Microsoft has just confirmed its investment in OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT. Although the technology company has only indicated that it will invest “billions of dollars” over the next few years, Bloomberg claims that the amount is $10 billion.
If so, the artificial intelligence firm would reach a valuation of close to 30 billion dollars, 50% more than it has so far. The news has come just a few days after the firm led by Satya Nadella announced a tough labor adjustment, with which it laid off 10,000 employees, 5% of its entire workforce.
Microsoft and OpenAI
It is not Microsoft’s first foray into OpenAI, a project in which it already left $1 billion in 2019. In the last year, in addition to the well-known query and conversation software, they have also developed Dall-E, an application that manages to generate realistic images from written instructions.
For now, they have already confirmed that they would be working on developing these artificial intelligence advances on Azure, the technology company’s cloud service.
“We built our partnership with OpenAI around a shared ambition to responsibly advance cutting-edge research in artificial intelligence,” Nadella emphasized in the joint statement. “In this next phase of our alliance, organizations and developers across industries will have access to the best AI platform, with Azure to run and build their applications.”
In addition, the firm is expected to be preparing to implement its findings in other services, such as the Office suite or Bing, the browser that wanted to compete with Google, something it never achieved.
In this sense, a tool such as ChatGPT could be the key to making a qualitative leap with respect to what Google’s search engine offers.
In fact, there are more than a few who have seen a threat to Alphabet by checking the accuracy of the chat. In many cases, it offers a single synthetic and simple answer (although you can ask as many times as you want), instead of having to navigate through several links of results (and advertising) until you find what you are looking for.
Sridhar Ramaswamy, former head of advertising at Google, explains “Google has more to lose because it makes so much money from search. They’re going to address it, but this kind of model, with only one response, is very disruptive to the ad-based format.”
In fact, Google has already activated the code red regarding OpenAI and has urged its workers to improve its artificial intelligence products, something that has caused them to ask the firm’s founders, Larry Page and Sergei Brin, for help again.
However, OpenAI still has, for now, important flaws, since it is still in beta and, among other things, it is not connected to the Internet.
Microsoft, however, has not been the only player interested in entrusting OpenAI with its money.
The Wall Street Journal reported a few days ago that Thrive Capital and Peter Thiel, through their Founders Funds, were also involved in the negotiations for this round of financing. “It would be one of the most valued startups in the United States, despite generating little revenue,” the business daily had highlighted.
Once the threshold is reached, Microsoft would hold 49% of the capital of ChatGPT’s owner, while several investors would own another 49% and the remaining 2% would be in the hands of OpenAI’s own non-profit parent company.
Bill Gates talks about what the technology of the future will be: it’s not the metaverse
The tech mogul answered all sorts of questions during Reddit’s ‘Ask Me Anything’ session.
Like every beginning of the year, US tycoon Bill Gates (67 years old) participated in Reddit’s ‘Ask Me Anything’ session where he answered all kinds of questions, one of them about the future of technology.
In the session, Gates was clear about the most revolutionary technology currently being worked on.
“AI is the biggest. I don’t think Web3 was that big or that the metaverse functions alone are revolutionary, but AI is pretty revolutionary,” said Bill Gates after a user asked if there was any technology as promising as the Internet was a few years ago.
Bill Gates then elaborated on the topic, as he is excited about generative AI. “I’m impressed with the speed these AIs are reaching. I think they’re going to have a big impact.”
“As for the Gates Foundation, we want to have tutors to help kids learn math and keep their interest.
Also, we want medical help for people in Africa who don’t have access to a doctor. I still work with Microsoft, so I follow this very closely,” he said of how generative AI could affect the world.
In an interview with Bloomberg in November 2020, Gates talked about how he sees the future of technology and mentioned that he does not believe the metaverse will be the most important technology of the future. Instead, Gates noted that artificial intelligence and cybersecurity are the technologies he is most concerned about and where he sees great potential for change in the future.
In addition, Gates has spoken on several occasions about the importance of technology in addressing global issues such as climate change and poverty and mentioned that he believes technologies such as renewable energy, sustainable agriculture, and global health are critical to achieving sustainable development in the future.
In summary, Bill Gates points out that the future of technology is not in the metaverse but in artificial intelligence and cybersecurity, and also in technologies that address global problems such as climate change, poverty, and global health.
Try one better than ChatGPT HERE!
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