OpenAI, a San Francisco-based artificial intelligence (AI) startup, has seen its value soar to over $27 billion after successful fundraising. ChatGPT, OpenAI’s popular AI chatbot, has also resumed operations in Italy after it had been suspended by authorities.
OpenAI’s chief executive officer, Sam Altman, announced that ChatGPT was back in Italy again after a month-long hiatus. This came after the Italian regulator, Garante, had imposed a ban citing concerns around user privacy and age verification.
The Italian authorities asked OpenAI to run a campaign informing Italians that they can opt-out of having their data used to train the chatbots. They also wanted the company to conduct specific fact-finding activities. To comply with these requests, OpenAI recently released a new feature that allows users to opt out of data being collected – as well as an export option so they can see what information ChatGPT has collected.
OpenAI also announced that a business subscription for enterprise users is in the pipeline. This subscription model will reportedly have stricter data management standards and data used for training the models will not come from end users.
The company’s fundraising efforts have pushed its valuation to over $27 billion. Before its new shares sale, the company was worth $14 billion in early 2021. Many venture capital firms have participated in the funding round, including Tiger Global, Sequoia Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, Thrive, and K2 Global.
Since its launch in November 2022, ChatGPT has gained immense popularity. It has reached 100 million users in just two months and has gained interest from tech giants such as Microsoft, which has integrated it into several products.
However, not everyone is pleased. Protesters like Elon Musk, who is a well-known entrepreneur, have called for a pause in developing AI systems. He claims that technological advances in this field pose a profound risk to humanity.
