Oprah Winfrey aired a special titled ‘AI and the Future of Us,’ featuring guests like OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, tech influencer Marques Brownlee, and FBI director Christopher Wray. The discussion was largely focused on the potential risks and ethical concerns surrounding AI. Winfrey highlighted the need for humanity to adapt to AI’s rapid development, while Altman emphasised the importance of safety regulations.
Altman defended AI’s learning capabilities but acknowledged the need for government involvement in safety testing. However, his company has opposed California’s AI safety bill, which experts believe would provide essential safeguards. He also discussed the dangers of deepfakes and urged caution as AI technology advances.
Wray pointed out AI’s role in rising cybercrimes like sextortion and disinformation. He warned of its potential to be exploited for election interference, urging the public to remain vigilant in the face of increasing AI-generated content.
For balance, Bill Gates expressed optimism about AI’s positive impact on education and healthcare. He envisioned AI improving medical transcription and classroom learning, though concerns about bias and misuse remain.
OpenAI’s latest version of ChatGPT, GPT o1, a nomenclature indicative of resetting the counter clock to 1, and its less costly mini version, represents a watershed moment in the company’s LLM stockpile. Designed to replicate superhuman-level intelligence, the models can already answer questions a lot faster than humans. This series of models will be unlike previous ones. In responding to queries, they utilise a human-like ‘chain of thought’ processing combined with reinforcement learning on specialised datasets and optimisation algorithms.
The model outperforms older models by a significant margin. For example, when tested against GPT-4o at the International Mathematics Olympiad, it scored 83 percent to GPT-4o’s 13 percent. What’s unique about the model is its ability to not only provide step-by-step reasoning for outputs but to show human-like patterns of hesitation during the process, ‘I’m curious about…’ and ‘Ok, let me see’ or ‘Oh, I’m running out of time, let me get to an answer quickly’. The new design has also resulted in a reduced occurrence of hallucinations. Yet, despite their many pros, the models have limitations. For instance, they cannot browse the internet, lack world knowledge, and cannot process files and images.
According to the lead researcher on the project, Jerry Tworek, the next level is for the models to perform similarly to PhD students on challenging benchmark tasks in areas such as physics, chemistry and biology. He assures that the intention here is not to equate AI with human thinking but rather to illustrate the model’s ability to dive cognitively deep. For the company, reasoning is a step up from pattern recognition, which is the design model used with previous versions. Ultimately, OpenAI aims to develop a product that can make decisions and take action on behalf of humans, a venture estimated to cost a further $USD 150 billion. Removing the current kinks in the system will mean that the models can work on complex global problems we face today in areas such as engineering and medicine.
More breakthroughs will also mean reduced access costs for developers and users. According to Chief Research Officer Bob McGrew, developer access to o1-preview is currently $15 per 1 million input tokens (chunks of text parsed by the model) and $60 per 1 million output tokens. GPT -o4 costs $5 per 1 million input tokens and $15 per 1 million output tokens.
OpenAI is reportedly in talks to secure $6.5 billion in funding, aiming for a $150 billion valuation. Such a move would significantly boost its position among the world’s top startups, following an earlier $86 billion valuation this year.
Led by CEO Sam Altman and backed by Microsoft, OpenAI’s success with the ChatGPT chatbot has driven its rapid rise. The firm has revived Silicon Valley’s interest in AI, further solidifying its position. A significant portion of the new funding may come in the form of a revolving credit facility, adding $5 billion in debt from banks.
The capital injection will help OpenAI remain a private company, avoiding the regulatory challenges and stock market volatility that often come with public listings. Many high-profile startups are choosing to stay private for longer, bolstered by private equity funding.
Some investors, however, may push for liquidity through a public offering or company sale. Meanwhile, OpenAI has been added to Forge Global’s prestigious list of “Private Magnificent Seven” startups, further highlighting its dominance in the AI sector.
OpenAI is set to launch its new AI model ‘Strawberry’ within the next two weeks as part of its ChatGPT service. The model is designed to focus on reasoning rather than instant responses, could offer a more thoughtful conversational experience.
Led by Sam Altman, OpenAI has generated strong interest and investment in AI technology. Businesses are increasingly turning to artificial intelligence to enhance their products, with OpenAI reporting over one million paying users across its services.
OpenAI announced on Thursday that it now has over 1 million paying users across its ChatGPT business products, including Enterprise, Team, and Edu. The increase from 600,000 users in April highlights CEO Sam Altman’s success in driving enterprise adoption of the AI tool.
Recent reports suggest OpenAI executives are discussing premium subscriptions for upcoming large-language models, such as the reasoning-focused Strawberry and a new flagship model called Orion. Subscription prices could reach as high as $2,000 per month for these advanced AI tools.
ChatGPT Plus currently costs $20 per month, while the free tier continues to be used by hundreds of millions every month. OpenAI is also working on Strawberry to enable its AI models to perform deep research, refining them after their initial training.
