On Thursday, OpenAI’s CEO Sam Altman, along with other executives, participated in an ask-me-anything (AMA) session on Reddit. Users were invited to ask questions regarding OpenAI’s products, such as ChatGPT, as well as broader topics related to artificial intelligence (AI) and artificial general intelligence (AGI). During this interactive session, Altman confirmed that GPT-5 will not be launched this year, but the company has plans for “some very good releases” by the end of 2024.
OpenAI Executives Engage in AMA on Reddit
The AMA took place on the ChatGPT subreddit, which was promoted as “our Reddit launch.” Alongside Altman, OpenAI Chief Product Officer Kevin Weil, Senior Vice President of Research Mark Chen, Vice President of Engineering Srinivas Narayanan, and Chief Scientist Jakub Pachocki engaged with participants through the Q&A format. The official OpenAI account on X (formerly Twitter) also announced the event prior to its commencement.
In response to inquiries about the timeline for releasing GPT-5 or any equivalent model, Altman noted, “We have some very good releases coming later this year! nothing that we are going to call gpt-5, though.” This aligns with reports suggesting that OpenAI is more likely to unveil its next flagship model in 2025.
Another participant inquired about the benefits of SearchGPT or the ChatGPT Search feature. Altman remarked that he finds it to be a more efficient and straightforward method for accessing information. He also emphasized that the web search capabilities would enhance complex research tasks. “I also look forward to a future where a search query can dynamically render a custom web page in response,” he added.
Kevin Weil addressed several user questions, including one regarding delays in the Sora project. He attributed the delays to the need for additional refinement of the model, with a focus on safety, impersonation accuracy, and scaling computational resources. However, he did not specify a launch date for Sora.
Weil further mentioned that the ‘o’ series of AI models, which includes GPT-4o and o1-preview, will remain key components of OpenAI’s product offerings and will be present even after GPT-5 is released. He also hinted at a potential update for the ChatGPT Advanced Voice Mode that could incorporate a singing voice feature for the AI.
One user suggested implementing a hands-free method to conclude voice conversations with ChatGPT, especially using the action button shortcut on iPhones, which currently requires manual dismissal for voice chats. Weil expressed his enthusiasm for the idea, stating, “I love this idea. Sharing with the team now!”
Mike Chen, OpenAI’s Senior Vice President of Research, addressed a crucial concern about AI hallucinations. He explained that the issue is a deeply rooted challenge, largely due to the models learning from human-written texts, which may contain inaccuracies. These errors can then be integrated into the large language models’ (LLMs) core datasets.
“Our models are improving at citing, which grounds their responses in reliable sources. We also believe that reinforcement learning will assist with mitigating hallucinations; if we can programmatically identify when models hallucinate, we can incentivize them to avoid such occurrences,” Chen concluded.
