap forward in AI. Since then, everyone has got crazy about this AI-powered chatbot that took just 5 days to gain one million users. 

In March 2023, OpenAI released the advanced version of ChatGPT called GPT-4, which AI experts say is 500 times more powerful than its predecessor GPT-3.5. The tool has reshaped human communication with machines and completely changed the way people perceive artificial intelligence. However, some users also believe that GPT-4 is not as powerful as it was rumored before it was released. 

So, how powerful GPT-4 is from GPT3.5? Are there any major differences or we are just hearing a noise with no long-term implications? Let’s answer these questions in this article. 

A Brief Introduction to ChatGPT 

ChatGPT is a natural language model based on the GPT architecture. The tool was created by US-based AI company OpenAI which trained it on a diverse range of text from the internet. Besides, ChatGPT can generate human-like responses to a variety of complicated prompts and accept text and image inputs. 

Since its launch, several companies and professionals around the globe have been actively using ChatGPT to complete their day-to-day tasks in less time. According to an estimate, employees from the world’s leading tech companies including Google, IBM, Amazon, and Twitter are using ChatGPT and similar Ai tools for planning, decision-making, and data analysis. 

What is GPT-3.5 and GPT-4? 

GPT refers to the Generative Pre-trained Transformer, a type of neural network architecture for natural language processing. It uses self-attention mechanisms to process sequential input data such as text and images. 

GPT-3.5 is a part of the Generative pre-training Model series developed by OpenAI. It was released in November 2022 to generate high-quality text and talk in human-like conversations.  

On the other hand, GPT-4 is an advanced version of ChatGPT that became public in March 2023. With improved problem-solving skills, GPT-4 can understand the context and distinguish nuances much better than its predecessor GPT-3.5. Besides, it can process up to 25,000 words while GPT-3.5 could process 3,125 words only. 

GPT-3.5 vs. GPT-4: What are the Differences? 

Let’s compare GPT-3.5 with GPT-4 and identify key differences between these two versions of ChatGPT.

1. Creativity and Coherence

Creativity is the basic prerequisite for developing premium-quality content, and GPT-4 outperforms GPT-3.5 when it comes to generating creative content. Especially, if you are working on a complicated task where you need a higher level of creativity, GPT-4 should be your preferred choice. 

Let’s understand this with an example. Suppose you want to write a marketing copy for a fabric brand targeting both men and women with 3 different age groups across 5 locations. You need mixed content incorporating relevant keywords, CTAs, and transitional terms to it look more attractive and engaging.  

Only GPT-4 can provide you with content that meets your requirements and delivers exceptional results. On the other hand, ad copy generated by GPT-3.5 would be relatively less engaging juggling around irrelevant sentences.

2. Content Tone and Fineness

Although GPT-3.5 can generate human-like responses for a variety of prompts, it has certain limitations with understanding different dialectics. Moreover, this older model of ChatGPT cannot include emotions in their responses which makes interaction less personalized. 

Contrary to this, GPT-4 is extremely powerful when it comes to dealing with dialects or handling cultural variations of regional languages. The tool can interpret complex prompts in various dialects. Besides, the text generated by GPT-4 contains diverse vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation.

3. Variety of Prompts

GPT-3.5 is limited to text prompts only. Users cannot ask their questions or queries in any other form like images, videos, GIFs, etc. 

However, GPT-4 is multimodal with the ability to process both text and visual prompts. This means you can upload the image of a handwritten trigonometry or integration problem to GPT-4 and get it solved in minutes. Isn’t it amazing? 

Recently, a user uploaded an image of his refrigerator and asked GPT-4 to suggest recipes for foods that can be made by using the ingredients visible in the image. Within one time, GPT-4 gave a complete list of foods and recipes with high accuracy. This is something GPT-3.5 cannot do.

4. Well-researched Information

One unique ability of ChatGPT is that it can generate well-researched content for wider user needs. However, when it comes to connecting the dots and synthesizing information from different sources, GPT-3.5 struggles most of the time. 

Hence, GPT-4 is always the preferred choice of researchers, academics, and marketers. This next-generation AI tool synthesizes information from different highly credible resources as well as properly cites these resources in desired referencing format. 

For instance, if you ask GPT-3.5 about the origin of the COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on the global economy, particularly emerging nations, the response would be less accurate with a lot of irrelevant information. This is not the case with GPT-4 because it can provide a more comprehensive, balanced, and nuanced answer by citing the sources of information.

5. Writing a Code

A lot of people often ask whether ChatGPT can write code or not. Here’s the answer. 

GPT-3.5 is just a text-to-text model that deals with natural language only. It accepts text prompts, process information, and delivers results in text form. Hence, there is no chance of writing a programming code with GPT-3.5. 

If we talk about GPT-4, its programming capabilities allow users to generate code snippets in different languages with ease. Not only this, the tool can even debug the code written by software developers and identify potential bugs or errors to further improve its quality. 

Hence, software engineers and IT professionals can use GPT-4 to write codes and complete their jobs in less time. Nevertheless, they should use relevant prompts with clear goals to help GPT-4 quickly understand the meaning and deliver quick results. 

Wrapping Up 

The debate between GPT-3.5 and GPT-4 ends here. Older versions of the GPT series like GPT-3 and GPT-3.5 come nowhere near GPT-4 when it comes to accepting multinodular prompts, understanding complex inputs, and generating high-quality content. 

Besides, GPT-4 beats all previous models in terms of creativity and coherence, content tone and fineness, information synthesis, and ability to write code. 

Having said that, there is a lot of room for improvement in terms of addressing neutrality, recalling previous interactions, and reducing hallucinations for even better results. OpenAI has been working to further innovative the ChatGPT. Hence, more improvements are expected in the coming months.