Maria Diaz/

ChatGPT has become my go-to artificial intelligence tool, taking the spot of Google for searches and Siri for questions on my iPhone. Imagine my surprise yesterday when I went to ask for a better way to describe something and was met with an outage.

OpenAI reported periodic outages yesterday in ChatGPT and the API, later saying that these were due to "an abnormal traffic pattern reflective of a DDoS attack." 

Also: OpenAI CEO sees uphill struggle to GPT-5, potential for new kind of consumer hardware

A Distributed Denial of Services (DDoS) attack is carried out by malicious actors intentionally flooding the bandwidth of a target, in this case, overwhelming the servers ChatGPT operates on with a flood of traffic. Since an overload of traffic is known to overwhelm ChatGPT's servers, it's no surprise that hackers would resort to a DDoS attack to disrupt its service. 

The latest update informing users of a DDoS attack came last night at 7:49 p.m. PST, and it appears ChatGPT is up and running as usual today. 

This cyber attack comes on the heels of OpenAI's Dev Day, the company's first developer conference on Monday. 

Also: How to use ChatGPT Plus: From web browsing to plugins

Just yesterday, OpenAI made 16 GPTs available for many paid Enterprise and Plus subscribers. These customized chatbots can perform specific tasks like a Sous Chef to come up with recipes with ingredients in your fridge or a Coloring Book Hero to create coloring pages from your prompts. 

Artificial Intelligence

Can ChatGPT predict the future? Training AI to figure out what happens nextCan AI curb loneliness in older adults? This robot companion is proving it's possibleHow AI in smart home tech can automate your lifeRobots plus generative AI: Everything you need to know when they work as one

• Can ChatGPT predict the future? Training AI to figure out what happens next
• Can AI curb loneliness in older adults? This robot companion is proving it's possible
• How AI in smart home tech can automate your life
• Robots plus generative AI: Everything you need to know when they work as one