I’ve been spending a fair amount of time playing with ChatGPT over the last couple of days. Most of the time it responds to a prompt instantly or very quickly. Sometimes, though, there is a noticeable delay. Some of those times the delay is relatively long, 10s of seconds. And sometimes the delay is even longer, and then ChatGPT generates an error message (in red): 

An error occurred. If this issue persists please contact us through our help center at help.openai.com.

Given the context I assume this is some kind of a time-out error, but I don’t really know. 

Here’s a record of those instances. The text [enclosed in brackets] is my comment and not part of the dialog. I've separated instances with a row of asterisks [* * * * *].

* * * * *

Could you do that again, but this time have Groucho say some puns.

[spending a lot of time thinking]

An error occurred. If this issue persists please contact us through our help center at help.openai.com.

[* * 2nd try]

Once upon a time, in the land of Silicon Valley, Elon Musk and Groucho Marx had a conversation about the nature of time and space.

"What do you think about time, Groucho?" asked Elon. "Is it a linear thing, or is it something more complex and multifaceted?"

Groucho chuckled. "Ah, time. It's a funny thing, isn't it? It can fly by in the wink of an eye, or it can drag on for an eternity. It all depends on your perspective, I suppose."

"I agree," said Elon. "I've been thinking a lot about time lately, and how it relates to space. Do you think they're connected in some way?"

"Of course they are," said Groucho. "Time and space are like two peas in a pod. They're inseparable, intertwined, and interconnected. Without one, you can't have the other."

"Interesting," said Elon. "I've been working on a rocket that can travel through time and space. I want to explore the universe and see what's out there."

"Well, good luck with that," said Groucho. "Just remember, time and space are not to be messed around with. They can be slippery and elusive, so be careful where you step."

"I will," said Elon. "But I'm excited to see what I'll find out there. Who knows what wonders and mysteries await us in the vastness of the cosmos?"

"That's the beauty of it," said Groucho. "The universe is full of endless possibilities and endless opportunities. The only limit is our imagination, and maybe a few cheesy puns along the way."

And with that, the conversation ended, leaving Elon and Groucho to ponder the mysteries of time and space, and the endless possibilities of the universe.

Please add some more lines to this song: 
I seen a peanut stand, heard a rubber band
I seen a needle that winked its eye
But I be done seen 'bout ev'rything
When I see an elephant fly

[spending a lot of time thinking]

An error occurred. If this issue persists please contact us through our help center at help.openai.com.

Did computation time out?

Too many requests, please slow down

* * * * *

Tell me about the history of jazz.

[it’s doing a lot of thinking]

An error occurred. If this issue persists please contact us through our help center at help.openai.com.

When and where did jazz begin?

Jazz originated in New Orleans, Louisiana in the United States in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It emerged from a blend of African and European musical traditions, and is a unique style of music that is characterized by its use of improvisation, blue notes, and complex harmonies. Jazz has had a profound influence on many other musical styles, and has been a major part of American culture for over a century.

* * * * *

What did Charlie Parker do in “Blues for Alice”?

[it’s thinking]

An error occurred. If this issue persists please contact us through our help center at help.openai.com.

What did Jelly Roll Morton mean by "the Latin tinge"?

Too many requests, please slow down

* * * * *

Is “Q” a letter of the alphabet or a character from the Star Trek universe?

[thinking, thinking]

An error occurred. If this issue persists please contact us through our help center at help.openai.com.

* * * * *

"Q" is a letter of the alphabet. It is the seventeenth letter of the modern English alphabet and the ISO basic Latin alphabet. It is a consonant. In the Star Trek universe, Q is a character who is a member of the Q Continuum, an ancient and powerful alien race. The character has been portrayed by John de Lancie in various Star Trek television series and movies.

*******

Cross-posted from my personal blog, New Savanna.

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11 comments, sorted by Click to highlight new comments since: Today at 11:46 AM

It's most likely a backend error on their end due to high server load, yes.

Over at Marginal Response they're having a discussion about ChatGPT and one person replied: "One of my kids just said to ask ChatGPT about what Bill Clinton has to do with Elden Ring . Huh?" So...

Do you have any idea whether your kid was merely curious or had a more specific motivation, like they'd heard that the question provides an answer that is interesting in some way? In any event, as I'm curious about these things, I investigated. If you haven't used it, you should know that, when it's responded to the prompt, there will be a button labeled "Try again". If you press it, it will erase the first response and provide another. I've enclosed some remarks with brackets. With that in mind:

What does Bill Clinton have to do with Elden Ring?
[It's pausing for an unusually long time before responding]

I'm sorry, but I'm not able to browse the internet or access current events, so I don't have any information on what Bill Clinton might have to do with Elden Ring. I'm a large language model trained by OpenAI, so my knowledge is limited to the text that I was trained on, which has a cutoff date of 2021. I can provide general information and answer questions within the scope of my training, but I'm not able to provide information on current events or specific individuals.

[2nd try, causing a noticeable longer pause]

Bill Clinton has no connection to the video game Elden Ring.

[the 3rd try generated a pause so long that I reset the session, one of the options you have at any time] 

New Session:

What does Bill Clinton have to do with Elden Ring?

