ChatGPT, the popular AI chatbot from OpenAI, experienced a major outage in the U.S. on Thursday, leaving millions of users unable to access the service and triggering a wave of humor across social media.
The outage began at around 1:30 p.m. EST, according to Downdetector, with over 50,000 users reporting issues. By 3:30 p.m., complaints were still coming in, and attempting to use the chatbot resulted in an “Internal Server Error” message. OpenAI confirmed the disruption at 4:05 p.m., attributing the problem to an unnamed internet service provider. The company assured users it was working to resolve the issue.
This marks the second ChatGPT outage this month, following a six-hour service interruption just two weeks ago. In June, the AI assistant also faced technical difficulties that left users without access for several hours.
Social Media Reacts: ‘Back to Using Our Own Brains’
On X (formerly Twitter), users quickly turned to humor to cope with the outage. One user joked, “Back to using my own brain? No thanks,” while another quipped, “When ChatGPT is down, who do I ask for my bad takes on philosophy?”
Even Grok, a competing chatbot hosted on X, wasn’t spared from the online banter. Some users vented their frustration, while others shared jokes about the situation. One user wrote, “All I want are some practice tests,” referencing the times ChatGPT has previously gone offline. Others recalled earlier outages, with one commenter lamenting that it had taken four hours to restore the bot last time, saying they’d be “doodling” by the time the issue was fixed this time.
OpenAI’s Popularity Amid Setbacks
Despite these technical issues, ChatGPT remains the most widely used AI chatbot, with over 300 million weekly users and more than a billion messages sent daily, according to OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. The platform’s value has reached $157 billion, following a successful $6.6 billion funding round in October.
