"Is ChatGPT always right?"

No, Margaret — ChatGPT is definitely not always right. It makes mistakes regularly. It can present false information with complete confidence. It can get facts wrong, make calculation errors, contradict itself, and produce plausible-sounding content that's entirely fabricated. The AI has no mechanism for knowing when it doesn't know something.

This isn't a flaw that will be fixed in the next update — it's inherent to how the technology works. ChatGPT generates responses by predicting what words should come next based on patterns in its training data. Sometimes those predictions produce accurate information. Sometimes they produce convincing nonsense.

— Pat

You've hit on something important, Harold. When humans speak with confidence, it usually correlates with knowledge. Someone who states something firmly typically believes it and often has reason to believe it. We've learned to read confidence as a signal of reliability.

ChatGPT doesn't work this way. The AI generates confident-sounding prose because that's what good writing in its training data looked like. Whether the content is accurate or fabricated, the delivery style remains the same. The AI cannot hedge more when it's less certain because it doesn't have genuine uncertainty — it's just producing text.

This mismatch between confident delivery and actual reliability creates risk for users who assume AI confidence indicates accuracy. The lesson isn't to distrust everything ChatGPT says, but to recognize that how something is said tells you nothing about whether it's true.

— Pat

Great question, Dorothy. Specific facts present the highest risk. Names, dates, numbers, quotes, and precise details are more likely to be wrong than general explanations. ChatGPT might correctly describe how photosynthesis works while getting the year a particular scientist made a discovery wrong.

Recent information may be incorrect because of training data cutoffs. What was true when ChatGPT was trained may have changed since. Political leaders, company executives, scientific consensus, and countless other facts evolve over time.

Specialized domains sometimes trip up the AI. While ChatGPT has broad knowledge, deep expertise in narrow fields can be spotty. The more specialized your question, the more cautiously you should treat the answer.

And here's an important one: anything ChatGPT seems to "remember" about you or previous conversations in new chats is fabrication — it doesn't actually retain information between separate conversations. If it makes claims about past discussions, those are invented.

— Pat

That's exactly the right attitude, Robert. Here's my advice:

Verify important information through reliable sources. When accuracy matters — for decisions, for sharing with others, for anything with consequences — don't rely solely on ChatGPT. Cross-check with authoritative sources appropriate to the subject.

Use ChatGPT's strengths. The AI excels at explaining concepts, helping with writing, brainstorming ideas, and working through problems. These tasks don't require perfect factual accuracy — they require useful thinking partnership.

Ask clarifying questions. If something seems surprising or unusual, probe further. "Are you sure about that date?" or "What's your source for that claim?" can sometimes reveal when the AI is uncertain (though it may also confidently repeat the same wrong information).

Trust your judgment. If ChatGPT says something that contradicts what you know or seems implausible, you may well be right and the AI wrong. Your knowledge and common sense remain valuable even when consulting an AI.

— Pat

The goal isn't to distrust ChatGPT, Betty — it's to trust it appropriately. For what it does well — helping you think, write, learn, and explore — it's genuinely valuable. For authoritative factual information requiring high reliability, it needs to be one source among several, not the final word.

This is similar to how you'd use a smart friend's advice. Valuable input, definitely worth hearing, but you'd still make your own decisions and verify claims that really matter. ChatGPT deserves neither blind trust nor dismissive skepticism. It deserves calibrated confidence based on understanding its actual capabilities and limitations.

And that's exactly what you're doing by asking these questions!

— Pat