Here’s how Apple is planning to take on ChatGPT

Apple may be lagging behind when it comes to generative AI tools such as ChatGPT and Google Bard, but it seems determined to catch up as soon as possible – and we just got a better idea of exactly how it's going to do that.

According to The New York Times, Apple is hoping to strike a deal with news publishers, to get access to their archives of content. AI models developed by Apple could then be trained on the vast amounts of written material in those archives.

The report says that “multi-year deals” worth “at least $ 50 million” are on the table, although it sounds as though none of the negotiations have reached a conclusion as of yet. Apple, as you would expect, has refused to comment.

As per the NYT, the heavyweight publishers involved in the talks include Condé Nast (responsible for outlets such as Vogue and The New Yorker), IAC (which runs People, The Daily Beast and Better Homes and Gardens), and NBC News.

Copy rights and wrongs

These deal rumors highlight a core part of how Large Language Models (LLMs) like ChatGPT's GPT-4 and Bard's Gemini work. They analyze huge amounts of text to learn to be able to produce convincing sentences of their own.

AI companies have been rather circumspect about where they've got the data that their models are trained on, but a vast web scraping operation is no doubt involved somewhere. In other words, if you've written something that's on the internet, it's probably been used to help train an AI.

The likes of OpenAI have promised to defend businesses who use AI models against copyright claims – a sure sign that these developers of artificial intelligence engines know that they're not on the firmest of ground when it comes to intellectual property issues.

To Apple's credit, it seems the company is attempting to reimburse writers and publishers for use of their articles, rather than just taking first and asking permission later. Expect to hear more from Apple on AI during the course of 2024.

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ChatGPT has now fixed a ‘major outage’ – and reopened its Plus subscriptions

ChatGPT is back online after suffering a “major” outage, according to the OpenAI status log (as spotted by Bloomberg). It’s far from the first time the chatbot has gone down in recent months, and it comes amid increased competition from Google’s brand-new Gemini artificial intelligence (AI) tool.

OpenAI, ChatGPT’s developer, posted the note on its website stating that the company’s chatbot was down for just under 40 minutes yesterday, between 5:32pm and 6:10pm PST. Outage indicator website Downdetector logged almost 3,000 reports that ChatGPT had crashed, coinciding with OpenAI’s report.

Looking back through OpenAI’s incident report page, it’s far from the only time that ChatGPT has gone down recently. November was a particularly error-prone month, with another “major” outage on November 8, while a whole host of OpenAI services were inaccessible on November 11.

The latest crash comes at a potentially challenging time for OpenAI, as Google has just launched its Gemini large language model (LLM) that will power a range of AI services for the search giant. Yet Gemini hasn’t got off to the best start, as complaints have mounted over its abilities and Google’s decision to fake a “hands-on” video of the tool.

ChatGPT Plus resumes subscriptions

A laptop screen showing the landing page for ChatGPT Plus

(Image credit: OpenAI)

Just as ChatGPT was coming back online, OpenAI’s CEO Sam Altman shared some more positive news on X (formerly Twitter), noting that the company had re-enabled ChatGPT Plus subscriptions. “Thanks for your patience while we found more GPUs,” Altman added dryly.

ChatGPT Plus is OpenAI’s subscription service. For $ 20 / £16 a month, users gain access to a more advanced LLM (powered by GPT-4 rather than GPT-3.5, which runs the regular version of ChatGPT), faster response times and “priority access to new features and improvements.”

ChatGPT Plus had become so overrun in recent months that OpenAI was forced to pause subscriptions. According to Altman, a surge in use after OpenAI’s DevDay developer conference “exceeded our capacity and we want to make sure everyone has a great experience.”

With the rise of Google Gemini, you might be taking this moment to consider whether ChatGPT Plus is worth it. Google says Gemini can beat GPT-4 in a majority of tests, yet that’s with its high-end Ultra model, which isn’t available yet. So for now, ChatGPT Plus is still probably the best AI chatbot you can get – at least until Gemini Ultra launches.

