OpenAI announced on Tuesday that it has begun training its new flagship AI model, a successor to the GPT-4 technology that powers the company’s popular chatbot, ChatGPT.
of The New York Times Reports The San Francisco-based startup, a major player in the AI industry, said in a blog post that the new model will bring “the next level of capabilities” as it pursues its goal of developing “artificial general intelligence” (AGI) — a machine that can perform any task the human brain can. The new model will be the foundation for a range of AI products, including chatbots, digital assistants, search engines and image generators.
In tandem with the launch of the new model, OpenAI also announced the formation of a safety and security committee tasked with investigating and addressing potential risks associated with the new model and future technology. The company said, “We are proud to have built and released an industry-leading model in both functionality and safety, but welcome robust discussion at this critical time.”
In this illustration taken in Brussels, Belgium on Dec. 12, 2022, the ChatGPT website screen is shown with the OpenAI logo on a mobile device. (Photo by Jonathan Raa/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
OpenAI’s ambitions to accelerate AI development come amid growing concerns from critics who say AI technology could become increasingly dangerous, help spread misinformation, destroy jobs and threaten humanity. While experts have differing opinions on when tech companies will achieve AGI, industry giants such as OpenAI, Google, Meta and Microsoft have been consistently enhancing their AI capabilities over the past decade, making significant progress every two to three years.
The company’s current flagship model, GPT-4, was released in March 2023 and will enable chatbots and other software applications to perform tasks such as answering questions, writing emails, generating term papers and analyzing data. An updated version, GPT-4o, announced this month but not yet widely available, can also generate images and respond to questions and commands in a highly conversational way.
But the rapid development of AI has not come without controversy. Actress Scarlett Johansson recently claimed that GPT-4o used an “eerie similar” voice without her consent, and hired lawyers to ask OpenAI to stop using it. The company denied that the voice was Johansson’s.
The process of training an AI model involves analyzing vast amounts of digital data, including audio, photos, videos, Wikipedia articles, books, news articles, etc. This process can take months or even years, followed by several more months of testing and fine-tuning before being released to the public. As a result, OpenAI’s next model may not be available for another nine months to a year or more.
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Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering free speech and online censorship.
