OpenAI, the San Francisco-based technology company, has unveiled its latest artificial intelligence software, GPT-4. According to the company’s announcement, the new software has the ability to solve difficult problems with greater accuracy, thanks to its broader general knowledge and problem-solving abilities. GPT-4 is a large multimodal model that accepts image and text inputs and emits text outputs, exhibiting human-level performance on various professional and academic benchmarks.
One of the most notable features of GPT-4 is its ability to reason based on images that users have uploaded. This capability means that the AI can “see,” as described by OpenAI employee Andrej Karpathy. The company has also provided examples of GPT-4’s capabilities, including the ability to solve problems such as scheduling a meeting among three busy people, score highly on tests such as the uniform bar exam, and learn a user’s creative writing style.
However, the company has also acknowledged that the technology has limitations, such as social biases and “hallucinations” that it knows more than it really does. OpenAI’s rapid public development of ChatGPT and other generative AI programs has prompted some ethicists and industry leaders to call for guardrails on the technology. OpenAI’s CEO, Sam Altman, has also tweeted that “we definitely need more regulation on ai.”
OpenAI launched in late 2015 with backing from tech billionaires including Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, and Reid Hoffman, and its name reflected its status as a nonprofit that would follow the principles of open-source software freely shared online. In 2019, it transitioned to a “capped” for-profit model.
The new GPT-4 software is not available for free, at least so far. People can try out GPT-4 on OpenAI’s subscription service, ChatGPT Plus, which costs $20 a month.
In conclusion, OpenAI’s latest software, GPT-4, is a significant development in the field of artificial intelligence, with its broad general knowledge, problem-solving abilities, and the ability to reason based on images. However, concerns over the technology’s limitations and the need for regulation on AI remain relevant.
