I had access to gpt 3 for almost a year (maybe more iirc) and GPT3 was just as remarkable and I could do the same sort of chats with it in the playground. I remember there were even examples of chat with GPT 3 in the docs.<p>So what suddenly happened that it became so popular, even though the same tech has existed for years now?<p>Is it just social media?
It was the first product to put an LLM into a conversational interface on a public website that is open to anyone.<p>It required no tools or tech, just typing in a box. That opened the floodgates for people to think about using LLMs inside other apps and UIs.<p>Also, the quality of the output was better than anything the general public had seen and the program's writing style was made very pleasant and enjoyable to read. This stunned people and got their attention.