OpenAI launches GPT-4. March the biggest AI story was the release of OpenAI’s GPT-4. The company’s latest big language model, which powers products like ChatGPT and Microsoft’s Bing, is the smartest version of the technology yet, capable of passing the math section of the SAT and the Uniform Bar exam. It’s also smart enough to code an actual working website from a photo of a hastily drawn pencil sketch on a sheet of paper, and can suggest recipes simply by looking at a photo of the ingredients in your refrigerator.
The launch of GPT-4 occurred during loudest week in AIsandwiched between Google’s announcement of bringing generative AI capabilities to Google Docs, Sheets, and Gmail, and Microsoft’s announcement of Microsoft 365 Copilot, which will infuse Microsoft Word, Excel, and Powerpoint with ChatGPT-style capabilities.
Some experts are concerned about the relentless pace of AI development, calling it a “circus” and telling BuzzFeed News they were worried that “move fast and break things”, an old Facebook slogan, is back in fashion in Silicon Valley.
The petitioners call for a pause in AI development. However, it wasn’t just a handful of experts who were worried. More than 1,000 AI experts and leaders in the field, including Elon Musk, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, and Stability AI CEO Emad Mostaque. signed a petition calling on companies to pause the development of artificial intelligence systems for at least six months.
“In recent months we have seen AI labs caught up in an out-of-control race to develop and deploy increasingly powerful digital minds that no one, not even their creators, can reliably understand, predict, or control,” reads the letter, which was posted on the website of the Future of Life Institute, a nonprofit organization that aims to minimize the social risks of technology.
However, it soon emerged that some of the names attached to the letter, such as OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, had never signed it.
An image of the Pope from AI broke the Internet. The guy who created the fake image of Pope Francis in a white puffer jacket using Midjourney, a generative AI tool, told BuzzFeed News he was trip over mushrooms when the idea occurred to him. The photograph, which fooled many people into mistaking it for real, showed the potential of generative AI to create havoc and spread misinformation.
The AI funding craze has begun. Silicon Valley is reeling from layoffs, but AI startups are raking in dollars. Character.AI, a service that allows people to create their own chatbots of famous personalities like Joe Biden and Super Mario, increase $150 million from major venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz at a $1 billion valuation. Another AI startup called Adept increase $350 million from investors including General Catalyst and Spark Capital. And days later, Perplexity AI, an artificial intelligence-based search engine based in San Francisco, said it had increase $25.6 million from New Enterprise Associates. Perplexity’s backers include a host of former Google AI researchers, as well as Yann LeCun, Meta’s chief AI scientist.
Bing’s AI-powered chatbot is getting more ads. How do you make money if you revolutionize a search engine with AI? Microsoft is trying to discover. The company said in a blog post that it is “exploring placing ads in the chat experience.” What they’ll look like isn’t entirely clear yet, but at least one user got a glimpse when Bing’s chatbot slipped a sponsored quote into a search result for the cheapest Honda.
