—Will Douglas Heaven
In the three years since ChatGPT’s explosive debut, OpenAI’s technology has upended a remarkable range of everyday activities at home, at work, and in schools.
Now OpenAI is making an explicit play for scientists. In October, the firm announced that it had launched a whole new team, called OpenAI for Science, dedicated to exploring how its large language models could help scientists and tweaking its tools to support them.
So why now? How does a push into science fit with OpenAI’s wider mission? And what exactly is the firm hoping to achieve? I put these questions to Kevin Weil, a vice president at OpenAI who leads the new OpenAI for Science team, in an exclusive interview. Read the full story.
Why chatbots are starting to check your age
How do tech companies check if their users are kids?
This question has taken on new urgency recently thanks to growing concern about the dangers that can arise when children talk to AI chatbots. For years Big Tech asked for birthdays (that one could make up) to avoid violating child privacy laws, but they weren’t required to moderate content accordingly.
Now, two developments over the last week show how quickly things are changing in the US and how this issue is becoming a new battleground, even among parents and child-safety advocates. Read the full story.
—James O’Donnell
This story originally appeared in The Algorithm, our weekly newsletter on AI. To get stories like this in your inbox first, sign up here.