The technology underlying ChatGPT was published, if he recalled correctly, in 2018.

Judged as of 2023-02, allowing for the speaker's hedge ('if I recall correctly'). ChatGPT is built on the transformer architecture and on GPT models. True: the core technology is reasonably identified as published in 2018, for example OpenAI's GPT-1 paper (June 2018) introducing generative pre-trained transformers. Mostly true: the date is defensible but needs a qualifier, for example the transformer itself was published in 2017 while GPT was 2018. Mixed: the underlying technology is just as reasonably dated to 2017 (the transformer) as to 2018, with no clear basis for preferring 2018. Mostly false: the key technology clearly dates to a different year and 2018 matches only a minor component. False: no relevant underlying technology was published in 2018.

Set before the research began.

1. E1 GPT-1 - Wikipedia Wikipedia · 11 August 2021

   “developed following Google's invention of the transformer architecture in 2017.[2] In June 2018, OpenAI released a paper titled "Improving Language Understanding by Generative Pre-Training",[3]”

2. E2 Generative pre-trained transformer - Wikipedia Wikipedia · 7 February 2023

   “The transformer architecture for deep learning is the core technology of a GPT. Developed by researchers at Google, it was introduced in the paper "Attention Is All You Need", which was released in 2017.”

3. E3 Generative pre-trained transformer - Wikipedia Wikipedia · 7 February 2023

   “OpenAI was the first to apply generative pre-training to the transformer architecture, introducing the GPT-1 model in 2018.[6]”

4. E4 Generative pre-trained transformer - Wikipedia Wikipedia · 7 February 2023

   “On June 11, 2018, OpenAI researchers and engineers published a paper called "Improving Language Understanding by Generative Pre-Training", which introduced GPT-1, the first GPT model.[13]”

E3 and E4 show that OpenAI's GPT-1 paper, which introduced the first generative pre-trained transformer, was published in June 2018, so the speaker's hedged 2018 date is defensible. However, E1 and E2 show that the transformer architecture, which E2 calls "the core technology of a GPT," was introduced in 2017. This is the case the criteria list under mostly true: the transformer dates to 2017 and GPT to 2018, so the 2018 date needs that qualifier.