The concept of artificial intelligence (AI) is no longer a sci-fi one. AI has been steadily advancing over the years, and in recent times, the growth has skyrocketed—paving the way for more efficient processes, better customer service, and improved quality of life across many aspects.
AI will likely play an even more critical role as it becomes better at completing more complex tasks and providing decision support.
As AI gets better at understanding and responding to the complexities of the world, its capabilities will continue to increase, which is likely to result in increased economic value creation.
Well, the technology giants across the globe, including Google, Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, Meta, and others, realised AI’s potential and are pumping billions into it to witness the spectacular growth of AI.
Microsoft pumps billions into OpenAI
Recently, we at TFN reported about the speculation about Microsoft investing $10B into an American artificial intelligence research laboratory – OpenAI.
However, on Monday, the Redmond giant confirmed the “third phase of a long-term partnership with OpenAI through a multiyear, multibillion-dollar investment.” According to Microsoft, the renewed partnership will accelerate AI breakthroughs and enable both companies to commercialise advanced technologies in the future.
“We formed our partnership with OpenAI around a shared ambition to responsibly advance cutting-edge AI research and democratise AI as a new technology platform,” said Satya Nadella, Chairman and CEO of Microsoft. “In this next phase of our partnership, developers and organisations across industries will have access to the best AI infrastructure, models, and toolchain with Azure to build and run their applications.”
Microsoft says this investment will also help companies engage in Supercomputing and New AI-powered experiences at scale.
In 2021, OpenAI was considered one of the top three AI labs globally by AI researchers for obvious reasons. For example, the company developed AI game-playing software — OpenAI Five, that can beat humans in video games such as Dota 2.
As a result, the AI bot defeated a professional esports team at Valve’s Dota 2 in 2019. In fact, the AI bot achieved a victory rate of 99.4%, compared to the 24% win rate of human teams.
Further, the company received humongous attention for its AI text generator GPT-3 and its AI image generator Dall-E. In the recent past, OpenAI’s ChatGPT, based on GPT-3.5, made waves across the Internet on every platform known to humankind.
ChatGPT Pro incoming
The monstrous popularity of ChatGPT made accessing the service pretty tricky. AI-powered chatbot ChatGPT is one of the biggest sensations in artificial intelligence to date, but it’s not free.
Therefore, Open AI decided to roll out ChatGPT Professional, a paid-for version of ChatGPT, for those who want guaranteed access for professional purposes.
The company has opened a waitlist and briefed what pro users can expect.
- Always available (no blackout windows)
- Fast responses from ChatGPT (i.e. no throttling)
- As many messages as you need (at least 2X the regular daily limit)
“If selected, we’ll reach out to you to set up a payment process and a pilot. Please keep in mind that this is an early experimental program subject to change, and we are not making paid pro access generally available at this time,” says the company.
The company has given access to some early users, and they have shared some insights as well.
According to Zahid Khawaja, an early access user, the monthly subscription cost for the ChatGPT Pro is $42. However, the company is yet to reveal how it decided on $42 a month. ChatGPT Pro’s official release has yet to be announced by OpenAI.
“Unfortunately, ChatGPT professional access is not available for subscription at this time,” says the company.
Code Red for Google
Soon after ChatGPT’s launch, the search engine giant Google issued a “Code Red” response.
Google has been enjoying the monopoly for around 20 years as the world’s primary gateway to the Internet. However, with a new kind of chatbot, which could disrupt the traditional search engine, Google could face its first serious threat to its search engine business.
Google has already started doubling down its effort to create a ChatGPT rival through the UK company it acquired nine years ago — DeepMind.
A few days back, DeepMind’s CEO, Demis Hassabis, revealed that the company is working on a ChatGPT rival — Sparrow. According to Hassabis, Sparrow can do what ChatGPT can’t, including citing sources through reinforcement learning.
The future is undoubtedly exciting for Artificial Intelligence enthusiasts. From autonomous vehicles to predictive analytics, AI has proven to be a force to be reckoned with.
However, it’s important to note that AI development and deployment also raise ethical and societal concerns, such as potential job displacement and the need for effective regulation.
Have you tried ChatGPT yet? Do share your experience with us in the comment section below.
Picture Credits: ramirezom/Depositphotos
