Microsoft is a major investor in OpenAI and, according to rumors, wants to secure up to 49 percent. However, the software giant is not to get exclusive rights to ChatGPT or other models.
Microsoft has already been investing in OpenAI since 2019 and, according to rumors, wants to integrate the conversational AI ChatGPT into Bing Web Search and other Microsoft products. So far, only the integration of ChatGPT and other AI models in Azure OpenAI Service has been officially confirmed.
Altman now makes it clear in a recent interview that this is not an exclusive agreement and that the company can continue to develop its own software products and services.
The situation is similar with GPT-3, although Microsoft has secured some exclusive rights to the AI model and can thus offer follow-up training with data via Azure, for example. Other companies will have to make use of the API.
The situation is similar with GPT-3, but Microsoft secured exclusive rights to the GPT-3 model and offers fine-tuning via Azure. Other companies have to make do with the API and can fine-tune models via OpenAI. GPT-3, DALL-E 2, and ChatGPT are also available via OpenAI web interfaces.
Addressing potential Google search competition from OpenAI and ChatGPT, Altman says, "Whenever someone talks about one technology being the end of some other giant company, it's usually wrong. I think people forget that they get to make a countermove here, and they're pretty smart, pretty competent." Still: there will be a change for search at some point, but not as dramatically as people think, he said.
Altman thinks a smooth transition to AGI is possible
Altman would not comment specifically on AGI (Artificial General Intelligence). The closer we get to AGI, the harder it is to answer when an AGI is considered AGI and the transition to it will not be as abrupt as some might expect, he said.
Altman also confirmed that OpenAI is working on a video model. However, he said it is too early to talk about a release date.
A conversation about AI with one of the industry's big players inevitably leads to the question of how to safely and responsibly use AI. Google just released a paper on the topic and high-ranking representatives from Alphabet, Google and Deepmind issued a detailed statement on AI progress as part of the release.
In this context, Altman mentioned various internal and external instances that would be used in reviewing the risks. OpenAI recently unveiled its own alignment rules. The OpenAI co-founder firmly believes that AI will change society. It needs to figure out how it wants to deal with the technology.
Watch the full conversation with journalist Connie Loizos in the video below.
