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information GPT and Similar Artificial Intelligence Technologies: Implications for the Domain Name Industry

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Since OpenAI introduced ChatGPT-3 in late November 2022, it seems everyone is talking about ChatGPT.

Earlier in the NamePros Blog, I ‘interviewed’ ChatGPT on domain topics. I think most will agree that ChatGPT did an impressive job on most answers.

Many investors are registering domain names in this sector, and a few have already sold. It is important to understand how GPT fits within the wider AI field, including limitations and possible applications, to help evaluate which names have most potential.

In this article, I take a deeper look at what GPT-3 is, and is not, and what it may mean for the domain name world.

ChatGPT and OpenAI

ChatGPT is one product from OpenAI. With interest in ChatGPT, OpenAI has rocketed to the 98th top website globally according to SimilarWeb.

OpenAI started as a capped-profit initiative, but has transformed into two parts, the non-profit OpenAI Incorporated, and for-profit, OpenAI Limited Partnership.

OpenAI was founded in 2015 by a number of investors who pledged $1 billion in startup funds. You can read more about OpenAI history here, and their charter at OpenAI Charter.

Sam Altman is the CEO of OpenAI. He had earlier served as President at Y Combinator.

On January 23, 2023 Microsoft and OpenAI announced an extension of their partnership. That includes a number of AI initiatives, and is expected to integrate ChatGPT into Microsoft products Bing, Word and PowerPoint.

ChatGPT was introduced as a free and open offering, although you do need to sign up for an OpenAI account. They have now introduced a ChatGPT Plus at $20 per month, with a restricted free version still available.

What Is GPT-3?

GPT is an example of Natural Language Processing, NLP, an active field since the 1950’s. The key idea of natural language processing is the system learns to interpret conversational prompts, and to reply in a way that mimics how a human would respond.

Over the last decade, most developments in NLP have used neural networks for machine learning.

The plan for the OpenAI GPT-3 implementation was outlined in a preprint document in 2020. You can freely download Language Models Are Few-Shot Learners, 75 pages long, by 31 authors from, or associated with, OpenAI.

GPT-3 was not well known to the general public until the November 30, 2022 release of ChatGPT by OpenAI, but it was in beta testing as early as July 2020.

GPT stands for Generative Pre-Trained Transformer. We explore below the meaning of each of the three terms.

Since many who use the term don’t relate it to the meaning of the acronym, GTP is a common typo of GPT.

What Was GPT-3 Trained On?

GPT-3 was pre-trained on a huge set of material. When you ask it a question, it is not searching for an answer, nor is it coded in the traditional sense. Rather, it mimics how someone might respond who had read almost everything, learned and internalized the information, and had developed the ability to generate text output.

So what was GPT-3 pre-trained on? That included essentially all of Wikipedia, but that only accounts for 3% of its training. About 6% is from the two huge sets of digitized book content. The biggest part, though, is from a filtered crawl of the online web, Common Crawl, represented 60% of the GPT-3 training material.

Read more in GPT-3 All You Need to Know About the AI Language Model.

How Does GPT-3 Work?

While the field of machine learning continues to evolve, the software is very good at knowing what terms come in what order, because it has learned from ‘reading’ so much what, statistically, are the most common sequences for words, and the implications of different placements.

That is why it writes so fluently - effective writers usually read a lot, and it has ‘read’ almost all of the digitized world. In a simplified fashion, generative means it does a great job at generating text, after prompts.

It has learned to key on prompts, to process the language more than just knowing what each word means out of context. It has learned language and response in much the way that infants and children do, or you learn a second language. It notices patterns, and through trial and error, during training, gets better at responding in the ‘correct’ manner.

What Is A Transformer?

The term transformer is not what you might associate with the term in toys, media, or electrical devices, but rather is a specific neural network term. Dale Markowitz wrote a good article: Transformers Explained: Understand the Model Behind GPT-3, BERT and T5.

An excellent technical, but still readable, introduction to the neural network transformer is What Is A Transformer Model?, written by Rick Merritt. That includes the origin of the term.

The neural net transformer idea was developed at University of Toronto and Google Labs primarily to do language translation, but now they can apply the same principles to interpret language. Their preprint is available free, and has the simple title Attention Is All You Need.

The idea of transformers in neural network implementations is that they come, through learning and attention, to understand the patterns of language. It turns out, compared to other ways to process language, the transformer method is both simpler and very well suited to parallel processing.

Just to show how important the transformer idea is, one estimate is that 70% of all AI preprint literature in the last few years has involved transformer ideas.

