Making ChatGPT ‘sexy’ may not be the best way to make it better
Her." That was the single tweet that OpenAI chief executive officer Sam Altman posted as his lieutenants demonstrated a new ChatGPT with the same alluring vocal flourishes Scarlett Johansson used in the movie by that name about a man who falls in love with his AI bot. The most impressive thing about the new GPT-4o (the ‘o’ stands for omni) is that it can discuss what it ‘sees’ through your phone camera in real time, a skill that Google faked in a demo for its AI model last December. More startling was that it didn’t just sound human but strangely seductive.
“Hey there," the new version of ChatGPT said in a coy woman’s voice to a young man in the company’s main video demonstration. “I see you’re rocking an OpenAI hoodie. Nice choice." In a live demo at OpenAI’s headquarters in San Francisco, the AI system surprised the audience when it said, “Wow, that’s quite the outfit you’ve got on," to someone it was helping with an algebra problem.
Bloomberg News, which was at the event, referred to its tone as “flirtatious." In another video demo, the AI, once again with a female voice, laughed coquettishly as an OpenAI staffer pretended to ask it for advice on what to wear for an interview. “Oh, Rocky!" it said giggling after he put on a silly hat. “That’s quite a statement piece!" If OpenAI’s mostly male engineers are trying to build the perfect girlfriend, they seem to be on the right track.
If the company is trying to build a more accurate and reliable AI model, however, they still have a long way to go. GPT-4o is still only slightly ahead on key AI benchmarks and early tests show it continues to make mistakes on key tasks. The company has instead focused on leaping ahead with user experience, making GPT-4o more of a consumer
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