In a recent one Reddit AMA (ask me anything), OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, along with some other OpenAI top executives, have dropped some hints about the future of the company and what we can expect from ChatGPT next year.
First, when asked if there would be a ChatGPT-5, Altman doubled down on his “fake news” response to come! But nothing that we are going to call GPT-5,” he replied. The wording “this year” does indicate that a new LLM could be released by OpenAI very soon.
Cops are coming
It’s been a busy week for OpenAI, with the release of Advanced Voice mode on the desktop app versions of ChatGPT and a new ChatGPT search, which even challenges Google. When asked about the value of the recently released ChatGPT search compared to traditional search engines like Google, Altman was enthusiastic: “For many searches, I find it a way to get the information I’m looking for faster/easier. I think we’ll mainly see this in searches that require more complex research. I also look forward to a future where a search query can dynamically display a custom web page!”
When asked about the next update to Dall-E 3, the image generator that is part of ChatGPT, Altman was non-committal: “The next update will be worth the wait! But we don’t have a release plan yet.” So it looks like not much will happen in the field of image generation in the near future.
Real intelligence
One area where ChatGPT is being challenged by its rivals is its AI that can perform tasks autonomously. We’ve seen Google make inroads in this area with its Jarvis AI. When asked if ChatGPT can perform tasks on its own, Altman replied: “IMHO, this will be a big theme in 2025,” indicating the direction OpenAI will take next year.
Referring again to autonomous AI, when asked what the next big breakthrough for ChatGPT would be, Altman responded: “We will have better and better models, but I think agents will be the next big breakthrough.” Agents are autonomous AI bots that can perform tasks for you.
Perhaps Altman’s most interesting comment was about the future of AGI: artificial general intelligence. Seen by many as the ‘real’ AI, this is an artificial intelligence model that could match or even surpass human intelligence. Altman has previously stated that we could have AGI within “a few thousand days.”
When asked by a Reddit user whether AGI is feasible with known hardware or whether it would require something completely different, Altman responded, “We believe it is feasible with current hardware.”