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OpenAI confirms ChatGPT has been getting ‘lazier’ – but a fix is coming

Have you recently felt that ChatGPT isn’t performing as well as it used to? If so, you're not alone, as numerous users have claimed the artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot has been on the decline – and ChatGPT developer OpenAI has just confirmed a possible reason why that might be the case.

In fact, OpenAI seemed to endorse the idea that ChatGPT was getting “lazier” on X (formerly Twitter). In the post, OpenAI explained it had heard users’ feedback and that the reason for ChatGPT getting “lazier” was that it hadn’t been updated since November 11 – an entire month.

While OpenAI said this lack of updates wasn’t “intentional,” it added that it was “looking into fixing it.” It also noted that “model behavior can be unpredictable,” perhaps hinting that the developer itself hadn’t noticed ChatGPT’s declining performance until users brought it to light.

Despite all that, OpenAI hasn’t given an indication of when the issue might be fixed. If you regularly use ChatGPT prompts and have noticed a downward trend in the tool’s abilities, you’ll just have to hang tight until an update gets released.

Temporary solutions

A laptop screen on a green background showing the ChatGPT logo

(Image credit: ChatGPT)

Underneath the post on X, OpenAI further clarified the issue. One user asked the developer how it's possible that ChatGPT could get lazier.

In response, OpenAI explained that “to be clear, the idea is not that the model has somehow changed itself since Nov 11th. It’s just that differences in model behavior can be subtle – only a subset of prompts may be degraded, and it may take a long time for customers and employees to notice and fix these patterns.”

Other comments suggested ways to restore ChatGPT to its former prowess, including using the phrase “take a deep breath” or telling the chatbot to “reason step-by-step.” These might serve as temporary solutions until OpenAI is able to fix the underlying issue.

The degradation of ChatGPT performance comes shortly after Google announced its own ChatGPT rival called Gemini. Yet despite flashy promises from the search giant, numerous reports have emerged claiming its abilities are less than stellar. Perhaps it's time for both OpenAI and Google to give their chatbots a Christmas break and work on some upgrades for 2024.

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Google Bard’s biggest AI upgrade so far sees it close the gap on ChatGPT

Google Bard is receiving a huge boost in performance as it will now be powered by the company’s “most capable AI model”, Gemini.

This news may come as a surprise as recent reports circulated claiming that Gemini’s launch was being delayed due to poor performance across multiple languages. But now, it appears Google felt the pressure to bump up the release of its long-awaited (and possibly worthy) ChatGPT rival.

Gemini comes in three different “sizes”; however, we’re only going to focus on the two more powerful versions, Pro and Ultra, because those directly impact Bard. The former, according to the company, can handle a wide variety of tasks. It’s the all-rounder that will be present on other Google platforms. It’s important to mention the company has fine-tuned Gemini Pro on Bard allowing the AI to be more capable at certain actions like understanding prompts, summarizing content, planning things out, and reasoning.

In a demonstration, the tech giant had scientific YouTuber Mark Rober try out the updated Bard. He asked the AI to come up with “the most accurate paper airplane” which then provided a bunch of different designs and optimizations. The video is supposed to show how Bard can now play a bigger role in the creative process.

Availability

Bard with Gemini Pro is available today in English across over 170 countries and territories. A full list of supporting nations can be found on Google’s Help website. At the time of this writing, you can only enter text prompts although there are plans to implement other “modalities” soon. Still, we don't know yet what those modalities will be. What’s more, Google intends to expand the AI’s reach to Europe (users on the continent currently don’t have access), plus grow its language support.

Early next year, Bard will see another upgrade where we’ll see Google install its Gemini Ultra model to the AI. This is the top-of-the-line version specifically designed to handle “highly complex tasks” and accept multimodal inputs such as text, video, and even code. Google explains Ultra will “think more carefully before answering” tough questions as it has better reasoning skills. 

Right now, the company is doing some safety checks to make sure the upgrade is the best it can be. When it does come out, the new version will be called Bard Advanced. 