The discussion around premium pricing follows news that Apple and Nvidia are in talks to invest in OpenAI, with the AI company expected to be valued at over $100 billion. ChatGPT currently has more than 200 million weekly active users, doubling its user base since last autumn.
Ilya Sutskever, OpenAI’s former chief scientist, has launched a new company called Safe Superintelligence (SSI) to develop safe AI systems that significantly surpass human intelligence. In an interview, Sutskever explained that SSI aims to take a different approach to AI scaling compared to OpenAI, emphasising the need for safety in superintelligent systems. He believes that once superintelligence is achieved, it will transform our understanding of AI and introduce new challenges for ensuring its safe use.
Sutskever acknowledged that defining what constitutes ‘safe’ AI is still a work in progress, requiring significant research to address the complexities involved. He also highlighted that as AI becomes more powerful, safety concerns will intensify, making it essential to test and evaluate AI systems rigorously. While the company does not plan to open-source all of its work, there may be opportunities to share parts of its research related to superintelligence safety.
SSI aims to contribute to the broader AI community’s safety efforts, which Sutskever views positively. He believes that as AI companies progress, they will realise the gravity of the safety challenges they face and that SSI can make a valuable contribution to this ongoing conversation.
OpenAI recently unveiled the Model Spec, a comprehensive framework designed to guide the behaviour of its GPT models in the OpenAI API and ChatGPT. The document is a crucial resource for researchers and data labellers involved in reinforcement learning from human feedback (RLHF), ensuring that models align with user intent and adhere to ethical standards.
The Model Spec is organised into three main components: Objectives provide broad directional goals, Rules establish specific instructions to prevent harmful outcomes and maintain legality, and Defaults offer basic style guidance and allow user flexibility while ensuring consistency.
The initiative serves multiple important purposes. It provides a framework for businesses to implement ethical AI, improve customer service quality, navigate regulations, and gain a competitive advantage through reliable AI systems. The Spec also addresses common issues by preventing users from prompting the model to ignore instructions and providing guidance on how models should refuse tasks.
OpenAI’s Model Spec represents a significant advancement in AI models’ fine-tuning and ethical alignment. As a living document, it will evolve based on community feedback and practical applications, contributing to the broader discourse on responsible AI development and public engagement in determining model behaviour.
AI startups OpenAI and Anthropic have agreed with the US Artificial Intelligence Safety Institute to collaborate on research, testing, and evaluating their advanced AI models. The deals come as regulatory scrutiny over AI’s safe and ethical development increases across the tech industry.
The agreements allow the US AI Safety Institute early access to significant new AI models from both companies before and after their release. The partnership will evaluate their capabilities and potential risks and provide feedback on safety improvements. OpenAI’s chief strategy officer, Jason Kwon, supported the initiative, citing its importance in setting a global framework for AI safety.
Anthropic, backed by Amazon and Alphabet, did not immediately comment on the deal. The US AI Safety Institute is also working closely with its counterpart in the UK to ensure international collaboration on AI safety. The institute was established as part of an executive order by President Biden to address risks associated with emerging AI technologies.
Apple and Nvidia are reportedly in discussions to invest in OpenAI, potentially pushing the valuation of the ChatGPT creator above $100 billion. The speculation of the two tech giants over the investment follows reports that venture capital firm Thrive Capital plans to invest around $1 billion in OpenAI, leading the latest funding round. While Apple and OpenAI have not commented on the news, sources indicate that Apple is increasingly integrating OpenAI’s technology into its products, including bringing ChatGPT to Apple devices earlier this year.
Microsoft, OpenAI’s largest investor with over $10 billion already committed, is also expected to join this fundraising effort. The exact amounts that Apple, Nvidia, and Microsoft will invest remain undisclosed. OpenAI’s high valuation underscores the intense competition in the AI industry, which has seen companies across various sectors invest heavily to leverage the technology and stay ahead.
The rapid rise in OpenAI’s worth reflects its pivotal role in the ongoing AI race, particularly following the launch of ChatGPT in late 2022. The company’s valuation reached $80 billion earlier this year through a tender offer led by Thrive Capital, highlighting its growing influence and strategic importance in the tech industry.
OpenAI is nearing a major funding round that would value the company more than $100 billion, with Thrive Capital expected to invest around $1 billion. Sources familiar with the matter have indicated that the fundraising is progressing but has yet to be made public.
Sarah Friar, OpenAI’s CFO, informed employees that the company seeks new capital to cover increasing operational costs and fuel the computing power needed for its AI models. The announcement did not specify exact figures but highlighted the growing need for resources as the company scales.
If the funding round is successful, OpenAI could become one of the world’s most valuable venture-backed startups, underscoring the global demand for generative AI tools like ChatGPT. The rise of OpenAI has also sparked increased competition among tech giants eager to integrate AI into their products.
Friar additionally hinted at plans for a tender event later this year, allowing employees to sell some of their shares. Details of this event are still in the early stages and yet to be confirmed.
