The Unprecedented Rise

On November 30, 2022, OpenAI released ChatGPT to the public.

Most tech releases come and go. People get excited for a week and then move on. But something different happened with ChatGPT.

Within five days it had a million users. Within two months it had 100 million users. It became the fastest growing consumer application in history. Nothing had ever reached that many people that quickly. Not Facebook, not Instagram, not TikTok.

But raw user numbers don’t tell the whole story. The more interesting question is: what actually changed?

Who Could Use AI  Before and After

The first thing that changed was who could use AI. Before ChatGPT, artificial intelligence was mostly a thing that lived inside other products. You used it without knowing you were using it  when Google ranked your search results, when Netflix recommended a show, when Spotify picked your next song. AI was working in the background but it wasn’t something you talked to.

ChatGPT changed that. Suddenly anyone could open a browser and have a direct conversation with an AI system. A 65 year old grandmother who barely uses a smartphone could ask ChatGPT how to make her computer run faster. A high school student in Cairo could ask it to explain a chemistry concept they didn’t understand. A small business owner in Manila could ask it to write a product description. No training required. No manual to read. Just type and see what happens.

That democratization of AI is genuinely significant. For the first time, people who weren’t engineers or researchers could feel the power of these systems directly.

What We Expect from Software Now

The second thing that changed was what we expect from software. Before ChatGPT, software did what you told it to. You clicked buttons. You filled in forms. You followed menus. The software was dumb and you had to know exactly what to do to get the result you wanted.

After ChatGPT, people started expecting software to understand them. They started expecting to be able to describe what they want in normal English and have the software figure out how to do it. That’s a totally different relationship with technology. And now that people have experienced it, they don’t want to go back.

This is why every tech company panicked and started building AI into their products. Because users had seen what was possible and they started expecting that standard from everything.

The Conversation About Work Becomes Real

The third thing that changed was the conversation about work. You can’t talk about ChatGPT for more than five minutes without someone asking: is it going to take my job? That question was already out there before, but ChatGPT made it real in a way that abstract discussions about automation never did.

Because now it wasn’t hypothetical. You could actually go and test it. You could take a piece of writing you’d done and see if ChatGPT could do something similar. You could give it a task from your job and watch it try. For a lot of people, that was eye opening  in different directions. Some people saw the output and thought “this will never replace me.” Others saw it and thought “okay, this is a problem.”

The reality is more nuanced than either reaction. ChatGPT made clear that AI could do a lot of the mechanical, repetitive parts of many jobs. It also made clear that the distinctly human parts  judgment, relationships, creativity, context  are much harder to replicate than people thought.

The Investment Explosion

The fourth thing that changed was investment. ChatGPT was basically a starting gun for one of the biggest investment booms in technology history. Billions of dollars started flowing into AI companies. Every major tech company started or accelerated their own AI programs. Venture capitalists started funding AI startups at a pace that was almost frantic.

That investment has a direct impact on how fast the technology improves. More money means more researchers, more computing power, more experiments. The speed of improvement in AI since 2022 is directly connected to the explosion in investment that ChatGPT triggered.

Two Years Later  Where Are We?

Now, two years later  where are we?

The models are dramatically better than what launched in 2022. They make fewer mistakes. They understand context better. They can handle images, documents, and voice. They can help with coding in ways that are changing software development. They’re available on your phone. They’re built into search engines and office software.

But there are also real concerns that have grown alongside the capability. Concerns about misinformation  AI can generate convincing false content at scale. Concerns about job displacement  the effects are starting to show in certain industries. Concerns about safety  what happens as these systems get more capable? Concerns about concentration of power  a small number of companies control the most powerful AI systems in the world.

None of these concerns have been fully resolved. They’re active debates happening in universities, governments, companies, and living rooms around the world.

A Dividing Line in History

What’s clear is that November 30, 2022 was a real dividing line. A before and after. The world of technology and in many ways the world of work and communication is genuinely different now.

Whether it’s different in a net positive way is still being written. But it’s definitely different.

And for those of us watching and participating that’s a remarkable thing to be alive for.