OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic hit the critical knowledge cap for advanced AI training—Is AGI still in the ChatGPT maker’s pipeline in the next five years?

OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic hit the critical knowledge cap for advanced AI training—Is AGI still in the ChatGPT maker's pipeline in the next five years?

What you need to know

  • A new report suggests OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic have encountered critical issues that are hindering the development of advanced AI models.
  • The issues include lacking high-quality training data and sufficient resources to develop and maintain advanced AI models.
  • OpenAI is slated to ship its Orion AI model early next year. It’s currently in the post-training phase, but the ChatGPT maker will make “very good releases later this year,”

As a seasoned researcher who has been closely following the AI landscape for years, I must admit that the latest developments have left me both intrigued and somewhat perplexed. On one hand, it’s fascinating to see these tech giants pushing the boundaries of what AI can do. However, on the other hand, the recurring hurdles they encounter are a stark reminder of just how challenging this field truly is.


Advanced AI technologies are expanding beyond just producing text and images. Leading companies such as Google, Anthropic, Microsoft, and OpenAI currently dominate the AI landscape, yet they’re finding it challenging to develop sophisticated AI models, according to recent reports from Bloomberg.

In other words, although OpenAI was nearly ready to achieve a major breakthrough with its advanced AI model, Orion, it didn’t surpass its earlier models in essential aspects. According to sources close to the ChatGPT developer, Orion fell short when responding to coding questions that it hadn’t been specifically trained on. Therefore, based on this evidence, Orion is not as revolutionary as OpenAI’s GPT-4 or GPT-3.5 models.

The same issue is consistent across other big tech companies chasing the AI hype, including Google and Anthropic. For instance, Google’s enhanced version of its Gemini AI chatbot isn’t meeting the company’s expectations. The same reason can be attributed to Anthropic’s delayed release of its long-anticipated Claude 3.5 Opus.

AI dreams and reality are a mismatch

OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic hit the critical knowledge cap for advanced AI training—Is AGI still in the ChatGPT maker's pipeline in the next five years?

It’s common knowledge that powerful AI systems, such as Microsoft and ChatGPT, largely depend on data from the web for their training. These tools excel at swiftly answering questions, but they appear limited in discovering fresh, untapped resources of top-notch content that could be utilized to create more sophisticated AI technology.

Concerns have been voiced by publishers and authors over AI systems extracting their work without permission or monetary compensation for the purpose of training. Companies like Microsoft and OpenAI are dealing with several copyright violation cases in court. Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, acknowledged that creating tools similar to ChatGPT without infringing on copyrighted material is challenging. However, he pointed out that current copyright law does not explicitly ban the use of copyrighted content for training AI models.

In a recent copyright infringement lawsuit, OpenAI emerged victorious against both Raw Story and AlterNet. The presiding judge in New York’s federal court found that the publishers had not successfully demonstrated any substantial harm (cognizable injury).

Here’s the essence of the matter: The real issue Plaintiffs are fighting for isn’t just about CMI being excluded, but rather, it’s about the uncompensated use of their articles in creating ChatGPT.

It’s uncertain if there are other laws or legal principles that would classify this kind of damage as more severe. However, whether such laws exist is not the concern here in court today.

Over the last several months, OpenAI was reportedly close to bankruptcy, anticipating losses of around $5 billion. Yet, the company behind ChatGPT managed to avoid this fate by securing additional funding, amassing a total of $6.6 billion from Microsoft, NVIDIA, and other prominent investors. This new investment round increased OpenAI’s market value to an astounding $157 billion. Market experts believe that despite this, the ChatGPT maker is still in a precarious position, potentially facing additional losses of up to $44 billion before achieving profitability in 2029, largely due to its significant partnership with Microsoft.

As an analyst, I’m projecting that due to its sustained growth following recent fundraising, the company behind ChatGPT is poised to transition into a profit-driven entity within the next two years, or else return the invested funds to its backers. This shift could potentially invite external influence and potential acquisitions, such as Microsoft acquiring OpenAI in the coming three years. To provide some context, this latest round of funding represents the eighth instance where OpenAI sought financial backing from investors to fuel their cutting-edge AI initiatives.

Already, the action is encountering significant hurdles, such as a legal dispute initiated by Billionaire and ex-OpenAI co-founder Elon Musk. This lawsuit alleges a breach of the company’s original purpose and possible collusion in illegal activities like racketeering. Professionals anticipate that this action will also face resistance from staff, oversight bodies, and the government.

It remains uncertain when OpenAI will make their Orion model available to the public, as they are currently in the post-training phase, suggesting that a release is imminent. Reports indicate that the company is nearing broad availability of this model. However, despite OpenAI’s ongoing efforts, the AI model doesn’t meet expectations, causing the company to delay its launch until early next year.

It appears that OpenAI might be changing the names of its models. So, instead of being known as ChatGPT’s creator, they could release the model under a new name. Sam Altman hinted that the successor of GPT-4 would be even smarter, similar to a “virtual brain.” Furthermore, he confirmed that OpenAI has some exciting releases planned for later this year, but we shouldn’t expect something called GPT-5.

In essence, these corporations are striving towards the goal of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), a task that OpenAI CEO Sam Altman suggests will be quite challenging. To put it into perspective, achieving this would require an investment of approximately $7 trillion and several years to construct 36 semiconductor factories and additional data centers. This revelation initially left people questioning the possibility of success, labeling Altman as a “podcast host.” However, the CEO maintains that AGI is within reach using today’s hardware.

Read More

2024-11-14 00:39