Microsoft Corporation is in talks to invest up to $10 billion in OpenAI, the company behind the popular ChatGPT Artificial Intelligence bot.
Although the final terms may vary, the proposal under discussion calls for the Redmond, Washington-based software giant to invest the money over a number of years, the sources said, declining to be identified because they were discussing a private subject. The merger has been under discussion between the two businesses for months, they added.
According to prior information from Semafor, who cited sources familiar with the negotiations, the possible investment may involve additional venture capital firms and put a value on OpenAI of around $29 billion. Documents supplied to investors had stated that the deal would close by the end of 2022, it continued.
Microsoft and OpenAI representatives declined to comment.
Since its release at the end of November, ChatGPT has exploded into the internet, gaining its first million users in less than a week. Speculation over its potential to displace freelance writers and perhaps endanger Google’s main search operation was spurred by its approximation of human discourse. Elon Musk and Silicon Valley investor Sam Altman co-founded the company that’s behind it, and it generates revenue by charging developers to use its technology.
The new technology, which follows a year of news-making developments in AI, is based on OpenAI’s GPT-3 language model. A significant discussion concerning the integration of AI into the creative industries was also sparked by the company’s Dall-E image-generating model, which uses textual instructions to create artwork and other types of images. A GPT-4 replacement model for OpenAI’s natural language processing is already under development.
Previously, Microsoft contributed around $1 billion to OpenAI. In an effort to compete with Alphabet Inc.’s dominating search platform, it is also attempting to integrate ChatGPT into its Bing search engine. Unlike the simple list of links that a Google search returns, the bot is capable of responding to requests in a natural and humanlike manner, continuing a conversation, and responding to follow-up questions.
Nevertheless, skepticism regarding its accuracy—which Altman himself has stated is not sufficient for the bot to be depended upon—has led to caution against its premature use, and New York City schools have prohibited their kids from accessing ChatGPT.