It’s unknown exactly when the new Bard will launch, however, Google will soon release a tester program to a select group of users. We contacted Google to ask when and how people can join this tester program. This story will be updated at a later time.

Until then, check out TechRadar's list of the best AI writers for 2023.

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What is Google Bard? Everything you need to know about the ChatGPT rival

Google finally joined the AI race and launched a ChatGPT rival called Bard – an “experimental conversational AI service” earlier this year. Google Bard is an AI-powered chatbot that acts as a poet, a crude mathematician and a even decent conversationalist.

The chatbot is similar to ChatGPT in many ways. It's able to answer complex questions about the universe and give you a deep dive into a range of topics in a conversational, easygoing way. The bot, however, differs from its rival in one crucial respect: it's connected to the web for free, so – according to Google – it gives “fresh, high-quality responses”.

Google Bard is powered by PaLM 2. Like ChatGPT, it's a type of machine learning called a 'large language model' that's been trained on a vast dataset and is capable of understanding human language as it's written.

Who can access Google Bard?

Bard was announced in February 2023 and rolled out for early access the following month. Initially, a limited number of users in the UK and US were granted access from a waitlist. However, at Google I/O – an event where the tech giant dives into updates across its product lines – Bard was made open to the public.

It’s now available in more than 180 countries around the world, including the US and all member states of the European Union. As of July 2023, Bard works with more than 40 languages. You need a Google account to use it, but access to all of Bard’s features is entirely free. Unlike OpenAI’s ChatGPT, there is no paid tier.

The Google Bard chatbot answering a question on a computerscreen

(Image credit: Google)

Opening up chatbots for public testing brings great benefits that Google says it's “excited” about, but also risks that explain why the search giant has been so cautious to release Bard into the wild. The meteoric rise of ChatGPT has, though, seemingly forced its hand and expedited the public launch of Bard.

So what exactly will Google's Bard do for you and how will it compare with ChatGPT, which Microsoft appears to be building into its own search engine, Bing? Here's everything you need to know about it.

What is Google Bard?

Like ChatGPT, Bard is an experimental AI chatbot that's built on deep learning algorithms called 'large language models', in this case one called LaMDA. 

To begin with, Bard was released on a “lightweight model version” of LaMDA. Google says this allowed it to scale the chatbot to more people, as this “much smaller model requires significantly less computing power”.

The Google Bard chatbot answering a question on a phone screen

(Image credit: Google)

At I/O 2023, Google launched PaLM 2, its next-gen language model trained on a wider dataset spanning multiple languages. The model is faster and more efficient than LamDA, and comes in four sizes to suit the needs of different devices and functions.

Google is already training its next language model, Gemini, which we think is one of its most exciting projects of the next 25 years. Built to be multi-modal, Gemini is touted to deliver yet more advancements in the arena of generative chatbots, including features such as memory.

What can Google Bard do?

In short, Bard is a next-gen development of Google Search that could change the way we use search engines and look for information on the web.

Google says that Bard can be “an outlet for creativity” or “a launchpad for curiosity, helping you to explain new discoveries from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope to a 9-year-old, or learn more about the best strikers in football right now, and then get drills to build your skills”.

Unlike traditional Google Search, Bard draws on information from the web to help it answer more open-ended questions in impressive depth. For example, rather than standard questions like “how many keys does a piano have?”, Bard will be able to give lengthy answers to a more general query like “is the piano or guitar easier to learn”?

The Google Bard chatbot answering a question on a computer screen

An example of the kind or prompt that Google’s Bard will give you an in-depth answer to. (Image credit: Google)

We initially found Bard to fall short in terms of features and performance compared to its competitors. But since its public deployment earlier this year, Google Bard’s toolkit has come on leaps and bounds. 

It can generate code in more than 20 programming languages, help you solve text-based math equations and visualize information by generating charts, either from information you provide or tables it includes in its responses. It’s not foolproof, but it’s certainly a lot more versatile than it was at launch.

