Global Panic As OpenAI’s ChatGPT Suffers Five-Hour Outage

ChatGPT users have raised an alarm over a lengthy network outage for the artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot. The downtime offers a glimpse into the future without AI tools amid skyrocketing dependence and adoption levels as OpenAI pushes for a quick fix.

ChatGPT Hit By Massive Downtime, Sparking Unease For Users

OpenAI’s ChatGPT is facing a five-hour downtime that has left users in limbo, affecting mobile applications and web versions. Early reports of the service disruption first trickled in from outage tracking site Down Detector, with the outage affecting several regions.

Several users are reporting an error message, while others are staring at blank screens with ChatGPT failing to load. The outage is reportedly affecting both paid and free users of the offering, with OpenAI’s text-to-video model Sora facing its downtime.

OpenAI has confirmed the technical issue, noting that it has identified the cause and is working to patch the glitch. While details remain sparse, there are reports that the downtime is linked to internal errors like software bugs or benign issues such as a traffic overload. However, there is still the grim possibility of a cyberattack behind the outage.

“We have identified the root cause for the issue causing elevated errors and latency across the listed services,” said OpenAI. “We are working on implementing a mitigation.”

This is not the first time ChatGPT has faced an outage, with a January downtime rocking the boat for the company and users alike.

A Wave Of Problems For OpenAI

The network outage has fueled a migration of users to OpenAI rivals like Claude, Gemini, and Grok. As Sora remains unavailable, users are leaning on other video generator offerings for their daily tasks.

A system status report from OpenAI revealed that ChatGPT had 21 components affected, with the API platform with 14. However, Sora has four of its components affected by the technical glitch.

While OpenAI deals with the outage, the AI firm is also facing legal action from Elon Musk. The Tesla CEO is reportedly keen on a lawsuit against OpenAI for straying from its non-profit ethos to adopt a commercial model. OpenAI broke the record for the fastest product to garner 100 million users in barely three months, following up with over 6 million subscribers for its paid versions.

While ChatGPT is down, data from DappRadar reveals that AI DApps have surged by over 23% in May to lead the ecosystem’s resurgency. The broader cryptocurrency market is rallying with Bitcoin and Ethereum leading the charge, with altcoins bracing for impact.