What you need to know
- OpenAI may launch GPT-5 before the end of this year, according to a recent report.
- GPT-4 only launched a few weeks ago, so it would be a relatively quick turnaround to see another major update within such a short time span.
- Some have discussed the possibility of GPT-5 attaining Artificial General Intelligence, which would mean the chatbot had the same intellect and understanding as a human being.
OpenAI announced and shipped GPT-4 just a few weeks ago, but we may already have a release date for the next major iteration of the company's Large Language Model (LLM). According to a report by BGR based on tweets by developer Siqi Chen, OpenAI should complete its training of GPT-5 by the end of 2023.
OpenAI has not publicly discussed GPT-5, so the exact changes and improvements we'll see are unclear. Chen's initial tweet on the subject stated that "OpenAI expects it to achieve AGI," with AGI being short for Artificial General Intelligence. If GPT-5 reaches AGI, it would mean that the chatbot would have achieved human understanding and intelligence.
GPT-4 is significantly more capable than GPT-3.5, which was what powered ChatGPT for the first few months it was available. GPT-4 can analyze images as well as text. It is also capable of more complex tasks and is more creative than its predecessor.
Microsoft confirmed that the new Bing uses GPT-4 and has done since it launched in preview.
GPT-5 would presumably mark a significant leap forward, but it's unclear how large that leap would be.
*also to be clear I don’t mean to say achieving agi with gpt5 is a consensus belief within openai, but non zero people there believe it will get there.March 27, 2023
Chen later backtracked a bit on his statement. "To be clear I don’t mean to say achieving agi with gpt5 is a consensus belief within openai, but non zero people there believe it will get there."
"Non-zero people" believing GPT-5 could attain AGI is very different than "OpenAI expects it to achieve AGI."
Reports on the topic have yielded conflicting angles. TechRadar shared a piece titled, "ChatGPT has passed the Turing test and if you're freaked out, you're not alone" earlier this week. Tom's Guide then put out an article titled, "No, ChatGPT did not pass the Turing test — but here’s when it could."
With GPT-5 not even officially confirmed by OpenAI, it's probably best to wait a bit before forming expectations. If the next generation of GPT launches before the end of 2023, it will likely be more capable than GPT-4. But any discussion of AI obtaining human-level intellect and understanding may need to wait.
