Last week, OpenAI Chief Executive Officer Sam Altman confirmed that the company is not training a fifth version of its Generative Pre-trained Transformer (GPT) model. Instead, they are focusing on increasing the capabilities of their current GPT-4 model, which many see as the most advanced AI system in the world today. Altman spoke remotely at a technology event at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and discussed how Artificial Intelligence needs to be regulated.
The event host, computer scientist and podcaster Lex Fridman asked Altman about the open letter that called for developers to pause training AI models larger than GPT-4 for six months. Altman acknowledged the letter but noted that it lacked the technical nuances and the early claim of OpenAI training GPT-5 was “silly”. He also said that he believes the letter’s call for safety and protection of human values was on point.
Aside from OpenAI and GPT models, discussion of Generative AI has been further heightened as Reddit forums have been flooded with comments from ChatGPT bots. Moderators have been struggling with not only trying to find and remove these bot accounts, but also the influx of AI generated text that are detected by automated systems. This has resulted in the removal of hundreds of bot accounts from subreddits such as r/AskHistorians, r/AskWomen, r/AskEconomics, and r/AskPhilosophy.
However, these spam bots are often used to promote adult content, illegal drugs, and products sold by dodgy vendors. One Reddit user who moderated said they were overwhelmed by the situation and the automatic anti-spam systems barely help. It was noted that unfortunately, these bots are mainly used for advertising scams.
To counter the issue of security flaws in their AI products, team OpenAI has partnered with Bugcrowd, a leading bug bounty platform, and has put up a reward of up to $20,000 for any developer who can find vulnerabilities, bugs, and security issues in their systems.
Meanwhile, back at Twitter, founder Tesla CEO Elon Musk is reportedly purchasing 10000 GPUs with the intent of developing generative AI models. According to reports, it’s unclear as to what these models will be used for and if it will improve search or enhance the microblogging’s advertisements. Musk had previously signed the open letter to temporarily halt the training of large AI models but is still continuing to develop these new features for Twitter.
In conclusion, OpenAI is showing its commitment to the development of safe and secure AI products through their bug bounty program. However, the worrying proliferation of spam bots on social media platforms such as Reddit still remain pervasive to this day.
