OpenAI unleashes next generation of AI with GPT-4 Turbo, custom chatbot creator

OpenAI, the artificial intelligence (AI) research lab behind ChatGPT, unveiled a suite of products at its inaugural developer conference, OpenAI DevDay, including an upgraded version of its flagship GPT large language model (LLM), GPT-4 Turbo, and tools for building customised AI chatbots.

GPT-4's Turbo version is available through an API preview and has been trained on data up to April 2023. This is an update from the initial March release of GPT-4, which was trained on data up to September 2021.

“We are just as annoyed as all of you, probably more, that GPT’s knowledge about the world ended in 2021,” Altman said.

OpenAI plans to release a production-ready version of GPT-4 Turbo in the coming weeks.

The announcement comes a day after Elon Musk's AI startup xAI launched Grok to a limited number of users in the US.

GPT-4 Turbo will have access to a larger pool of information, boasting a 128,000 context window. OpenAI said that this context window is equivalent to more than 300 pages of text within a single prompt. In essence, larger context windows let LLMs understand the question better and provide more thoughtful responses.

The company has also said that GPT-4 Turbo offers cost benefits for developers. Input will now be priced at just $0.01 per 1,000 tokens, which are the fundamental units of text or code that LLMs read, as opposed to the previous $0.03 with GPT-4.

The latest version of GPT-4 will also support image prompts, text-to-speech requests, and integration with DALL-E 3.

The company is also rolling out custom versions of ChatGPT that users can create for a specific purpose—called GPTs.

"GPTs are a new way for anyone to create a tailored version of ChatGPT to be more helpful in their daily life, at specific tasks, at work, or at home—and then share that creation with others," the company said in a blog post.

"Anyone can easily build their own GPT—no coding is required. You can make them for yourself, just for your company’s internal use, or for everyone," it added.

Later this month, the company will introduce its own app store, known as the GPT Store. This platform will allow users who have created their own GPTs to share them with the public. OpenAI has also announced plans to allow individuals to generate income based on the usage number in the coming months.

"Once in the store, GPTs become searchable and may climb the leaderboards. We will also spotlight the most useful and delightful GPTs we come across in categories like productivity, education, and 'just for fun,'" the company said.

OpenAI has also committed to covering the legal expenses of its customers who may encounter copyright infringement lawsuits related to their use of its business-facing generative AI models.

“OpenAI is committed to protecting our customers with built in copyright safeguards in our systems,” the company said. "Today, we’re going one step further and introducing Copyright Shield—we will now step in and defend our customers, and pay the costs incurred, if you face legal claims around copyright infringement. This applies to generally available features of ChatGPT Enterprise and our developer platform."

This aligns OpenAI with industry giants like Google and Microsoft, who have also made similar promises to promote the adoption of their generative AI technologies.

Altman also announced that over 2 million developers are building on its API for a wide variety of use cases.

"Over 92 percent of Fortune 500 companies building on our products, and we have about 100 million weekly active users on ChatGPT," he added.