Unless you were somewhere remote without internet or news the past few days, then you would already be well aware of the OpenAI drama in which the board fired CEO Sam Altman, and president Greg Brockman lost his board seat (but offered to keep his employment in the company).
Some senior researchers quit, and OpenAI employees 747 strong (out of 770 total workforce) signed a letter stating Sam Altman should return, or they would quit. To make matters worse, Microsoft (OpenAI’s biggest investor) wasn’t told of the news until minutes prior to the public being told.
As Google forges ahead with its controversial Manifest V3 changes to Chrome extensions, the tech giant’s narrative is one of enhanced user security and privacy. However, a growing chorus of critics views these updates with scepticism, seeing them as a potential threat to the efficacy of ad blockers and by proxy, to user autonomy. While Firefox hasn’t experienced a significant resurgence in user numbers yet, Google’s actions might be the tipping point for developers and power users to pivot back to the open-source browser.
Lately, you can’t scroll through your news feed without bumping into the term ‘artificial intelligence’. Since ChatGPT burst onto the scene, wowing us with its writing and coding prowess, we’ve all been enthralled by the capabilities of AI. And it’s not only the tech enthusiasts who are excited — tech giants like Microsoft are betting big, weaving AI into the very fabric of Windows 11 and their Office 365 suite.
If you’re using OpenAI’s APIs or considering integrating them into your digital toolkit, it’s essential to be aware of the recent changes. OpenAI updated its Terms of Use in December 2023.
Let’s delve into the significant changes that might alter how you use these potent AI tools.
What’s Off the Table?
First and foremost, let’s discuss a significant update that every developer should be aware of. OpenAI has clarified the terms of use for their API outputs.
After years of waiting and an unfortunate leak in 2022 that confirmed the existence of Grand Theft Auto VI, Sam Houser of Rockstar Games announced on X that a trailer would be released in December to coincide with the 25th anniversary of Grand Theft Auto—an announcement of an announcement.
In the massive leak, there were game clips, game code, assets and other pieces of information that confirmed some of the previous details that would make it into GTA VI.
Neural DSP is a company that produces guitar and bass plugins, mostly known for their Archetype plugins such as Archetype: Gojira or Archetype: Nolly. They also have the Quad Cortex amp modeller hardware device.
Recently, the thought of an NDSP preset file viewer entered my mind. Instead of opening up the xml preset files in plugins, being able to read the settings in a separate standalone app of some kind.
Let’s talk about déjà vu. But not the cool, mysterious kind—more like the ‘Oh no, not this again’ kind. In the early hours of a Wednesday morning, specifically November 8, 2023, Optus gave us a not-so-gentle reminder that history loves to repeat itself. The entire Optus network crashed—mobile, internet, landline, you name it. If it had the Optus logo, it was about as helpful as a screendoor on a submarine.
For quite a while, OpenAI’s GPT-4 model was up to date until September 2021. However, recently, it appears that GPT-4 has been updated with an up-to-date dataset date of April 2023.
Knowing better than to trust what ChatGPT says, I tested this on ChatGPT web and different modes. I asked it with the default GPT-4 model and the Advanced Data Analysis model. I then checked GPT-3.5 as well.
GPT-4 on both web and mobile says April 2023. For GPT-3.5, it says January 2022.
In April 2023, I wrote about how Neural DSP announced the Cortex Control desktop application, allowing you to control your Quad Cortex remotely using a PC or Mac. Well, Neural DSP has finally released it six months later, in beta form. Technically, it is 18 months from when the existence of it was first revealed in February 2022.
My first impressions of Cortex Control are it is pretty damn good for a beta release. I have encountered a few little UI quirks, and it has crashed on me once on Windows, but for the most part, it works surprisingly well.
In the tech world, the first-mover advantage is a powerful thing. Companies that innovate and bring groundbreaking products to market often enjoy early success and, in some cases, market dominance. OpenAI seemed poised to become the undisputed champion in the conversational AI domain with its GPT series, particularly ChatGPT. However, despite their early lead, there is a growing sentiment that OpenAI has squandered its first-mover advantage.
Failing to Deliver on Multi-Modal Promises One of the most glaring examples of OpenAI’s missteps is the failure to deliver on its promises of a multi-modal GPT-4. Multi-modal models are the next logical step in the evolution of AI, combining various types of input like text, images, and even sound to provide more contextual and nuanced responses. OpenAI’s promotional materials around GPT-4 made a big deal of this feature. But where is it? We got a slick promotional video and blog posts but, multi-modal GPT-4 has yet to hit the market.