What Does GPT-3 Do Well That Could Help Domain Sellers?

I think most would agree that GPT-3 does a good job of ‘understanding’ most prompts, and writes fluent and grammatically correct output. Because it was trained on a huge amount of content, it can create a detailed answer on most topics.

It is not surprising that it is already very good at writing domain name descriptions. You can use SquadHelp, standard or premium listings, to see how effective AI-generated descriptions can be. I commented a couple of weeks ago that I have written a lot of domain name descriptions over the past five years, and, in most cases the SquadHelp AI implementation does a better job than I would in this task.

GPT-3 would also be well suited to writing other types of promotional material, such as website content, press releases, outbound emails, or social media posts. I have not tried it personally, but SquadHelp have a social media creation tool currently operational.

While one would need to human check prior to sending, GPT-3 implementations could possibly be as effective, or more effective, in replying to email inquiries on a domain name.

The whole point of a ChatBot is to mimic human speech interaction, and in many, not all, circumstances it does this pretty well. As such, it could, if trained on all documents at the marketplace, be very effective in answering questions, replacing FAQs of a registrar or domain marketplace with a more engaging style.

If trained on the specific inventory, not possible directly with ChatGPT which has been pre-trained, I think it could be a far superior system for searching the millions of domain names at a marketplace, and quickly leading potential buyers to the ones of greatest interest. SquadHelp have introduced this already, although still in a pretty simplistic fashion.

I think whichever company optimizes AI for inventory search and domain selection will have a significant competitive advantage.

Since GPT-3 is trained to know what sequence of words are natural together, it should be ideal at creating multi-word domain names. Because it is pre-trained, ChatGPT has no way of knowing which of those names are available, however.

It can generate results in what would be considered creative applications, such as writing poetry, lyrics or short stories. Expert views vary on the quality of these. Creative works might be effective in promoting certain types of names.

The Chat implementation of GPT-3 is generally fast at responding, and can give improved answers from additional clarification prompts.

What Can’t It Do Well?

The fact that it is pre-trained, and not actively connected to the Internet, means that, at least the current OpenAI ChatGPT formulation, fails at anything requiring near real-time information.

It makes mistakes, and should never be used without human supervision in any error-critical task. When asked to write research papers with references, it not only got some things wrong, but worse seemed to at times simply make up paper references. What it probably did was report references that somewhere in online world had been incorrectly reported. Similarly, when asked for top domain sales in a certain category, it gives some results not in NameBio and not clearly valid.

But to understand the most critical limitation of Chat GPT-3, it is important to stress again that it learned by looking at a huge collection of text. Along the way, it developed ability to key in on patterns within that text, and applied it to generate fluent response text. Young children learn language that way too.

But then, as youth and then adults, we also develop a second system, one built not just on recognizing patterns but developing abstract abilities, such as complex mathematical operations. If you ask math questions of ChatGPT it will get simple arithmetic right, since it has seen the question before, but will soon fail. Similarly, people have tricked it with logical deductions that most humans would get right.

GPT alone systems will fail at many tasks involving sophisticated logical and mathematical operations.

Will There Be GPT-4?

Yes, GPT-4 is already well in development, and plans are in place for GPT-5. While a specific release date has not been announced, a fair amount already seems clear about GPT-4 – see What We Know About GPT-4.

By the way, strictly speaking the ChatGPT was based on GPT-3.5, although it is simplified to GPT-3.

So What About Domain Names?

There has been a flood to register domain names containing the term GPT, often with chat as well. These numbers will already be dated when you read this, but the exact phrase GPT was, according to DotDB, registered in 164 extensions, not nearly as many as NFT or meta, but almost all are recent registrations. Also, it is part of more than 21,000 longer domain names, mainly in .com or .ai.

Here is a list of NameBio-recorded sales from the last two years that include the term ‘GPT’. Note that at least one sale on list includes GPT but is not a GPT domain sale. A few other sales have been reported on social media, and at time of article UnreportedSales showed 5 sales with ‘GPT’, 3 in 4-figures and one at $10,000.

Dofo Advanced Search indicated 670 domain names for sale including ‘GPT’, fewer than I would have thought. The number will probably be higher as you read this. Of those, 460 were .com.

@Centaur has started a NamePros Discussion Thread for GPT domain names.

