How do large language models like ChatGPT learn to talk?

Large language models like ChatGPT learn to talk by practicing with lots of examples from books, websites, and conversations.

Imagine you're learning how to speak by listening to your parents, teachers, and friends talk every day. You hear them say many different things, and over time, you start to understand how sentences are made and how people express their thoughts. That’s kind of what happens with large language models, but instead of just one person teaching them, they're learning from millions of examples.

Think of a big book that has every sentence ever said in it. A model like ChatGPT reads through this giant book, piece by piece. It looks at the words and tries to guess what comes next, just like you might try to finish someone's sentence when they're talking. The more examples it sees, the better it gets at predicting the right word or phrase.

At first, ChatGPT makes a lot of mistakes, it might say “The cat ran to the tree” instead of “The cat ran to the house.” But every time it makes a mistake, it learns from it. It’s like when you're learning to read and you mix up letters, the more you practice, the better you get.

Over time, ChatGPT gets really good at predicting what people might say next, and that's how it learns to talk!