How does ChatGPT work?

When you ask it a question, it scans the entire internet looking for matches to the question. Then, when it finds one with an answer, it reproduces the answer for you with a slight addition of randomness

When you ask it a question, it scans the entire internet looking for matches to the question. Then, when it finds an answer, that answer is sent to human employees who refine the answer

Just like the autofill in your search browser or text messaging

When you ask it a question, the question is processed through a map of words that ChatGPT got from scanning the internet. That map has been altered a bit by humans to refine answers. It then chooses words based on probability from the map it created for itself.