Possible Domain Name Market for GPT

Let’s first start with who might be the market for domain names related to GPT, or AI more broadly. This is certainly not an exclusive list, but a few ideas:
  1. Better prompts mean better results with ChatGPT. That means that the immediate market might be to solopreneurs who hope to cash in on the sudden interest by offering prompt services tailored to a specific sector.
  2. We will probably quickly see consultants and small agencies that will help clients get up and running using AI tools, including, but not restricted to, ChatGPT.
  3. What about monetized reference and information sites? There may be some market, probably over a short time horizon building on the current momentum.
  4. As Microsoft implement OpenAI products into Word and PowerPoint, there may be a mass-market opportunity for education and training.
  5. Are there new services only feasible with AI? That is, not simply applying AI to an existing service, but something entirely novel. If so, what are they? This is a harder segment of the market to predict, but potentially selling names as brands for higher amounts than the applications mentioned earlier.
  6. Will AI Chatbot become good enough, and trustworthy enough, to use in support, training and therapy roles? If so, the number of possible end use cases is very large.
  7. Educational institutions are already scrambling to prevent academic dishonesty from students misuse of tools like ChatGPT. There is probably a market there for a few businesses. OpenAI has introduced a way to detect AI-written text, and announced that more is on the way.
  8. GPT was first developed for language and translation, and it is natural that we will see many applications in sectors related to language: translation, editing, content generation, etc.
  9. There are a host of legal, equity, copyright and other issues associated with AI technology. Will there be opportunities for domain names related to those sectors?
  10. Clearly some great AI names, not necessarily with AI specifically in them, and definitely not with GPT, might sell for a lot. The most obvious extensions seem .com or .ai.
There seems little doubt that AI will be the major trend of 2023, the technology now at a maturity where the many applications are feasible and obvious. It is also almost certainly true, as with other trends, that the vast majority of recently registered names will never find a buyer.

Keep In Mind

Here are a few points to keep in mind.
  • We know that GPT-4 is in development, so names involving GPT-3 may have a short shelf-life.
  • In all sectors, most businesses do not brand on the specific, generic term, but rather something that is more unique and more easily trademarked and defended.
  • OpenAI has made noise about renaming ChatGPT. If that were to happen, domain names with GPT are suddenly less relevant.
  • OpenAI filed a trademark application for the term ChatGPT on Dec 27, 2022. An apparently unrelated party also has a trademark application, dated Dec 15, 2022.
  • Making a great chatbot interface in a free product has captured public attention. But longer term, most uses will probably not be operating through a chat interface.
  • Some of the most exciting developments in AI are related to images, so while everyone is talking language AI now, that is just one part. You can read about OpenAI DALL-E 2 project here.
  • As I was completing this article, Microsoft announced AI integration into Bing search. This will further increase public awareness and appreciation of AI, but at same time, as Microsoft implements features into Bing and Office components, some of the market for stand-alone applications will dry up.
  • Those investing in this area should delve at some depth into the topic, so created names are relevant. Invest in what you know, and know what you invest in, is usually good advice.
And Now There Is Bard

On Feb 6, 2023 Sundar Pichai, Google CEO, announced AI integration with Google search, called Bard.

Their product is based on an alternative to GPT called Language Model for Dialogue Applications (LaMDA). LaMDA has been around for a few years, and you can read more about it in LaMDA: Our Breakthrough Conversation Technology.

Originally, the bard from Celtic culture, was a story teller, composer, oral historian, or musician, usually having a patron. It seems a flexible name, allowing for the integration of text dialogue, music and sound, images and video, all of which are about to be fundamentally changed through AI.

According to DotDB, the day I checked bard was registered in 176 TLDs, and in almost 60,000 longer names.

The bard.com name is used by Becton, Dickinson and Company, while the .ai and .xyz are both currently for sale.

The term bard is part of the name, or also known as name, for over 2200 companies and organizations, according to OpenCorporates. Since the name is so related to Shakespeare, a number are theatre related, although almost every sector finds some use.

With the reach of Google, there is no doubt we will hear a lot about Bard in the weeks ahead.

A Future Scenario

Imagine a scenario in which you tick a preference box, and your registrar lists your domain name for sale on marketplaces.
  • AI automatically generates categories and potential uses for each domain name. It also checks for trademark issues.
  • AI assesses various characteristics, and determines retail pricing.
  • AI automatically generates a logo for the domain listing, and writes an eloquent description.
  • Perhaps it will generate still images or a video presentation specific to that name. For example, call for an AI-generated image of a couple beside a vintage car in front of a sandy beach.
  • AI will interact with visitors to the marketplaces, and through conversational dialog quickly guide them to just what they are looking for.
  • If you have the box ticked for outbound, it will research potential buyers, generate an email outreach, and communicate with them.
  • AI will, following your directions, generate a list of potential acquisitions, determine their wholesale worth, and bid in auctions on your behalf.
How close are we to this scenario? I think very close. The domain companies that seize the moment will have a huge competitive advantage.