Further updates have introduced the ability to listen to Bard’s responses, change their tone using five options (simple, long, short, professional or casual), pin and rename conversations, and even share conversations via a public link. Like ChatGPT, Bard’s responses now appear in real-time, too, so you don’t have to wait for the complete answer to start reading it.

Google Bard marketing image

(Image credit: Google)

Improved citations are meant to address the issue of misinformation and plagiarism. Bard will annotate a line of code or text that needs a citation, then underline the cited part and link to the source material. You can also easily double-check its answers by hitting the ‘Google It’ shortcut.

It works with images as well: you can upload pictures with Google Lens and see Google Search image results in Bard’s responses.

Bard has also been integrated into a range of Google apps and services, allowing you deploy its abilities without leaving what you’re working on. It can work directly with English text in Gmail, Docs and Drive, for example, allowing you to summarize your writing in situ.

Similarly, it can interact with info from the likes of Maps and even YouTube. As of November, Bard now has the limited ability to understand the contents of certain YouTube videos, making it quicker and easier for you to extract the information you need.

What will Google Bard do in future?

A huge new feature coming soon is the ability for Google Bard to create generative images from text. This feature, a collaborative effort between Google and Adobe, will be brought forward by the Content Authenticity Initiative, an open-source Content Credentials technology that will bring transparency to images that are generated through this integration.

The whole project is made possible by Adobe Firefly, a family of creative generative AI models that will make use of Bard's conversational AI service to power text-to-image capabilities. Users can then take these AI-generated images and further edit them in Adobe Express.

Otherwise, expect to see Bard support more languages and integrations with greater accuracy and efficiency, as Google continues to train its ability to generate responses.

Google Bard vs ChatGPT: what’s the difference?

Fundamentally the chatbot is based on similar technology to ChatGPT, with even more tools and features coming that will close the gap between Google Bard and ChatGPT.

Both Bard and ChatGPT are chatbots that are built on 'large language models', which are machine learning algorithms that have a wide range of talents including text generation, translation, and answering prompts based on the vast datasets that they've been trained on.

A laptop screen showing the landing page for ChatGPT Plus

(Image credit: OpenAI)

The two chatbots, or “experimental conversational AI service” as Google calls Bard, are also fine-tuned using human interactions to guide them towards desirable responses. 

One difference between the two, though, is that the free version of ChatGPT isn't connected to the internet – unless you use a third-party plugin. That means it has a very limited knowledge of facts or events after January 2022. 

If you want ChatGPT to search the web for answers in real time, you currently need to join the waitlist for ChatGPT Plus, a paid tier which costs $ 20 a month. Besides the more advanced GPT-4 model, subscribers can use Browse with Bing. OpenAI has said that all users will get access “soon”, but hasn't indicated a specific date.

Bard, on the other hand, is free to use and features web connectivity as standard. As well as the product integrations mentioned above, Google is also working on Search Generative Experience, which builds Bard directly into Google Search.

Does Google Bard only do text answers?

Until recently Google's Bard initially only answered text prompts with its own written replies, similar to ChatGPT. But one of the biggest changes to Bard is its multimodal functionality. This allows the chatbot to answer user prompts and questions with both text and images.

Users can also do the same, with Bard able to work with Google Lens to have images uploaded into Bard and Bard responding in text. Multimodal functionality is a feature that was hinted at for both GPT-4 and Bing Chat, and now Google Bard users can actually use it. And of course, we also have Google Bard's Adobe-powered AI image generator, which will be powered by Adobe Firefly.

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OpenAI’s reported ‘superintelligence’ breakthrough is so big it nearly destroyed the company, and ChatGPT

It now seems entirely possible that ChatGPT parent company OpenAI has solved the 'superintelligence' problem, and is now grappling with the implications for humanity.

In the aftermath of OpenAI's firing and rehiring of its co-founder and CEO Sam Altman, revelations about what sparked the move keep coming. A new report in The Information pins at least the internal disruption on a significant Generative AI breakthrough that could lead to the development of something called 'superintelligence' within this decade or sooner.

Superintelligence is, as you might have guessed, intelligence that outstrips humanity, and the development of AI that's capable of such intelligence without proper safeguards is, naturally, a major red flag.

