I’m sure you saw the headlines. Openai has another announcement and like usual, half the internet went crazy about it.
But here’s the thing. There’s a lot of articles about it that are written for technology types. Too many numbers, too many model names and too many jargon. If you don’t work in silicon valley it might seem like you have encountered a new language.
So we may as well talk about that way, like normal people.
Openai is the organization that developed chatgpt. They are growing really quickly — maybe more quickly than any tech company in history. And every few months they release something that makes people rethink what ai is capable of.
The one they just put out is actually worth people noticing. This isn’t just a minor update. This is a change of how the ai actually functions – in its thought process, answering both complex questions, and applying itself to unknown areas.
No one truly appreciates the amount of effort involved with these releases. This is way more complicated than updating the application in your phone. Training of these models takes several months, requires huge computing power and hundreds of people. When openai publishes something new, it took thousands of our hours that you will never see.
So what should this mean to you as a common man?
It means the tool you use to write emails, reply to questions and get help with work just got vastly improved. And not by a small amount. When you use chatgpt today vs.
Two years ago, it’s worlds better.
It makes less errors. It interprets you more accurately. It provides more comprehensive, valuable responses.
Consider that for a moment. Two years. That is nothing in technology terms.
Your mobile phone didn’t change that much in two years.
Your laptop didn’t change that much in two years.
But ai?
It is almost unrecognizable.
The engineers who build these systems will tell you-they’re genuinely amazed by the rate of progress in the field-some capabilities these models have now weren’t even expected to be years down the linea prediction from a couple of years ago:
That’s kind of exciting. And I have to admit, a bit insane.
But it also brings up real questions. Questions that don’t have simple ones at that.
Who is in charge of this?
Openai is a private company. They determine what the ai will and will not be capable of.
They determine the safety measures put in place.
They determine the accessibility and how much it costs. A lot of power is in their hands.
Safety?
Openai has a dedicated safety team who discuss safety issues a lot. But independent researchers often have different opinions.
Some find openai to be rushing things too quickly.
Others think they err on the side of caution. There isn’t a consensus on where the boundary should be set.
It will it keep improving?
Most likely. But no one knows how it might happen or how fast.
There is a real debate, here and now, among ai researchers about how far techniques that work today can go before they run into a barrier.
Some believe we’re approaching that barrier. Others believe we’re very far from it.
Here’s what is far less disputable-openai has far more actual users than pretty much any software company ever. Ever100million people use chatgpt. That’s a significant number of people who can be immediately impacted the moment they add in a new feature. Right away.
Consider what that means for work. A copywriter uses it everyday. A student uses it to learn challenging ideas.
A small business owner uses it to write their website.
A developer uses it to code. These are not theoretical users. They are actual people doing actual activities.
And now all those guys just got a better tool. They didn’t had to pay for it. They didn’t had to learn any new interface. There it was.
That’s actually kind of amazing when you think about it. Now let’s say one day your car doubled its miles per gallon. You would love it, but if you think about it- that’s essentially what happens when openai ships a major update.
Some people will read this and get a little anxious. That’s okay. Change is uncomfortable.
Particularly when it’s happening so quickly.
Particularly when everyone keeps telling you “this changes everything.”
But here’s what i’d say to that. The most important things about being human–the relationships, the creativity, the judgment, the caring–they’re not going away because a bot gets smarter. What are going away are the mechanical things.
The dull things.
The things you probably didn’t like doing anyway.
Penning the tenth similar email. Researching the hundredth similar piece of information. Formatting a report.
Brainstorming when you are blank.
These are strong ai’s forte. And the more a.i. Gets stronger in those departments, the more free time you will have for the jobs that truly do require you.
The real question isn’t ifopenai will continue to release things. They will. It’s are you paying attention and trying to see how all of these new tools will work in your life.
You’ve guessed it-the people who discover this will be at a huge advantage. Not (primarily) because the AI is magic, but because they are armed with a more sophisticated toolkit than the rest of us.
So next time you see some headline about openai releasing something new, don’t freak out. Don’t even brushed it aside. Just asking yourself: “is there something here that can make something in my day better?”
Quite often the answer is yes.
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