But what does that leave for us to do?

More Information

Here are some articles that I found helpful in researching this topic:
 
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The views expressed on this page by users and staff are their own, not those of NamePros.
Fantastic write-up as always Bob!
 
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fantastic info. thanks for detailed information bob.
 
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When I see people talk about GPT chat I only see little knowledge of what it really is, and a lot of marketing work and public imagination, is like the NFT, how much we talk about that the last year, now is the turn of AI,.. well,.. almost an AI.. ChatGTP is far from understanding anything, including give you any result on that "Future Scenario" regard in fact CHATGP is pretty unoriginal and I'm really not impressed.

Believe me, the "AI" if there is any, are still in an embryo, in fact, CHATGPT is the easiest way to look like something it's not, like the NFT IS NOT ART...
 
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I agree, the NFL IS NOT ART

but perhaps the fact you misspelled CHATGPT twice in a single paragraph could certainly be construed as IRONY

"Believe me"
 
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I looked at all these and thought, AutonomousResource? Grabbed it and the plural too.
 
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When I see people talk about GPT chat I only see little knowledge of what it really is, and a lot of marketing work and public imagination, is like the NFT, how much we talk about that the last year, now is the turn of AI,.. well,.. almost an AI.. ChatGTP is far from understanding anything, including give you any result on that "Future Scenario" regard in fact CHATGP is pretty unoriginal and I'm really not impressed.

Believe me, the "AI" if there is any, are still in an embryo, in fact, CHATGPT is the easiest way to look like something it's not, like the NFT IS NOT ART...
Why are you talking about its capabilities like you haven't used it, when you can use it?

Use it and you will see how impressive it is...

When you get the urge to search something, try it and see what it comes up with. This is actually impressive unlike some web3 fantasy that people were having that nobody wanted or cared about.
 
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Thanks mr bob, nice article .
 
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Thanks, Mr. Bob nice article.
 
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Why are you talking about its capabilities like you haven't used it, when you can use it?

Use it and you will see how impressive it is...

When you get the urge to search something, try it and see what it comes up with. This is actually impressive unlike some web3 fantasy that people were having that nobody wanted or cared about.

I am the guy that this companies call to find how make this tools fail.

In fact, this chatbot is not an AI.. is very far of what an AI could make, again, ChatGPT is an Optimizing Language Models for Dialogue .. with a machine learning components.

Second problem : Scrape the information + Data Protection <-- The real problem.
 
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Amazing work as always Bob! You inspired me to reg Ace // Prompts (.) com.
Thank you!
 
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Thank you for your comments.
GPT chat I only see little knowledge of what it really is, and a lot of marketing work and public imagination
I agree, a lot of misunderstanding around ChatGPT, and that was part of my rationale for writing this article, to stress what it can and cannot do. That said, it is a remarkable achievement for what it is intended for, 'understanding' written prompts, summarizing 'knowledge', and writing clear, grammatically correct, effective text. ChatGPT is not the end, but rather an important early step, among many, on useful AI implementations.

including give you any result on that "Future Scenario" regard
I have to disagree a bit here. Have you tried out the SquadHelp domain descriptions written by AI? They are not universally great, but the majority are stronger than what a typical content writer would put together within a short time period. They are here now.

It also does a good job of writing things like what makes a good domain name, etc. background content for a marketplace website. See my earlier article for examples. As noted, need human oversight, but it is workable right now.

Social media generation by AI is already here. I have seen some of the posts generated by it, and they are competitive with a human.

I agree the interactive search is not yet nearly good enough despite SH first efforts.

I have not seen the interactive dialog to replace FAQs in the domain industry yet that is truly AI, but did see one working for a complex university course syllabus that was impressive. It was trained on the syllabus and then a ChatGPT type interface. Was smart enough to say to contact the prof when asked things it did not know.

I have not seen a meaningfully good, AI based evaluator/appraisal (yes we have some that claim to be AI and are in some senses). Someone will do one soon though I think. Someone like Google could do one quickly if they wanted to turn their effort to it.

So I would say, we are closer over the past 6 months than I would have predicted 2 years ago.

Re scraping, data ownership, intellectual property and all, yes those are the HUGE issues for AI in my opinion.

Anyway, I did the future scenario as a fun ending. I think we are close. Totally respect those who feel that is not true.

Thanks again for taking the time to share your view and expertise.

-Bob
 
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Great dispatch, Bob.

