If you’ve got whiplash, you’re not alone. Not in the scheming insurance advert kind of way, in the “OpenAI just dropped GPT-4 and I was still working through the existential crisis triggered by ChatGPT” kind of way.
On Tuesday this week, OpenAI released the much-anticipated upgrade of the current AI language model (GPT-3.5) which their eloquent human-like chatbot, ChatGPT, runs on: GPT-4, and in doing so, some are saying the world has potentially been issued with its latest dose of “future shock” – echoing Alvin Toffler’s watershed book by the same name.
Although OpenAI has stated that, in casual conversation, the difference between ChatGPT’s GPT-3.5 and the new GPT-4 language model, is subtle, there are in fact a wealth of marked differences between the two – all of which could be viewed as equally as terrifying as they are exciting.
OpenAI describes GPT-4 as “the latest milestone in OpenAI’s effort in scaling up deep learning.”
“While less capable than humans in many real-world scenarios, [GPT-4] exhibits human-level performance on various professional and academic benchmarks,” states OpenAI.
When reading through GPT-4’s many sophisticated “state-of-the-art” capabilities, I couldn’t help but be reminded of the plots of many blockbuster movies. Now, I’m not saying there is any tangible link at all between any of these movies and the reality of GPT-4’s capabilties, but these parallels may help paint a metaphorical picture.
So, what can GPT-4 do? What can GPT-4 not do!
Announcing GPT-4, a large multimodal model, with our best-ever results on capabilities and alignment: https://t.co/TwLFssyALF pic.twitter.com/lYWwPjZbSg
— OpenAI (@OpenAI) March 14, 2023
To clarify, throughout this article, when writing “ChatGPT-3.5,” I am referring to the current open access version of ChatGPT which runs on OpenAI’s GPT-3.5 language model; the predecessor to GPT-4.
Her: GPT-4 is an even better creative writing companion
ChatGPT-3.5’s ability to generate eloquent, human-like prose, poems, short stories and articles – in mere seconds – triggered widespread existential panic amongst members of the writing community.
But rather than as a challenger, perhaps we should view GPT-4 and its writing abilities which exceed that of GPT-3.5, as an advanced writing companion rather than a challenger.
Could we perhaps think of GPT-4 like Joaquin Phoenix’s pocket AI writing buddy in “Her”?
Learning a user’s writing style, composing songs and writing screenplays are just a soupçon of GPT-4’s advanced writing capabilities.
“GPT-4 is more creative and collaborative than ever before,” states OpenAI, “it can generate, edit, and iterate with users on creative and technical writing tasks.”
6/ Creative writing prompts
Looking to break through writer's block?
GPT-4 can suggest ideas, character development, or plot twists.
I find it's a great way to unleash your creativity and allow the story to unfold—take this example of extending the Harry Potter saga. pic.twitter.com/PMMHVWNXWb
— Alex Banks (@thealexbanks) March 16, 2023
Memento: GPT-4 has an expanded contextual memory
One of ChatGPT-3.5’s USPs is its ability to hold up a dynamic conversation; not only can it remember what a user has previously said, but it can draw upon this and expand on it.
But just like “Memento’s” main character, Leonard, who has a 15-minute memory span, there is a limit to how far back in any given conversation’s history, that ChatGPT-3.5 is able to remember what a user has said. This window is only around 3000 words back, or six pages of a book.
GPT-4 however, has an increased memory-limit, and can now handle as many as 25,000 words.
Not only will GPT-4 therefore be able to have “extended conversations” and generate longer responses, but it will also be able to navigate searching through and analysis of large quantities of text in documents.
The Sixth Sense: GPT-4 sees things in images you might not
You see half a carton of eggs, flour, butter and milk and think – ingredients? Maybe pancakes?
GPT-4 “sees” the same ingredients and “thinks” frittata, french toast or quiche.
Until now, ChatGPT has been limited to text input only. But now, with the multimodal capabilities of GPT-4, you can quite literally take a picture of the contents of your fridge, input it as a visual prompt and the fourth generation language model can make handy recipe suggestions.
OK, it’s not “I see dead people” (hopefully), but GPT-4’s ability to see, understand and analyse visual inputs is impressive.
GPT-4 is even capable of taking a rough sketch of a website and turning it into the real thing!
I just watched GPT-4 turn a hand-drawn sketch into a functional website.
