OpenAI has launched a faster and cheaper version of the artificial intelligence, ChatGPT-4o, with a promise to make it available to all users for free.
The ChatGPT-4o, an updated version of ChatGPT-4, was unveiled during a livestreamed event on Monday. According to OpenAI, the new large language model trained on vast amounts of data from the internet will be better at handling text and audio and can work with 50 languages.
The company announced that while the text and image input started rolling out on Monday in API and ChatGPT, the voice and video features will be released in the coming weeks.
OpenAI’s announcement also comes the day before the Google I/O developer conference. Google, an early leader in the artificial intelligence (AI) space, is expected to use the event to unveil more AI updates after racing to keep pace with Microsoft Corp.-backed OpenAI.
Commenting on the new product via post on his personal blog, OpenAI’s CEO, Sam Altman, said a key part of the company’s mission was to put AI tools in the hands of everyone for free or at a great price. But with ChatGPT-4o, Altman said the company is now making
He noted that the original ChatGPT has shown a hint of what is possible with language interfaces as it “feels viscerally different, fast, smart, fun, natural, and helpful.”
According to Altman, talking to a computer has never felt really natural for him, but now it does.
OpenAI’s decision to make its latest model available for free may be a sign the company is de-emphasizing profit, though ChatGPT still has a paid version.
In March this year, billionaire Elon Musk filed a lawsuit against OpenAi and the company’s co-founders, Sam Altman and Greg Brockman, for turning the company into a profit-making venture.
Musk, who co-founded and was one of the early backers of OpenAI, said the mission of the company is to be a non-profit that develops AI for the benefit of humanity.
The Tesla CEO claimed that Altman and Brockman convinced him to help found and bankroll the startup in 2015, with promises it would be a non-profit focused on countering the competitive threat from Google.
According to the lawsuit, the founding agreement required OpenAI to make its technology “freely available” to the public.