According to The Information, the breakthrough was spearheaded by OpenAI Chief Scientist (and full-of-regrets board member) Ilya Sutskever. 

It allows AI to use cleaner and computer-generated data to solve problems the AI has never seen before. This means the AI is trained not on many different versions of the same problem, but on information not directly related to the problem. Solving problems in this way – usually math or science problems – requires reasoning. Right, something we do, not AIs.

OpenAI's primary consumer-facing product, ChatGPT (powered by the GPT large language model [LLM]) may seem so smart that it must to be using reason to craft its responses. Spend enough time with ChatGPT, however, and you soon realize it's just regurgitating what it's learned from the vast swaths of data it's been fed, and making mostly accurate guesses about how to craft sentences that make sense and which apply to your query. There is no reasoning involved here.

The Information claims, though, that this breakthrough – which Altman may have alluded to in a recent conference appearance, saying, “on a personal note, just in the last couple of weeks, I have gotten to be in the room, when we sort of like push the sort of the veil of ignorance back and the frontier of discovery forward,” – sent shockwaves throughout OpenAI.

Managing the threat

While there's no sign of superintelligence in ChatGPT right now, OpenAI is surely working to integrate some of this power into, at least, some of its premium products, like GPT-4 Turbo and those GPTs chatbot agents (and future 'intelligent agents').

Connecting superintelligence to the board's recent actions, which Sutskever initially supported, might be a stretch. The breakthrough reportedly came months ago, and prompted Sutskever and another OpenAI scientist, Jan Leike, to form a new OpenAI research group called Superaligment with the goal of developing superintelligence safeguards.

Yes, you heard that right. The company working on developing superintelligence is simultaneously building tools to protect us from superintelligence. Imagine Doctor Frankenstein equipping the villagers with flamethrowers, and you get the idea.

What's not clear from the report is how internal concerns about the rapid development of superintelligence possibly triggered the Altman firing. Perhaps it doesn't matter.

At this writing, Altman is on his way back to OpenAI, the board is refashioned, and the work to build superintelligence – and to protect us from it – will continue.

If all of this is confusing, I suggest you ask ChatGPT to explain it to you.

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You can now talk to ChatGPT like Siri for free, but it won’t reveal OpenAI’s secrets

ChatGPT has conveniently distracted us from OpenAI's boardroom drama, which has just seen Sam Altman return to the company as CEO, by making its Voice chat feature available to all free users.

The AI chatbot got its impressively conversational voice powers in September, but this feature was limited to the paid Plus and Enterprise tiers. But now OpenAI, which is looking for a shiny object to take eyes away from its recent meltdown, has made 'ChatGPT with voice' available to all users.

To use it, you just need the latest version of ChatGPT's iOS or Android app. Tap on the headphones icon at the bottom of the screen and you can start quizzing the chatbot about anything you like – as long as your question isn't about recent events, like OpenAI's CEO merry-go-round.

That's because the GPT-3.5 model that's available to free users has only been trained on data going up to January 2022. So when you ask it, for example, 'Why was Sam Altman fired from OpenAI?', it answers that there are “no public reports or indications” of this happening. How convenient.

Still, if you're looking for a voice assistant that's a bit chattier and more knowledgeable than the likes of Apple's Siri, then the ChatGPT voice function is a fun new tool (assuming the service hasn't gone down, like it did at around 2pm PT / 10pm GMT yesterday).

You can choose from five different voices and your chats (but not the audio clips) are saved just like your text-based conversations. It'll also auto-detect languages, though you can also choose this in the Settings menu.

 A Siri replacement?

A phone on a pink background showing ChatGPT's voice feature

(Image credit: Future)

Given it's now possible to use ChatGPT with Siri, the arrival of voice powers on the chatbot's free version is a potentially big deal. That's particularly the case for owners of the iPhone 15 Pro, who can map ChatGPT to the new Action button (by going to Settings > Action Button > Shortcut).

