ChatGPT Plus, Google Anthropic Investment, Sergey Brin Files Code Request

Here are the week's top stories about artificial intelligence

1. OpenAI launches ChatGPT Plus, starting at $20 per month

OpenAI launched ChatGPT Plus for $20 per month on 2/1, with benefits including access to ChatGPT even during peak times, faster response times, and priority access to new features and improvements.

2. OpenAI facing criticisms of political bias, with users showing ChatGPT will write a positive poem about Biden and not about Trump

A viral tweet posted 2/1 showed that ChatGPT would not write a poem with positive attributes of Donald Trump, while it would write one about Joe Biden. According to Reed Albergotti, conservatives are suggesting that OpenAI employees have deliberately installed guardrails, such as refusals to answer certain politically sensitive prompts.

🐺 @LeighWolf

The damage done to the credibility of AI by ChatGPT engineers building in political bias is irreparable.

3. Google invested $300M in Anthropic, an artificial intelligence startup

On the heels of Microsoft’s investment in OpenAI, Google invested roughly $300M in Anthropic, an “AI safety and research company that’s working to build reliable, interpretable, and steerable AI systems.” Anthropic was formed in 2021 after a group of researchers left OpenAI after a disagreement over the company’s direction. Anthropic has developed an intelligent chatbot named Claude.

4. Sergey Brin filed his first code request on Jan. 24 related to LaMDA, Google’s natural language chatbot

Google co-founder Sergey Brin recently filed a code request related to LaMDA, underscoring interest in the search giant’s A.I. plans. Several dozen engineers gave the “changelist” request approval, “seemingly just eager to be able to say they gave code review approval to the company cofounder,” a Forbes article said. Google is aiming to release a slew of new A.I. products later this year.

5. OpenAI released tool to detect machine-written responses

OpenAI released a new tool on 1/31 to help educators and others figure out if a particular chunk of text was written by a human or machine. The tool offers a five-point scale of results from “very likely” to “likely” to have been A.I.-generated.