[ad_1]
OpenAI on Thursday launched GPT-5, an upgraded version of the AI model behind ChatGPT that the company claims is significantly faster and more capable than its predecessor. The launch comes as the AI giant has faced increased competition and amid growing concerns about AI’s impact on mental health and future jobs.
GPT-5, which launches today across OpenAI’s free and paid tiers, will make ChatGPT better at tasks like writing, coding and answering health-related questions, OpenAI claims. It also promises to prevent the popular chatbot from hallucinating as often and deceiving users when it can’t answer a question, the company says.
New models like GPT-5 are important because they determine how services like ChatGPT function and the new capabilities they’ll support, making them an essential part of its future direction. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said at a briefing with reporters Wednesday that GPT-5 is a “significant step” on the path toward artificial general intelligence, a hypothetical point at which AI can match human-level thinking.
“GPT-4 felt like you’re kind of talking to a college student. GBT-5 is the first time that it really feels like talking to an expert in any topic, like a PhD-level expert,” Altman said.
In addition to arriving in ChatGPT, the new model will also be available for developers who build tools and services based on OpenAI’s technology.
Software development is a big area of focus for GPT-5; Altman says the model can generate “an entire piece of software” for you – a practice colloquially known as “vibe coding.” In a demo, OpenAI showed how ChatGPT was able to create a website for learning French after typing in a prompt asking it to do so. Altman said use cases like this will be a “defining part of the new GPT-5 era.”
GPT-5 is arriving as coders are increasingly using AI to handle certain parts of their job. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg previously said he expects around half of the company’s code to be written by AI next year. Twenty to 30% of Microsoft’s code is being written by AI, CEO Satya Nadella said. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei sparked fears over AI impacting jobs when he said in May he believes the technology could lead to a spike in unemployment.
OpenAI’s new model also hits on another concern around the use of AI: that it can be deceptive, as research from Anthropic and AI research firm Apollo Research has shown, or provide incorrect information.
There have been previous instances in which the system would say it could do a task that it couldn’t complete, or refer to an image that wasn’t there, Alex Beutel, OpenAI’s safety research lead, said during the briefing. With GPT-5, the company says it has trained the model to be honest in these types of scenarios.
GPT-5 will also be more careful about how it answers questions to queries that could be potentially harmful. While the company didn’t provide a specific example of how that would look in practice, it said the model will aim to give an answer that’s helpful “within the constraints of remaining safe,” according to Beutel, which might involve given high-level answers that aren’t too specific.
The update comes after concerns have been raised about people becoming too reliant on AI assistants, particularly emotionally, raising questions about the technology’s impact on mental wellbeing. A man in Idaho, for example, told CNN that ChatGPT sparked a spiritual awakening for him after he began discussing topics like religion with the chatbot. His wife said it put a lot of strain on their family.
OpenAI is widely considered to be the frontrunner in AI thanks to ChatGPT, which is now on track to hit 700 million weekly active users.
But the competition continues to grow, especially among younger users. Research from web analytics company SimilarWeb suggests that AI search app Perplexity, DeepSeek, Anthropic’s Claude and xAI’s Grok are all have higher app usage among 18-34 year olds. And Zuckerberg is attempting to snatch up top-tier AI talent with reported multimillion dollar pay packages to get ahead in the AI race.
The launch also comes at a period of growth and expansion for AI. The tech giant now plays a bigger role in education and the government, recently striking a partnership with classroom software provider Instructure and launching a study mode for ChatGPT. OpenAI has also worked with the Trump administration on projects like the $500 billion AI infrastructure project known as Stargate. Altman has appeared in Washington several times and OpenAI recently confirmed plans to open its first office in the US capital city.
[ad_2]
Source link
