Photo/ChatGPT Website

Feb 9 (NBD) -- The technology wave unleashed by ChatGPT appears to be taking the world by storm.

Some people even spotted a new money-making opportunity – profiting by selling ChatGPT accounts, integrating ChatGPT into WeChat and other means.

ChatGPT is free to the public in the US, but registration requires a foreign phone number for SMS verification, which prevented many Chinese consumers from using it.

On Feb 8, after searching for ChatGPT on Taobao, NBD found many store owners selling ChatGPT accounts. However, they cannot be found anymore on Thursday after those acts have been exposed.

Photo/Taobao 
 

It is worth noting that some changed the keywords from ChatGPT to AI chatbot. If customers have a purchase history, they can still buy a ChatGPT account.

Photo/Taobao

On Feb 8, NBD randomly selected a store on Taobao and found that the permanent account was priced at 13.88 yuan, 90 days of use was priced at 7.98 yuan, and a shared account with 30 days of use was priced at 3.98 yuan. In other words, one shared account can be sold to different buyers, which can result in high profits.

Photo/Taobao

The purchase page showed that the monthly sales of the product had exceeded 30,000. The monthly revenue of the merchant may exceed 119,000 yuan if calculated at the lowest price of 3.98 yuan, and 416,000 yuan if calculated at the highest price of 13.88 yuan. NBD had a bad experience with a shared account purchased on Taobao as the system frequently reminded me not to ask questions at the same time.

An insider familiar with the industry told NBD that the cost is very low and you need to do to register an account is to download software called "SMS-Activate". "It's like renting some foreign phone numbers," he said. "I rented an Indonesian number yesterday, which only cost a few yuan."

In addition, there are also people on Taobao and the second-hand marketplace Idle Fish who make a profit by asking questions on ChatGPT on behalf of customers.

Some even skip account registration and let users directly use the pirated ChatGPT, which has a technical threshold. They build a "ChatGPT mirror" platform with cloud servers and WeChat mini programs, etc., claiming it to be the official Chinese platform of ChatGPT, and making a profit by charging users for answers from ChatGPT.

In addition, there are more "interesting" money-making ways. Some people tried to teach other people to integrate ChatGPT into public accounts, mini programs and WeChat, and the fees are quite high.

A programmer of a listed technology company told NBD that this is basically a zero-cost operation and we only need a server. "If the traffic is huge, (the system) may crash and maintenance may generate costs. But such a scenario is not likely seen for those "ill-intent actions", explained the programmer.

Photo/Github

He also said that this kind of small-scale access is very common, "For example, the Copilot robot on Github is used by some small domestic companies."It is worth noting that the relevant tutorials can be obtained for free on the Internet.NBD searched for Chatgpt WeChat on Github and found 331 matched results.

In addition, companies are scrambling to apply for the trademark "ChatGPT".

NBD found on Qixinbao that 10 companies in cities such as Shanghai and Shenzhen have been found applying for a ChatGPT trademark, covering sectors such as e-commerce, network technology, trade, enterprise management, and intelligent terminal device manufacturing. And all are waiting for approval.