Words before numbers: ChatGPT’s struggles with word and character counts
Why you can’t count on ChatGPT…
As a UX Content Designer, it’s not an understatement to say that character counts can drive me absolutely bananas. It’s why often, the shorter strings take the longest to find the right words for. You have 8 characters to communicate 10 different things — and the German translation will need to fit in the same space when it’s localised.
It was a revelation when I realised that ChatGPT could help me fit tight character limits. Indeed, in my daily work using ChatGPT as a tool to assist in my work in Content Design, I’ve become pretty dependent on using character counts. And I often recommend setting character counts to the Designers and Product Managers I support.
So you can imagine how my face looked when a colleague sent me a thread discussing how ChatGPT cannot count words. It makes sense. It’s not a calculator. It’s a tool based on language prediction. As one person in the thread pointed out:
You are expecting a language prediction engine to behave as if it is a calculator; but it’s not.
I went back over some recent examples, and sure enough, found that often, my character and word counts were exceeded. Bubble burst. Just…
