If you're into AI models or chatbots, you might have seen discussions about the mysterious GPT-2 chatbot and its effectiveness.

Here, we explain what the GPT-2 chatbot is and how you can access it.

What Is GPT-2 Chatbot?

In late April 2024, a mysterious AI model named gpt2-chatbot became available on LMSYS, a site for testing and benchmarking LLMs.

Its excellent results boosted its popularity quickly, and many considered it as good as or even better than GPT-4. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman's tweets further fueled the hype.

Soon after the chatbot started trending, LMSYS removed it from its website, citing high traffic and capacity limits in a post on X. However, it returned almost a week later with two different versions: im-a-good-gpt2-chatbot and im-also-a-good-gpt2-chatbot.

Later, when OpenAI released a new model called GPT-4o, it was revealed that the GPT-2 chatbot wasn't based on GPT-2 but GPT-4o.

Was GPT-2 Actually GPT-4o?

Yes, the mysterious gpt2-chatbot is actually OpenAI's upgraded GPT-4o model, which offers more features compared to OpenAI's previous GPT models.

On the day GPT-4o was announced, an OpenAI employee revealed that they had been testing GPT-4o on LMSYS under the name of im-also-a-good-gpt2-chatbot. Sam Altman reposted this on X, confirming the statement.

You Can Still Access GPT-2 Chatbot and Give It a Try

Now that GPT-4o has been made available to ChatGPT users, and we know that the GPT-2 chatbot was actually GPT-4o, you can simply go to ChatGPT and use GPT-4o.

However, if you want to take GPT-4o's trial versions for a spin, th e GPT-2 chatbot is still available on LMSYS. To access the GPT-2 chatbot, go to the Chat LMSYS site, select the Direct Chat mode, and choose im-also-a-good-gpt2-chatbot from the drop-down menu.

Is GPT-2 Worth Using? Or Should You Just Use GPT-4o?

Even before it was revealed as GPT-4o, there were discussions about how good the GPT-2 chatbot was. Considering it was performing even better than GPT-4, there were speculations about whether it was GPT-4.5 or even GPT-5. According to X user @itsandrewgao, GPT-2 chatbot solved an International Math Olympiad question. Another X user created a Flappy Bird game using code generated by GPT-2.

According to OpenAI data, GPT-4o performs better than any other AI model in tests, and OpenAI's demo also showed that GPT-4o was an improvement over existing models. Similarly, on the LMSYS Chatbot Arena Leaderboard, GPT-4o has already overtaken GPT-4 Turbo. So, yes, the hype around gpt2-chatbot (or GPT-4o) makes sense. But given GPT-4o will continue to receive updates and fine-tuning post-release, you're better off using GPT-4o on ChatGPT, rather than the older, trial GPT-2 model.