> I think that ChatGPT's success might be partly attributable to its chat interface. For whatever reason, a lot of people - including me! - are much more forgiving of inconsistencies, slip-ups, and inaccuracies when in a conversational format. Kind of like how you might forgive a real human for making a mistake in conversation.

The key term here is "conversation". If I query something from the machine and it disappears and rumbles and then prints off something like a 1980s mainframe, with paper that has those holes on the side that you tear off... and then it's wrong, it's wasted time.

Meanwhile with the conversation I'm watching it in real time, and can stop it, refine it, or ask or clarification immediately and effectively. There is an expectation of give and take and "talking through" things to get to an answer, which I find is effective. I don't need it to be 100% right all the time, just 80% and then start parsing answers out of it to refine it to 90% accuracy with high confidence.