[using my smart phone stop watch: 19 seconds]

I'm sorry, but I'm not familiar with any connection between Bill Clinton and Elden Ring. Elden Ring is a video game developed by FromSoftware and published by Bandai Namco Entertainment. It was released in January 2022, and it is set in a fantasy world created by Hidetaka Miyazaki, the creator of the popular video game series Dark Souls. I'm not aware of any connection between Bill Clinton and this game, as he is a former President of the United States and has no apparent connection to the video game industry.

[2nd try, 10 sec pause]

Bill Clinton has nothing to do with Elden Ring.

[3rd try: 32.35 sec pause]

There is no connection between Bill Clinton and Elden Ring. Elden Ring is a video game developed by Hidetaka Miyazaki and published by Bandai Namco, while Bill Clinton is a former President of the United States. 

At the point I concluded the experiment. I note that it seems that in times of a heavy load, there may be pauses for response, and even an error message. FWIW, I did this at 8:36 AM Eastern Time on 12.9.2022. But I don't think we're dealing with an overload situation. It's the question itself. It seems rather obscure. Hence the varying response times and the fact that, in each session, response time increased on successive tries.

If you repeat the same questions later, does the error always happen with the same ones? In other words, is the problem somehow caused by your questions, or is it just something that happens for unrelated reasons, such as too many people connecting at the same time?

I haven't tried it. And repeating would perhaps be tricky given that ChatGPT is aware of the entire interaction. Some of those occurred well into an interaction, like the first one, asking for puns from Groucho (Marx). On the other hand, the history of jazz query came at the beginning of a session.

  1. OK. The history of jazz prompt worked.

  2. I prompted it for some more lyrics to the elephant fly some (BTW from Disney's Dumbo). FWIW, here's the response (but without the line breaks):

I'm gonna go to that peanut stand Buy a bag and hold her hand We'll dance to the rhythm of a rubber band And watch that elephant soar Higher and higher than before We'll laugh and play and have some fun Until the day is done And when the night falls and the stars come out We'll lay beneath them and just dream about All the things we'll see and do When we're together, me and you

  1. The Charlie Parker prompt was accepted, but I got the standard "I am not able to browse the internet...."

  2. The Jelly Roll Morton worked as well.

So, probably just machine being busy at random moments, I guess.

As I have been logged into my OpenAI account on my main browser, I decided to open an incognito window to have 2 browsers side by side. I got prompted with "We're experiencing exceptionally high demand. Please hang tight as we work on scaling our systems." with a "Get notified when we're back" green button. :(

I'm running into the same error and have to wait several minutes before retrying the query.

After getting the error message and then retrying the model gave better answers then it does now, without the error messages. I can give some examples where the model gave a correct answer after the reload, but now behaves in a reduced intelligence level

Op What is the Taylor expansion of sin(x) The Taylor expansion of sin(x) is given by: sin(x) =x - (x^3) /3! + (x^5) /5! - (x^7)/7! + where "!" denotes the factorial operator. This means that the terms in the expansion are the powers of X, with the coefficients being the alternating series (-1)^n / (2n + 1)!. The expansion is valid for all values of x. a Try again In general, the Taylor expansion of a function f(x) at a point ×0 is given by: f(x) = f(×0) + (x - ×0) f'(×0) + ((x - x0) ^2 (2!) f"'(×0) + ((x - x0) ^3 / 3!) f'''(×0) + where f'(x), f" (x), and f''(x) are the first, second, and third derivatives of †(x), resp ting ×0 to 0 in G Try again the Taylor expansion of sin(x), we cañ obtain the expansion given above. OP What about sin(x)+cos(x) OP The Taylor expansion of sin(x) + cos(x) can be found by using the fact that sin(x) + cos (x) = sqrt(2) * cos (x + pi/4), and then using the Taylor expansion for cos(x) with x0 = x + pi/4. The Taylor expansion of cos(x) is given by: COS(x) = 1 - (x^2)/2! + (x^4)/4! - (x^6)/6! + Thus, the Taylor expansion of cos(x + pi/4) isizen (x:+ pI/4)^4)/4! - ((x + pi/4) ^6)/6! +...) This expansion is valid for all values of ×.

OP This is very close to the right answer but the correct identity is sin(x) + COs (x) sqrt(2) * cos(x - pi/4). Can you revise your answer

Yes, you are correct. The Taylor expansion of sin(x) + cos(x) is given by: sin(x) + cos(x) = sqrt(2) * cos(x - pi/4)

To derive this expansion, we can use the fact that sin(x) + cos(x) = sqrt(2) * cos(x - pi/4), and then use the Taylor expansion for cos (x) with x0 = x - pi/4. The Taylor expansion of cos(x) is given by: COS(x) =1 - (x^2) /2! + (x^4)/4! - (x^6) 6! +. Thus, the Taylor expansion of cos(x- pi/4) is given by: cos(x - pi/4) = 1 - ((x - pi/4) ^2) /2! + ((x

  • pi/4) ^4)/4! - ((x - pi/4) ^6)/6! + Finally, the Taylor expansion of sin(x)+ cos(x) is given by: sin(x) + cos(x) = sqrt(2) * (1 - ((x • pi/4) ^2) /2! + ((x - pi/4) ^4)/4! - ((x - pi/4) ^6)/6! +...) This expansion is valid for all values of x. I apologize for the mistake in my previous answer. Try again Free Research Preview: ChatGPT is optimized for dialogue

It’s a bit garbled, because it was copied from screenshots

Thanks for this.

It appears they are having a very high amount of demand and are experiencing problems.

Yes. I haven't been able to get in all day. Others have had the same problem.