Siri and ChatGPT still have notable differences though. For example, Siri is deeply integrated with the iPhone, allowing it to perform actions like setting timers and controlling your phone's volume.

But ChatGPT's depth of knowledge and more conversational style is arguably better when it comes to general knowledge questions – as long as you're aware of its propensity to hallucinate.

It's certainly a fun, free feature to play with and will no doubt take some of the attention off OpenAI's Succession-like boardroom tussles, which could ultimately have a big impact on how the AI chatbot tussle plays out in 2024.

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ChatGPT has become so popular it’s had to pause Plus subscriptions

If you were about to start delving into the world of AI chatbots, then we have some bad news: signups for ChatGPT Plus have been paused as demand has spread beyond the capacity of OpenAI, the organization behind the chatbot/language model. 

For the uninitiated, ChatGPT Plus provides priority access to ChatGPT and faster response times for the artificial intelligence-powered language model, as well as priority access to new features and improvements all for some $ 20 a month. 

But with new subscriptions now paused, you won't be able to get access to the likes of the GPT-Turbo – a supercharged version of the ChatGPT AI model – and custom GPTs that can be tailored to particular tasks. 

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The base ChatGPT is still available for free and people can still sign up and use it, it’s just the premium tier is basically out of reach for new subscribers for the time being. So that means you can still use ChatGPT to come up with answers to all manner of queries, or finesse your CV, or even give you dating advice. Just don’t expect it to be super fast or especially accurate – while ChatGPT can be a powerful tool, it’s not quite up to the same level of intelligence as a garden-variety human.

As for the surge in subscribers for ChatGPT Plus, that may have come from OpenAI’s recent developer conference DevDay, which was held on November 6. This may have seen a spate of developers get a dose of inspiration and move to sign up for ChatGPT Plus.

“The surge in usage post-DevDay has exceeded our capacity and we want to make sure everyone has a great experience,” said Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI.

So the flipside of this subscription pause could deliver a better overall service once OpenAI catches up.

Rise of the chatbots 

So what can we infer from this surge? Well, it would be a good indication of the continued appetite to embrace ChatGPT and other AI tools and chatbots. 

And as a result, we could see more apps and services come with ChatGPT-powered features, likely chatbots to provide a quick way to answer user queries or provide the core experience of a smart service. 

Then again with the likes of Samsung and Apple tipped to make greater use of AI in its future smartphones, we could see all manner of AI-related tech in near-future products. Time will, as ever, tell. 

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Google’s AI plans hit a snag as it reportedly delays next-gen ChatGPT rival

Development on Google’s Gemini AI is apparently going through a rough patch as the LLM (large language model) has reportedly been delayed to next year.

This comes from tech news site The Information whose sources claim the project will not see a November launch as originally planned. Now it may not arrive until sometime in the first quarter of 2024, barring another delay. The report doesn’t explain exactly why the AI is being pushed back. Google CEO Sundar Pichai did lightly confirm the decision by stating the company is “focused on getting Gemini 1.0 out as soon as possible [making] sure it’s competitive [and] state of the art”. That said, The Information does suggest this situation is due to ChatGPT's strength as a rival.

Since its launch, ChatGPT has skyrocketed in popularity, effectively becoming a leading force in 2023’s generative AI wave. Besides being a content generator for the everyday user, corporations are using it for fast summarization of lengthy reports and even building new apps to handle internal processes and projections. It’s been so successful that OpenAI has had to pause sign-ups for ChatGPT Plus as servers have hit full capacity.

Plan of attack

So what is Google’s plan moving forward? According to The Information, the Gemini team wants to ensure “the primary model is as good as or better than” GPT-4, OpenAI’s latest model. That is a tall order. GPT-4 is multimodal meaning it can accept video, speech, and text to launch a query and generate new content. What’s more, it boasts overall better performance when compared to the older GPT-3.5 model, now capable of performing more than one task at a time.

For Gemini, Google has several use cases in mind. The tech giant plans on using the AI to power new YouTube creator tools, upgrade Bard, plus improve Google Assistant. So far, it has managed to create mini versions of Gemini “to handle different tasks”, but right now, the primary focus is getting the main model up and running. 

