Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Computing
  3. Guides

Digital Trends may earn a commission when you buy through links on our site. Why trust us?

Here’s the ChatGPT word limit and how to get around it

By

Fans of ChatGPT adore the AI chatbot for several purposes, including its ability to generate detailed essays in a matter of seconds. However, one of its little-known limitations is that there is a word and character limit set on how much content it can output per query.

Reddit members and other AI enthusiasts have been discussing this for months, and luckily there are easy workarounds for this limitation by way of the prompts you can use.

Recommended Videos

What is the ChatGPT word limit?

ChatGPT’s parent company, OpenAI. set the word and character limit as part of its ongoing development of the AI chatbot, which is still in its research preview phase. Some of the issues with ChatGPT include its affinity toward “social biases, hallucinations, and adversarial prompts,” in addition to producing inaccurate content when the AI algorithm is overwhelmed or at a loss for information to process.

Related

Similarly, ChatGPT might simply stop producing content when the request is too complex for the AI to handle. This happens at about 500 words or 4,000 characters. If you happen to give the chatbot a request for a specific number of words above 500, you might find that it cuts off midsentence somewhere after 500 words.

How to get around the ChatGPT word limit

To remedy this issue, you can use simple prompts such as go on, keep going, or continue. For example, I inputted the query write me a 1000-word essay on the history of Irish whiskey, and ChatGPT cut off midsentence at about 618 words. After inputting go on, ChatGPT continued generating my essay and ended at 1,043 words.

Another way to do this workaround is to set up your prompt with the word limit in mind. You can input write me the first 500 words of a 1000-word essay on XYZ so that ChatGPT knows to stop at a certain point. Then you can input go on, keep going, continue, or a similar prompt.

What OpenAI is doing to update ChatGPT

Many of the ChatGPT word and character limitations are based on the GPT-3.5 language model. ChatGPT was introduced to the public in November 2022 based on GPT-3.5. However, OpenAI recently announced its latest language model, GPT-4, which comes with increased word support, among other features. OpenAI claims GPT-4 can process up to 25,000 words of text with greater accuracy, context, and creativity.

GPT-4 is currently available for ChatGPT Plus users and developers through the API. The free version of ChatGPT continues to run on the GPT-3.5 language model. There is currently no word on if or when it will update to GPT-4.

OpenAI has also collaborated with several businesses, organizations, and even governments on GPT-4. Microsoft also confirmed that its new Bing Search featuring an AI chatbot is based on GPT-4. The updated search engine debuted in February. However, Bing Chat has its own issues, giving users such depressed and unhinged responses that Microsoft put its own daily turn limits on how much the chatbot could process. Eventually, the brand began increasing conversation support again, which is now up to 150 daily turns.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
Fionna Agomuoh
Fionna Agomuoh
Computing Writer
Fionna Agomuoh is a technology journalist with over a decade of experience writing about various consumer electronics topics…
OpenAI needs just 15 seconds of audio for its AI to clone a voice
A laptop screen shows the home page for ChatGPT, OpenAI's artificial intelligence chatbot.

In recent years, the listening time required by a piece of AI to clone someone’s voice has been getting shorter and shorter.

It used to be minutes, now it’s just seconds.

Read more
How much does an AI supercomputer cost? Try $100 billion
A Microsoft datacenter.

It looks like OpenAI's ChatGPT and Sora, among other projects, are about to get a lot more juice. According to a new report shared by The Information, Microsoft and OpenAI are working on a new data center project, one part of which will be a massive AI supercomputer dubbed "Stargate." Microsoft is said to be footing the bill, and the cost is astronomical as the name of the supercomputer suggests -- the whole project might cost over $100 billion.

Spending over $100 billion on anything is mind-blowing, but when put into perspective, the price truly shows just how big a venture this might be: The Information claims that the new Microsoft and OpenAI joint project might cost a whopping 100 times more than some of the largest data centers currently in operation.

Read more
How to clean a laptop screen without scratching it
How to clean a laptop screen

Laptop screens will attract dirt, dust, and grime -- that's just a fact of life. Whether you're using one of the best 2-in-1 laptops and want to clean off your fingerprints from the touchscreen or you use a notebook laptop and have somehow gotten food or dirt on it, the cleaning process isn't necessarily intuitive. You'll likely have lots of questions about it. Do you need a special cleaning fluid? How hard should you rub? What do you rub the screen with? Even using water to clean a laptop screen isn't necessarily completely safe, due to minerals. So join us as we list our favorite tools for each type of yuck removal and teach you how to clean a laptop screen without inflicting damage.
For dust: Microfiber cloth

People who wear glasses or own a camera know about this little tool all too well. After all, it's the best way to clean a camera lens or eyeglasses.

Read more