Per domain and branding opportunities in .ai, expect to see hundreds of funded startups rebranding to one key word.ai like this recent group spinach.ai that received major funding (I love spinach the food, but not so much as an AI brand, but whatever works - def easy to remember)

I've already seen recent domain sales activity with other key words associated w/AI: GENERATIVE (as it's long, I expect many branding companies will suggest GEN), PROMPT, PROMPTS, PROMPTER. PROMPTLY, and DEEP for DEEP LEARNING which triggered AI to rise from its long winter in 2010)

my mistake...the startup spinach is spinach.io not spinach.ai...just received 6 million usd in funding...i'm not crazy about the name spinach....for a tech brand, but i'm sure there was similar dislike by people to the initial branding of a smartphone as "BLACKBERRY"
 
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I've already seen recent domain sales activity with other key words associated w/AI: GENERATIVE (as it's long, I expect many branding companies will suggest GEN), PROMPT, PROMPTS, PROMPTER. PROMPTLY, and DEEP for DEEP LEARNING which triggered AI to rise from its long winter in 2010)
Agreed but I think you forgot the word PROMPTING, which I think will be massive too.
 
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Prompting could work, but there could be concerns about the length, similar to STREAM & STREAMING & Bet & Betting
if you have prompting (just the single word) with a great extension, that could work as in booking.com and gambling.com
 
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I agree.

Some of the ones I have are Prompting / Labs and Prompting / Studio in dot com, and Prompting (dot) Studio.

I think (hope) these could work 🤞
 
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According to dotDB's latest update, bard is now registered in 322 extensions. What a big lift in just one week!
 
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Good article, but in the zone of domain investment, AI is not really an asset. Or at least in what can be seen today.

Yes it can help with domain descriptions, and some content for those building up websites. But that's about it.

As a domainer but also tech person, full stack dev working with AI already, I can tell you this.

It doesn't help with finding domains. Not at all. Don't believe me? Try it out, and see.

How do I know? Been there, done that - years ago, and since.

The problem with AI is not the AI itself. AI is a tool, but it is useless without data, and that's where the problem relies. As I said I've started using AI on domains years ago. Results have been quite meh, and for a very simple reason.

You don't need an AI, you need data. Data is what you are missing. ChatGPT seems so impressive because it has a mind-boggling amount of data behind. But it does not have ... the data you need.

The AI is useless unless you have access to massive amounts of sales data, TLD records and other types of data. And if you have that? The AI is yet again useless because the same thing can be accomplished with a plain filter and certain rules. In fact, the AI won't work at all unless you make the filter in the first place to do that. Oh, and you need realtime tld checks, determining if a domain is free or not, monitoring auctions etc etc -nah, can't help. You need different tools for all these. Dofo, going down this month as you can see, has been an example of such a thing at least in part.

On top of a good filter and sufficient data, the AI is just like a micromanaging boss that does not help.

You can, theoretically, train it to match your domainer habits.

But I went on this path as well. I realized down the line, that nobody will take upon themselves the hassle of doing that, because it will take years to actually have it be at least somewhat good. You have to teach each and every step and word and combination you want and you don't want and create rules and reasons and update trends and and and...

It will actually filter out domains you badly want, and give you crap to register / purchase, unless you yet again spend again countless hours training it. It's like a more or less stupid bot that does nothing unless you show it how to do.

So no, I don't see this tilting the field anytime soon.

Another thing is, AI has been here for years. Many of us are forgetting this.

You can bet major companies and investors with lots of $ have already used it. If it was that good, all of us here would have been out of business.

There is future in the AI, no doubt about that. Future that goes past everything we have imagined, perhaps.

But for an impact in the domaining field anytime soon, nah. No chance.

Edit: It actually takes you out of the loop and also you have to trust it. Which I don't recommend. And there are significant downsides of doing that. Such as learning new domain angles, getting creativity in, keeping your skills good... again, not an asset.
 
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Thanks for many good points, @twiki.

I agree that it is the picking/valuation of names, in particular, that current automated approaches are totally not even in ballpark of being useful. And of course pre-trained models like GPT without access to current web are useless for the task.

I also agree that having the data is key. The data is more than just filtered domain sales and names listed for sale, and domains developed though. A part of it is a deep understanding of language patterns and use, etc. I think if Google partnered with GoDaddy with their sales data, it really could come up with intelligence that could on average outdo a skilled domainer (not always and it would make some big mistakes).

Because of mistakes, human oversight always needed. Also always a role for human creativity.

Thanks again for your spot-on points, and sharing your views.

-Bob
 
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