I’ve been wondering for a while if these ludicrously high numbers are just MAU and count people running 16 free accounts load balanced for more access without paying.

No way 1/7 people globally use ChatGPT?

I can believe it. I've seen how popular it is in the general population. You just say something and the computer answers it? No need to learn how to use it? Of course it's popular! And the only well-known one is ChatGPT.

If the numbers are based purely on an account count, or IP count (maybe?) I could see it. Lots of people are forced to use it at work.

I have no idea. Doesn't seem implausible to me. Apparently, ≈75% of the world population has internet access now. And if a person has internet access, is it that unlikely that he was successfully targeted by at least one of these idiotic marketing campaigns (turn your photo into a barbie doll or whatever)? 10% sounds plausible to me, more or less. So maybe not really literally a 1B, but doesn't need to be very far from the real numbers, IMO.