The Future of AI: Decoding the Intricacies of OpenAI

Person standing against AI coding projector that is displaying code.

The accelerated velocity of technology today has irrefutably transformed everyday life, and innovators of today have kept their fingers on the pulse of these shifts. Artificial intelligence, or AI, has long been a cover-all statement for machine learning and human-machine interactions. Notably in recent years, however, the conversation surrounding AI has evolved, and the paradigm has greatly shifted. There has been a mixed reaction against AI due to the uncertainty of its capabilities—a sort of pandora’s box that many people don’t see what lies on the other side. However, advancements in technology are always bound to be met with some level of skepticism, which is to be expected, especially if that advancement is a dramatic change, yet in that same breath, it can ignite curiosity and innovation.

AI technology has recently captured the attention of many businesses and innovators for its recent growth in proficiencies. The future of AI is beginning a new phase of innovation, however, particularly with the quick advancement of OpenAI.

What Exactly is AI?

AI is a form of technology that was developed to enable computer systems and machines to perform actions and tasks that typically are completed by humans. Essentially, AI tasks mimic human intelligence and ways of thinking. With how far we’ve come with technology, there’s no question as to how this has come to fruition. AI can curate its information by providing a system with a set of data, along with a desired output for that data, or what exactly you wish for the system to do with it which delivers a response. In other terms, people are “training” AI to provide a result through input and output exchange, which in turn, produces its own algorithm to provide the expected output.

Person standing in a design room

OpenAI: The Fresh Future of AI

OpenAI has been at the center of this technology renaissance that has brought about the onset of advanced AI technology. OpenAI is a research laboratory and development firm that has advocated for a greater push for artificial intelligence to, as they state, “outperform humans to benefit all of humanity.” OpenAI has long since sparked the curiosity of organizations, businesses, and agencies due to its capabilities for building next-gen digital products. It has a litany of tools that have reconceptualized AI technology with simple inputs that are exchanged for advanced outputs.

GPT-3

GPT-3, or Generative Pre-trained Transformed, uses trained internet data to generate copy or text. Simply put, as a learning model, it can produce text generation, summaries, and conversation for different modes of text curation: copywriting development, chatbots, storytelling, Q&A, and more. GPT-3 utilizes data to perform natural language tasks and has been seen in generative text software and applications, in which the user types in a command prompt and the output would be curated based on those instructions. Many businesses are begun utilizing this form of copy curation across their platforms for marketing or even social media curation due to the specificity of the results. 

Codex

Codex allows natural language to be translated into code, in other words, you can input plain English with a specific function, and Codex will generate a script to deliver that function as code. There are other AI tools out there with the same function such as CoPilot and ChatGPT, for example, but Codex, allows you to enter a command such as “create a basic blog page for my website utilizing HTML” and Codex will do the rest of the work for you by providing a code to copy and implement. Or for more specific code development, you can input instructions, to “Make a purple sphere bounce back and forth across the screen” and Codex will create the code to allow this function to be formed. From there, you can continue adding and building more commands for it to do further functions.

A keyboard featuring neon flared keys

DALL·E-2

DALL·E-2 allows for a more visual output, by inputting a description, and based on the specificity of the command, it will produce a realistic image or art with different styles. Through text, people can create specific art visualization, whether it is an idea from scratch, a variation of an artistic style/piece, or expanding upon pre-existing art, DALL·E-2 reconceptualizes art creation. If perhaps, you’ve always wanted to see more of Van Gogh’s Starry Night, DALL·E-2 will utilize AI to generate an expansion of the piece’s scenery through image manipulation and semantic information. DALL·E-2 also utilizes a CLIP (Contrastive Language–Image Pre-training) model which learns to connect textual captions to visual representation.

Person standing against AI coding

The Underlining Ethics of OpenAI

Our modern epoch of AI is on a trajectory of a technological metamorphosis as we know it, and an optimistic outlook has been challenged by some for its lingering ambiguity. Some claim that AI presents a veneer of technological advancements, but without truly fleshing out its ethics, there is still more to uncover before it is fully embraced by the masses. The lingering question of copyright conflicts has been trumpeted by many, probing whether a user can claim copyright if an AI tool was utilized. 

According to a recent article on The Verge, to date, there are no copyright laws that protect copy, art, music, and others that were “generated solely by a machine.” Additionally, it is highly likely that the ability to copyright an AI model and the output it projects will depend on how much human input was incorporated. Although a bit murky currently, the intricacies of this copyright landscape are to be dissected. 

Yet, with any future-forward advancements in technology, it is always bound to be met with concern and cynicism. OpenAI, and any AI for that matter, can create efficiency and productivity while offering new ideas to those who utilize it. As we, a society, stand at the edge looking in on new developments in technology, it’s understandable to question such advancements to these shifts in familiarly, and still appreciate all the possibilities that AI holds.