By Smartencyclopedia with Agencies

San Francisco – Popular AI chatbot ChatGPT, developed by OpenAI, is experiencing another outage on Thursday afternoon, leaving users frustrated and unable to access the service.

According to Downdetector.com, a website that tracks online service outages, over 50,000 reports of ChatGPT malfunction started pouring in around 1:30 PM EST. As of 3:30 PM EST, the issue persists with over 3,400 new outage reports.

Attempts to interact with ChatGPT resulted in an “Internal Server Error” message, further confirming the service disruption. OpenAI acknowledged the issue in a statement posted at 3:06 PM EST, attributing the outage to an unnamed internet service provider and stating they are “continuing to work on a fix.”

This outage comes just two weeks after a similar incident that lasted roughly six hours, as reported by TechCrunch. The recurring downtime is causing frustration among users, with some taking to X, the platform hosting ChatGPT’s competitor Grok, to express their discontent. Jokes about resorting back to “using their own brains” highlight the disruption caused by the outage.

OpenAI has not yet provided a timeline for when ChatGPT will be fully functional again. The company’s reliance on third-party internet service providers raises concerns about potential vulnerabilities and the need for increased redundancy to ensure consistent service delivery.

This incident underscores the growing importance of reliable AI infrastructure. As AI chatbots become more integrated into daily activities, ensuring their uninterrupted operation becomes critical. Both users and developers will be looking for OpenAI to address the root cause of these outages and implement measures to prevent future disruptions.