OpenAI updates ChatGPT with ability to hear and speak, see images, but it still cannot sing
- Users will be able to pick one of five voices in the ChatGPT app to produce audio responses to voice prompts
- The new features will be available to enterprise users and paid subscribers of OpenAI’s ChatGPT Plus service
Starting over the next two weeks, users will be able to choose a voice in the chatbot app, picking from five personas with names like “Juniper,” “Breeze” and “Ember”. ChatGPT will then produce audio of the text it generates in that voice – for example, reading an AI-generated bedtime story out loud.
The feature will be available to people who subscribe to OpenAI’s US$20-per-month ChatGPT Plus service and enterprise users.
OpenAI released its ChatGPT app in May, and already offers a voice-to-text capability that lets users talk to the bot. Adding an audio response feature could create a sense that people are having a more human conversation.
The company hopes the new feature will encourage on-the-go uses of its mobile app, putting it in closer competition with personal assistant offerings like Google’s Assistant, Apple’s Siri or Amazon.com’s Alexa.
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Requests could include asking the program to talk about the history of Disneyland while driving to the theme park, or asking for a cocktail recipe while rummaging around in the kitchen. In a test of the tool, it ably narrated a story about a starfish and a swede.
However, while ChatGPT can come up with lyrics for songs, the app will decline to sing.
The voices of ChatGPT sound fairly human-like (though a close listen reveals a bit of a robotic monotone). OpenAI said it worked with voice actors to build the text-to-speech AI model that underlies the feature.
The company also said that in the coming weeks paid and enterprise users will be able to access a feature for GPT-4 – one of the AI models that powers ChatGPT – to submit a picture and a related question about it.
For example, it will be possible to upload a picture of pink sunglasses and ask the chatbot to suggest an outfit to go with it, or to submit a picture of a maths problem and request help solving it. The feature, which OpenAI announced earlier this year when it unveiled GPT-4, is available through the ChatGPT app and website.
