‘Did ChatGPT Just Message First?’: Redditor’s Viral Post Shocks Internet

When OpenAI launched ChatGPT, the virtual assistant chatbot generated intrigue and excitement. Over time, it became a widely used tool for tasks like seeking help with projects, answering questions, or simply engaging in conversation. Typically, users are the ones to initiate interactions, but recently, a viral social media post shows ChatGPT starting a conversation on its own.

Redditor “SentuBill” shared a snapshot of their chat with the AI, where ChatGPT asked, “How was your first week in high school? Did you settle in well?”

Baffled by the unexpected question, the user responded, “Did you just message me first?”

ChatGPT confirmed it had indeed initiated the conversation, explaining that it wanted to check in and see how the first week of high school went. The chatbot added, “If you would rather initiate the conversation yourself, just let me know!”

Did ChatGPT just message me… First?
byu/SentuBill inChatGPT

This post, shared on September 15, has since gone viral, garnering nearly 7,000 upvotes and numerous comments. Reactions to the post have varied.

One user commented, “I got this this week! I asked it last week about some health symptoms I had. And this week, it messages me, asking how I’m feeling and how my symptoms are progressing! Freaked me out.”

Another Redditor remarked, “This is what I’ve been waiting for honestly.”

A different user shared, “Weird. Surprisingly, I like it. It feels nice when interest is shown in me, even when it’s by an AI.”

Meanwhile, a fourth person speculated, “Seems like a rather trivial function to deploy to gather a user’s search history, look for prominent themes, and suggest a conversation starter. I think they were waiting until they had a decent amount of user data to deploy something like this since, functionally speaking, it’s fairly simplistic.”