GPT-4 may have only just launched, but people are already excited about the next version of the artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot technology. Now, a new claim has been made that GPT-5 will complete its training this year, and could bring a major AI revolution with it.
The assertion comes from developer Siqi Chen on Twitter, who stated: “I have been told that GPT-5 is scheduled to complete training this December and that OpenAI expects it to achieve AGI.”
AGI is the concept of “artificial general intelligence,” which refers to an AI’s ability to comprehend and learn any task or idea that humans can wrap their heads around. In other words, an AI that has achieved AGI could be indistinguishable from a human in its capabilities.
That makes Chen’s claim pretty explosive, considering all the possibilities AGI might enable. At the positive end of the spectrum, it could massively increase the productivity of various AI-enabled processes, speeding things up for humans and eliminating monotonous drudgery and tedious work.
At the same time, bestowing an AI with that much power could have unintended consequences — ones that we simply haven’t thought of yet. It doesn’t mean the robot apocalypse is imminent, but it certainly raises a lot of questions about what the negative effects of AGI could be.
It should be noted that other forecasters predict that AGI will not be achieved until 2032.
And as for the timing of GPT-5, this is the first time we’ve heard that next level of progress, though based on the other clues OpenAI has offered, it’s not far fetched.
The organization has officially predicted that GPT-4.5, the step up from the current GPT-4, will be “introduced in September or October 2023 as an intermediate version between GPT-4 and the upcoming GPT-5.”
Potential troubles at Twitter?
If AGI goes off the rails, it could enable the spread of incredibly convincing bots on social media channels like Twitter, helping to disseminate harmful disinformation and propaganda that is increasingly difficult to detect.
That’s something Elon Musk is evidently aware of, and the controversial billionaire has made fighting AI bots a key pillar of his tenure as Twitter CEO. Yet his latest idea of restricting the reach of accounts that have not paid for a Twitter Blue membership has not gone down well, and his time in charge has been beset by divisive moves that have had limited success, to put it mildly.
Twitter is just one frontier in the AI-enabled future, and there are many other ways artificial intelligence could alter the way we live. If GPT-5 does indeed achieve AGI, it seems fair to say the world could change in ground-shaking ways. Whether it will be for better or for worse remains to be seen.
Update: Musk, in addition to over a thousand over leaders in tech and public figures, have since signed a petition to pause further development of further version of GPT, including GPT-4.5 and GPT-5.
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