This is insane. pic.twitter.com/P5nSjrk7Wn
— Rowan Cheung (@rowancheung) March 14, 2023
Good Will Hunting: GPT-4 beats most people at graduate-level exams
ChatGPT-3.5 scored in the 10th and 31st percentiles of the Uniform Bar Exam and Biology Olympiad, respectively.
GPT-4, on the other hand, staggeringly outperformed ChatGPT-3.5 as well as the vast majority of test-takers for both of these famously gruelling examinations, scoring higher than 90% of lawyers in the bar and higher than 99% of those taking the Olympiad.
The AI model which was previously a lower grade student (academically speaking), has overnight turned into a college-worthy AI prodigy.
Full set of GPT-4 benchmarks.
Maybe it should start writing the tests, too. pic.twitter.com/fJvrmI04br
— AI Breakfast (@AiBreakfast) March 15, 2023
Lost in Translation: GPT-4 can communicate in 26 different languages
It’s true that computational coding languages are mostly based on English, but wouldn’t it be better if a conversational AI model could speak more than one language? Monolingualism enormously limits a chatbot’s potential across a large proportion of the world.
GPT-4 is multi-lingual to the max: it can communicate in 26 different languages such as Korean, Italian, Ukrainian and German, providing near-global access to its sophisticated capabilities and though not immune to it, is helping users overcome the many miscommunications associated with “translationese” (when overly-literal translation yields an output with little to no clarity or meaning).
The Icelandic government is even making use of GPT-4’s linguistic capabilities, deploying the chatbot to preserve the nation’s language, culture and history, which in a digital age is at risk of what they call “de facto extinction.”
Split: GPT-4 has multiple personalities
By priming GPT-4 with a “system” message, for example, “You are a XXX who always responds in the XXX style,” users are now able to augment the personality of the model with a feature known as “steerability.”
ChatGPT-3.5 is certainly also capable of changing character on demand, but GPT-4 takes malleability to a whole new level: its tone, style and behaviour are all completely customisable.
Though exceedingly cool (and useful) this shapeshifting ability does of course also bring due risk.
Much like some of James McAvoy’s alter egos in the terrifying psychological thriller, “Split,” are harmless, there are also those, buried deeper within his psyche, which are malicious in nature and only uncovered when triggered. You could possibly think of GPT-4 working in a somewhat similar way.
Just as GPT-4 can easily take on the persona of a comforting counsellor, more hostile impersonations can potentially also be let loose if prompted to do so.
OpenAI is however fully aware of GPT-4’s propensity to cause harm in this way, as the company states, “system messages are the easiest way to ‘jailbreak’ the current model,” but they are making a concerted effort to eradicate and circumvent these kind of issues as much as possible, amping up the guardrails significantly.
Terminator 2: GPT-4 is much safer
Now I’m not saying that future Sam Altman sent a reprogrammed version of a language model back in time to the present with the mission of “protect Earth’s population” (like John Connor did with Arnold Schwarzenegger’s T-800 terminator in “Terminator 2: Judgement Day”), but the result is realistically the same:
After “training with human feedback” and committing to “continuous improvement from real-world use,” OpenAI reveal GPT-4 is now 82% less likely to respond to disallowed content requests and 40% more likely to produce truthful, factual responses than ChatGPT-3.5 is.
The fourth generation language model actually finished training back in August last year, but the team at OpenAI spent six months iterating GPT-4 and exposing the model to examples of adversarial prompts to make it safer and more aligned.
A Beautiful Mind: Though brilliant, GPT-4 suffers from hallucinations
Though GPT-4 is clearly advanced, as we’ve established, it’s also not without its limitations. One of these limitations, which GPT-4 does not suffer from as much as previous models, but one that is still concerning, is its tendency to “hallucinate.”
In AI terms, the observed phenomenon of “hallucination” refers to the model’s ability to generate confident, yet unfounded responses that does not appear to be based on its training data.
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In essence, GPT-4 is capable of dreaming up an idea as a figment of its imagination and endorsing it to users as a well-known fact.
I suppose one way to look at this, is given that a neural network is an artificial representation of the human brain, it’s also vulnerable to the same manifestations of pathogenesis – just in silico.
