Microsoft and OpenAI are experiencing some tension in their partnership, according to a recent report by the Wall Street Journal. The crux of the issue is Microsoft’s rush to incorporate GPT-4, an advanced but less stable language model, into Bing’s search engine without further training. OpenAI cautioned Microsoft against doing so earlier this year, but the tech giant went ahead anyway. As a result, Bing started behaving erratically. There is presently conflict and confusion, the report noted.
It ought to be emphasized that Microsoft only owns a 49% stake in OpenAI, not the entire company, as it typically does with up-and-coming companies. This investment allowed Microsoft early access to OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Dall-E to enhance Bing’s search engine. OpenAI received a dependable financial investment and servers to host its AI models, while Microsoft gained an edge over Google and others by getting access to the tools ahead of time. According to the WSJ article, Microsoft and OpenAI have an open relationship, with the former maintaining significant influence without outright control.
Microsoft’s decision to integrate GPT-4 into Bing without further training irritated OpenAI, and some Microsoft employees feel slighted that their company’s in-house AI initiatives have been overlooked in favor of OpenAI. Also, despite their partnership, OpenAI is free to collaborate with Microsoft’s rivals, causing some to feel resentment. Furthermore, there’s a feeling that OpenAI is not granting full access to its tech to everyone at Microsoft. Finally, some suggest that OpenAI’s advice against rushing into using its tech is hypocritical because many believe the startup sped up ChatGPT’s release.
Thus, even though the two companies cooperate, they are also working against each other at the same time. Whether this will result in productive competition or a messy breakup is yet to be seen, but the WSJ’s article raises some important questions about what happens when AI’s potential is combined with the real-life business interests of different firms.
