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Artificial intelligence
TechTech Trends

OpenAI unveils GPT-4o, a new AI model capable of realistic voice conversation, available free to all ChatGPT users

  • OpenAI’s demonstrations verged on science-fiction, with ChatGPT and its human interlocutor at one point engaging in coquettish banter
  • ‘Talking to a computer has never felt really natural for me; now it does,’ OpenAI CEO Sam Altman wrote in a blog post

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OpenAI’s chief technology officer, Mira Murati, speaks during the unveiling of GPT-4o, the company’s latest model capable of natural voice conversation. Photo: OpenAI/YouTube
Reuters

ChatGPT maker OpenAI said on Monday it would release a new artificial intelligence (AI) model called GPT-4o, capable of realistic voice conversation and able to interact across text and image, its latest move to stay ahead in a race to dominate the emerging technology.

New audio capabilities enable users to speak to ChatGPT and obtain real-time responses with no delay, as well as interrupt ChatGPT while it is speaking, both hallmarks of realistic conversations that AI voice assistants have found challenging, the OpenAI researchers showed at a livestream event.

“It feels like AI from the movies … Talking to a computer has never felt really natural for me; now it does,” OpenAI CEO Sam Altman wrote in a blog post.

Microsoft-backed OpenAI faces growing competition and pressure to expand the user base of ChatGPT, its popular chatbot product that wowed the world with its ability to produce humanlike written content and top-notch software code.

At the livestream event, OpenAI researchers showed off ChatGPT’s new voice assistant capabilities. In one demo, ChatGPT used its vision and voice capabilities to talk a researcher through solving a math equation on a sheet of paper.
In another demo, researchers showed the GPT-4o model’s capability of real-time language translation.
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