It also plans to court advertisers with their AI as advertising is “Google’s main moneymaker.” Company executives have reportedly talked about using Gemini to generate ad campaigns, including text and images. Videos could come later, too.

Bard upgrade

Google is far from out of the game, and while the company is putting a lot of work into Gemini, it's still building out and updating Bard

First, if you’re stuck on your math homework, Bard will now provide step-by-step instructions on how to solve the problem, similar to Google Search. All you have to do is ask the AI or upload a picture of the question. Additionally, the platform can create charts for you by using the data you enter into the text prompts. Or you can ask it to make a smiley face like we did.

Google Bard's new chart plot feature

(Image credit: Future)

If you want to know more about this technology, we recommend learning about the five ways that ChatGPT is better than Google Bard (and three ways it isn't).

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ChatGPT Plus subscribers can now make their own customizable chatbots – GPTs

During its first tech conference, OpenAI introduced a new service that will allow you to create your own version of ChatGPT tailored to your specific needs. What’s more, you don’t even need to know how to code.

Simply called GPTs, these custom chatbots can handle a variety of use cases across different scenarios. Businesses, for example, can create a special GPT that only their employees can access. Or parents can have one that’ll teach their kids how to solve tough math problems. It appears this is an evolution of Custom Instructions from this past July. The company told TheVerge they rolled out the features in order to give users some control over their AI, but people wanted more. 

Making a custom GPT model, from the looks of it, is a fairly straightforward process. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman demonstrated the process at the event. What you need to be aware of is that there are a lot of steps involved. 

A demonstration

First, you’ll need a subscription to ChatGPT Plus which is $ 20 a month or ChatGPT Enterprise if you own a business. Then you head over to your personal account and select the Create a GPT option at the top of the page. The GPT Builder tool will proceed to ask you what you want to make. Sam Altman demonstrated the process by telling the platform to generate a chatbot that will offer business advice to tech startups.

GPTs demonstration

(Image credit: OpenAI)

The tech will then create a fledgling AI model, which will be previewed on the right side of the screen. GPT Builder will press for more details like what name you want to give the chatbot or what kind of thumbnail image should it have. It is possible to configure it further by uploading your own data files to the AI, and further refining it for your purposes. There are also extra “capabilities” you can enable such as browsing the internet or integrating the DALL-E image generator.

Configuring GPT chatbot

(Image credit: OpenAI)

Once you’re done, you can save your newly-made chatbot to make additional tweaks down the line or you can release it by sharing it with the public via link. There will be support for select third-party services so your model can access data from “emails, databases, and more”. Another live test displayed how users can connect their Google Calendar schedule to the custom AI through the Zapier tool.

The developer demonstrating her personal GPT asked it what her schedule looked like for the day and it brought up every single meeting she had penciled in. The bot even highlighted scheduling conflicts. Third-party support is currently limited to the Zapier tool, as well as the image editing site Canva.

GPT chatbot with Zapier integration

(Image credit: OpenAI)

OpenAI states chats between you and your personal GPT will not be shared with other people or the company unless you give your explicit consent. You are in control of your data at all times. That said, the developers do have “systems” in place that give them authority to review user-generated GPTs to make sure they don’t run afoul of company policy. OpenAI doesn’t want people to create chatbots that involve themselves with “fraudulent activity, hateful content, or adult themes.” They want to keep things squeaky clean.

The GPT Builder is available in a beta state to everyone who has a subscription to ChatGPT Plus. Later in November, OpenAI will launch the GPT Store which will display “creations by verified builders.” You’ll be able to search chatbots made by others across multiple categories like productivity and education. Further down the line, presumably next year, it will be possible to make money off your chatbots “based on how many people are using your GPT.”

Pretty cool stuff, we must admit. It’ll be interesting to see what chatbot climbs to the top of the leaderboards on the GPT Store. 

If you want to learn more about the tech, check out TechRadar’s list of the best AI tools for 2023.

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