The company says the model can generate content and understand voice, text, and image commands.
San Francisco:
OpenAI on Monday released a more powerful, more human-like version of the artificial intelligence technology behind its popular generation tool ChatGPT, making it available for free to all users.
The update to OpenAI’s flagship product was released a day before Google is expected to make its own announcement about Gemini, the search engine giant’s proprietary AI tool that will compete directly with ChatGPT.
“We are very excited to be able to make GPT-4o available to all of our free users,” Chief Technology Officer Mira Murati said at the highly anticipated launch event in San Francisco.
The new model, GPT-4o (the “O” stands for omni), will be rolled out to OpenAI’s products in the coming weeks, and paying customers will have unlimited access to the tool, the company said.
The company says the model can generate content and understand voice, text, and image commands.
“The new audio (and video) mode is the best computer interface I’ve ever used. It feels like the AI in the movies,” OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said in a blog post. Stated.
Altman has previously cited Scarlett Johansson’s character in the movie “Her” as an inspiration for where she wants to take AI interactions.
“For me, talking into a computer was never natural, but now it feels natural,” he added.
Murati and OpenAI engineers demonstrated GPT-4o’s new capabilities in a virtual event and challenged an enhanced version of the ChatGPT chatbot.
The demo mainly consisted of OpenAI staff asking questions to ChatGPT with audio, and ChatGPT responding with jokes and human-like banter.
The bot acted as an English-to-Italian translator, interpreted facial expressions, and guided one user through a difficult algebra problem.
The company said GPT-4o has the same capabilities as previous versions when it comes to text, reasoning and coding intelligence, setting new industry standards for multilingual speech, voice and vision.
In one demonstration, ChatGPT was able to speak in a friendly, feminine voice and interpret an employee’s surroundings through a smartphone camera, much like the AI bot in the movie Her.
“Hmm, from what I see, it looks like you’re in some kind of recording or production setup, with lights and tripods…prepared to shoot a video or make an announcement.” ” said the ChatGPT bot.
– “Please take your time” –
Expectations have been mounting in recent weeks that OpenAI would release an AI-powered version of its online search tool to compete with the Google search engine, but Altman said Friday that this is not the case.
Observers have also been waiting for the release of the GPT-5, but Altman said last week that the company “will take its time before releasing any major new models.”
The event is just the latest episode in the AI arms race that has seen OpenAI-backed Microsoft overtake Apple as the world’s largest company by market capitalization.
OpenAI and Microsoft are in a fierce competition with Google to become a major player in generative AI, but Facebook owner Meta and startup Anthropic are also making big moves to compete.
Companies are scrambling to come up with ways to cover the prohibitive costs of generative AI, much of which will go to semiconductor giant Nvidia and its powerful GPU chips.
Making the new model available to all users could raise questions about OpenAI’s path to monetization, with questions about whether the general public is ready to pay for a subscription.
Until now, customers could only use low-performance versions of OpenAI or Google’s chatbots for free.
“We’re a business and there’s going to be a lot to charge for,” Altman said on his blog.
AI makers are also feeling pressure from publishers and creators to pay for the content used to train their models.
OpenAI has content partnerships with The Associated Press, the Financial Times, and Axel Springer, but is also embroiled in a major lawsuit with the New York Times.
AI companies also face separate lawsuits from artists, musicians, and writers in U.S. courts.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