2001: A Space Odyssey: GPT-4 is a better critical thinker
OpenAI has stated that the upgraded GPT-4 model “surpasses ChatGPT in its advanced reasoning capabilities.” However, along with hallucinations and “jailbreak” issues, GPT-4 is also still vulnerable to making reasoning errors.
For this reason, although OpenAI says GPT-4 is more reliable than previous models, it should still always be used with “great care” and not in high-stakes scenarios where possible, with human review underpinning all use cases.
Like the crew of the fictional “Discovery One” spaceship experienced with their onboard AI known as “HAL” in “2001: A Space Odyssey,” metaphorically speaking of course, GPT-4 also has the potential to make reasoning errors that could cause harm.
Everything Everywhere All at Once: GPT-4 is already everywhere
In reality, we could have simply saved the time spent writing and reading this article, because one answer to the question: “What is GPT-4 capable of?” figuratively speaking, could be just like the movie: Everything, everywhere, all at once.
Obviously this is an exaggeration; there are of course still some limitations to GPT-4’s abilities and there are only a finite amount of use cases for the model at present, but OpenAI is already proving GPT-4’s seemingly ubiquitous value in integrating the model into the platforms of a diverse panel of companies and organizations.
In the finance sector, both Stripe and Morgan Stanley have deployed GPT-4. The former uses GPT-4 to make its platform more user-friendly and combat fraud by flagging suspicious account activity, with the latter using the model to better navigate its extensive expert knowledge bases.
Khan Academy is using GPT-4 to power a “virtual tutor,” as is Duolingo, incorporating GPT-4’s vast language abilities into its platform to provide an AI conversational partner for language practice, as well as a feature called “Explain My Answer,” providing learners with guidance on where they went wrong when making a mistake.
Be My Eyes is a Danish startup which is utilizing GPT-4’s image analysis capabilities to develop a “Virtual Volunteer” and “transform visual accessibility,” helping blind or low-vision individuals navigate daily life easier.
“This is a fantastic development for humanity,” says Michael Buckley, Be My Eyes CEO.
We are thrilled to present Virtual Volunteer™, a digital visual assistant powered by @OpenAI’s GPT-4 language model. Virtual Volunteer will answer any question about an image and provide instantaneous visual assistance in real-time within the app. #Accessibility #Inclusion #CSUN pic.twitter.com/IxDCVfriGX
— Be My Eyes (@BeMyEyes) March 14, 2023
Ex Machina: Only some can try out GPT-4 at the moment
No, you don’t need to win a ticket to Sam Altman’s mansion to carry out your own Turing test on GPT-4 as Domhnall Gleeson’s character did in “Ex Machina,” but GPT-4 is still not completely open for free public use yet. At the moment, OpenAI is only allowing a panel of developers and paying ChatGPT Plus subscribers to trial its latest chatbot prodigy.
An option you do have, assuming you are not a subscriber of ChatGPT Plus, is to head over to Bing where you can try out a version of the model, because GPT-4 has been powering Microsoft’s search engine since early February.
Discover a new way of working with Microsoft 365 Copilot—next-generation AI capabilities embedded in the Microsoft 365 apps you use every day. Learn more: https://t.co/fqTtN1tRVQ pic.twitter.com/gNjCQfGkdz
— Microsoft 365 (@Microsoft365) March 16, 2023
“Shaping the future of technology”
As a company, OpenAI’s mission is to develop artificial general intelligence (AGI) which benefits humanity as a whole, and they’ve shown a reassuring amount of dedication to ensuring their models are as aligned with human intentions and values as possible.
“We’re excited to see how people use GPT-4 as we work towards developing technologies that empower everyone,” states OpenAI, with an employee also stating in GPT-4’s promo video:
“When we release a model, we know things are not done. We know we have to learn. We know we have to update. We know we have to keep improving all the systems to make it suitable for society.”
So, what is GPT-4?
It’s a tool, it’s a chameleon and it’s a companion, one which, along with all their other groundbreaking research, OpenAI hopes will help shape the future of technology, but one which we’re gradually realising will also reshape humanity.
Use GPT-4 with care, but use it to explore the limits of progress, we must!
excited 4 today pic.twitter.com/wKMRZID2Qg
— Sam Altman (@sama) March 14, 2023
Editor’s Note: The opinions expressed here by the authors are their own, not those of Impakter.com — In the Featured Photo: Artwork by Tim West depicting a large language model. Featured Photo Credit: DeepMind / Tim West
