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CNN
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ChatGPT is about to get a lot more useful.
OpenAI Monday announcement its latest big AI language model that it says will make ChatGPT smarter and easier to use.
The new model, called GPT-4o, is an update of the previous GPT-4 model, launched a little over a year ago. The model will be available to non-paying customers, meaning everyone will have access to OpenAI’s most advanced technology through ChatGPT.
Based on the company’s demonstration on Monday, GPT-4o will effectively transform ChatGPT into a digital personal assistant capable of participating in spoken conversations in real time. It will also be able to interact using text and “vision”, meaning it will be able to view screenshots, photos, documents or graphics uploaded by users and have a conversation about them .
Mira Murati, OpenAI’s chief technology officer, said the updated version of ChatGPT will now also have memory capabilities, meaning it will be able to learn from previous conversations with users and perform translations in real time .
“This is the first time we’ve really taken a big step forward in ease of use,” Murati said during the live demonstration from the company’s headquarters in San Francisco. “This interaction becomes much more natural and much easier.”
The new release comes as OpenAI seeks to stay ahead of growing competition in the AI arms race. Competitors such as Google and Meta are working to create large, increasingly powerful language models that power chatbots and can be used to integrate AI technology into various other products.
The OpenAI event took place a day before Google’s annual I/O developers conference, where Google is expected to announce updates to its Gemini AI model. Like the new GPT-4o, Google’s Gemini is also multimodal, meaning it can interpret and generate text, images, and audio. The OpenAI update also comes ahead of Apple’s expected AI announcements at its Worldwide Developers Conference next month, which could include new ways to incorporate AI into upcoming versions of iPhone or of iOS.
Meanwhile, the latest version of GPT could be a boon for Microsoft, which has invested billions of dollars in OpenAI to integrate its AI technology into its own products.
OpenAI executives demonstrated a spoken conversation with ChatGPT to get real-time instructions for solving a math problem, telling a bedtime story, and getting coding tips. ChatGPT was able to speak with a natural human-sounding voice, as well as a robot voice – and even sang part of a response. The tool was also able to look at an image of a chart and discuss it.
They also showed the model detecting user emotions; in one case, he listened to an executive’s breathing and encouraged him to calm down.
“You’re not a vacuum cleaner!” the female voice of ChatGPT (which sounds remarkably like Scarlett Johansson’s digital voice from the 2013 film “Her”) jokingly told the staffer.
ChatGPT was also capable of having a conversation in multiple languages by automatically translating and responding. The tool now supports more than 50 languages, according to OpenAI.
“The new voice (and video) mode is the best computing interface I have ever used,” said Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, in a statement. blog post following the announcement. “It’s like the AI in the movies; and it still surprises me a little that it’s real. Achieving human-level response times and expressiveness is proving to be a big game-changer.
Murati said OpenAI will launch a ChatGPT desktop application with GPT-4o capabilities, giving users another platform to interact with the company’s technology. GPT-4o will also be available to developers wanting to create their own custom chatbots from OpenAI’s GPT store, a feature that will now also be available to non-paying users.
The updated technology and features are expected to roll out to ChatGPT in the coming months. Free ChatGPT users will have a limited number of interactions with the new GPT-4o model before the tool automatically reverts to the old GPT-3.5 model; Paid users will have access to more messages with the latest model.
OpenAI said that more than 100 million people already use ChatGPT. But an updated ChatGPT experience — and the ability to interact with it on the desktop and through enhanced voice chats — could give even more people a reason to use its technology. The move comes at a time when integrating AI into more widely used consumer products from Google and Meta, like Instagram and Google Assistant, could make those companies’ technology more widely and easily accessible.
This story has been updated with additional developments and context.
