OpenAI Is Trying To Make ChatGPT A ‘Helpful AI Companion’

Welcome back to The Prompt,

ChatGPT will now be able to handle tasks like sending reminders about important deadlines or sharing daily weather reports. People can ask the conversational AI chatbot to send alerts at a future date and time, OpenAI announced today. The new functionality, which is being rolled out to the company’s paying users, point toward the AI behemoth’s efforts to add assistant-like capabilities to ChatGPT, its star product with over 300 million users. It still has a way to go to catch up to other assistants like Google Assistant and Alexa though, which can play music and make calls.

Also: Submissions are now open for the seventh annual AI 50 list: Forbes’ definitive list of the most prominent private AI startups across the globe.

Now let’s get into the headlines.

BIG PLAYS

As devastating wildfires ravaged parts of Los Angeles, California last week, AI-based software built to mitigate disasters wasn’t of much help. In 2022, California Governor Gavin Newsom announced plans to build an AI system that would analyze video footage and detect emerging fires, sending prompt alerts to dispatch human teams before the fires could intensify. But while it has been useful in preventing some fires, the current disaster, which has caused an estimated $150 billion worth of damage so far, moved too quickly for the system.

SHOW ME THE MONEY

AI titan Anthropic is set to raise $2 billion in venture capital at a $60 billion valuation. When the deal closes, it will make each of its seven founders— including its CEO Dario Amodei — billionaires, Forbes reported. That’s based on an estimate that each cofounder will continue to hold 2% stake in the company, giving them each a net worth of at least $1.2 billion.

POLITICS

With days left before President-elect Donald Trump takes office, OpenAI outlined its vision for building AI in America. The ChatGPT-maker published a new “Economic Blueprint” detailing ways that the U.S. can maintain its lead in AI over China, by attracting over $100 billion in global funds that would otherwise be funneled to Chinese tech companies. The company is also proposing lighter regulations based on “democratic values.”

AI DEAL OF THE WEEK

Collate, a startup that’s using AI to help life sciences businesses keep up with paperwork, has raised $30 million in a round led by Redpoint Ventures. With generative AI tools, researchers would be able to focus more on drug development rather than maintaining the documents needed to stay compliant with regulations, CEO Surbhi Sarna said.

DEEP DIVE

Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt has spent the last few months working on an artificial intelligence project that aims to capitalize on the booming landscape of AI video generation. The startup, which has not been previously reported, was founded last year under the name “Hooglee,” according to sources with knowledge of its development and business materials viewed by Forbes. Schmidt’s family office, Hillspire, is currently financing and housing it.

The billionaire “AI whisperer” has become a sometimes polarizing voice in Silicon Valley and Washington on the promise and perils of artificial intelligence, alternately claiming that it will “double everyone’s productivity,” characterizing these systems as “nuclear weapons of a different kind,” or predicting as he did last December that it may become so sophisticated that “we seriously need to think about unplugging it.”

Several months earlier, however, Schmidt and a small cohort quietly incorporated Hooglee LLC, a company that broadly describes its mission as “democratizing video creation with AI.” Its website, which consists of a single landing page and does not name Schmidt nor any of its staff, claims that it’s “creating innovative solutions that bring people closer, simplify communication, and enhance engagement.” Schmidt declined to comment.

Hooglee appears to be the first artificial intelligence project that Schmidt has personally incubated after investing in a number of AI companies, such as Anthropic and quantum computing startup SandboxAQ. The billionaire, who Forbes estimates is worth more than $26 billion, has also funded an OpenAI grantmaking program and the AI science nonprofit FutureHouse.

Read the full story on Forbes.

WEEKLY DEMO

AI finance apps like Cleo AI and Bright claim to help people with their money woes by offering advice and analyzing their spending. They also often end up using people’s personal data to upsell other products, Wired found. The apps offer cash advances and loans through third-party entities, tempting its users to take on short-term debt.

MODEL BEHAVIOR

OpenAI’s o1 model, which shows its chain-of-thought reasoning before giving an output, appeared to be performing some steps in Chinese, a user noted. Spectators have attributed the tendency to Chinese training data from open source datasets and third-party data labellers, TechCrunch reported. OpenAI has not commented on the apparent issue.