Korea start-ups upgrade apps by plugging into ChatGPT

Using ChatGPT and similar systems as the back end, Korea start-ups are creating their own derivative services. They are leveraging off the power of artificial intelligence (AI) language models created by U.S.-based OpenAI and made available by...

Webpage of ChatGPT is open on a smartphone. [SHUTTERSTOCK]

Using ChatGPT and similar systems as the back end, Korea start-ups are creating their own derivative services.

They are leveraging off the power of artificial intelligence (AI) language models created by U.S.-based OpenAI and made available by open application programming interface (API).

Software start-up Upstage powered its AI chatbot AskUp with the GPT-4 language model on Friday. AskUp combines the GPT service with Upstage’s optical character recognition function. When a user takes a photo of a document or a page in a book, and uploads it to the chatroom, AskUp answers questions about the page’s content.

The AskUp service began in the KakaoTalk messenger on March 5, and 303,000 people have used the service as of 3 p.m. Tuesday. Upstage introduced a test version of AskUp Biz, a corporate service, on Monday.

Wrtn Technologies, operator of a text generation AI wrtn (pronounced “written”), also upgraded its service with GPT-4 on Friday.

“User satisfaction rose after GPT-4 was implemented because the software would understand the context better,” said the company’s CEO Lee Se-young.

Travel and accommodation service provider MyRealTrip started offering an AI travel planner service last month that allows users to converse with ChatGPT and receive advice for trips.

Goodoc, a healthcare information service, implemented ChatGPT in its app last month to answer questions on health and surgery. Goodoc CEO Lim Jin-seock said he expects the chatbot engine to make medical services more accessible and friendly.

Other start-ups introduced services that work with ChatGPT.

Web3 service provider Chain Partners introduced Native, a Korean language-customized ChatGPT on March 6. When a user asks a question in Korean, Native translates the question into English, relays it to ChatGPT and translates ChatGPT’s answer back into Korean. Its Korean comprehension level is higher than ChatGPT's, fully understanding dialects as well.

Kakao Brain introduced a Korean GPT-based chatbot ddmm (pronounced “dadaum”) Sunday to test run as an open beta service, but terminated the service a day after because ddmm would give wrong answers, expose source codes and take long to generate answers.

Accuracy and fees remain a hurdle for local start-ups.

AI chatbots are known to give wrong answers occasionally, called “hallucination.” OpenAI is also yet to solve the phenomenon in its services.

Companies that utilize GPT-based software in their services pay commissions to OpenAI for using its open API. GPT-4 charges up to $0.12 per 1,000 completion tokens. A token, or word fragments required to process natural lanugage, roughly equals to four characters. A thousand token equals 4,000 characters, or 750 words.

The price may drive more start-ups to develop a Korean language-based large language model (LLM), although the competition for local companies will get tougher as GPT-4’s improvement in the Korean language accelerates.

One out of three Koreans has used ChatGPT, according to a survey by the Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry. Of the 1,016 adults surveyed between Feb. 22 and Feb. 28, 35.8 percent have used the service. Generation X, or people born between the years 1975 and 1984, had the highest percentage of people with a ChatGPT experience, at 42.2 percent

BY KIM NAM-YOUNG, SOHN DONG-JOO [sohn.dongjoo@joongang.co.kr]