OpenAI and CEO Sam Altman had a busy day on Thursday. After launching ChatGPT Search, a new search engine feature that connects ChatGPT to real-time information, Altman and other OpenAI executives hosted an AMA (Ask Me Anything) on Reddit’s r/ChatGPT subreddit.
Altman and co. shared some interesting nuggets about ChatGPT Search, model updates, and the future plans where AGI (Artificial General Intelligence) plays a role. We’ve distilled the biggest takeaways from the AMA and shared them here so you don’t have to read through the seemingly endless barrage of questions.
And yes, in case you were wondering, Altman used ChatGPT for some of his answers.
Using ChatGPT as a therapist
Altman addressed one of the most controversial use cases of ChatGPT, which is turning to the chatbot as a form of therapy. “It’s obviously not a therapist, but clearly a lot of people get value out of talking about their problems with it,” he said before adding, “we have seen a lot of startups really exploring how to do more here; i hope someone builds soemthing [sic] great!”
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Reading between the lines, Altman isn’t condoning ChatGPT for therapy, but he’s also not saying don’t use it to work through your personal issues. On a related note, ChatGPT is not HIPAA compliant. This means deeply personal information you share, or shared unethically by mental health and medical professional isn’t protected by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA).
When asked about plans to train new models for specific medical literature, OpenAI CPO Kevin Weill shared that they’re “starting to work on HIPAA compliance for our enterprise product.” ChatGPT might be HIPAA compliant soon, but as mentioned, it isn’t currently.
Expect ChatGPT to message you first sometime soon
Remember that “glitch” when ChatGPT started messaging users first? Maybe it wasn’t a glitch, but a preview of future plans. When asked whether ChatGPT will eventually be able to perform tasks on its own, like messaging the user first, Weill said, “IMHO this is going to be a big theme in 2025.”
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On a related note, in response to the one thing he wishes ChatGPT could do but can’t yet, VP of Engineering Srinivas Narayanan said, “I’d love for it to understand my personal information better and take actions on my behalf.”
Questions about AGI came up frequently throughout the AMA, but the biggest takeaway is that Altman believes “it is achievable with current hardware.” So brace yourselves for a near future where ChatGPT has some form of autonomous agency.
OpenAI: No plans for ads in ChatGPT Search
ChatGPT Search looks to shake up SEO
On the day OpenAI launched its search engine, ChatGPT Search, Redditors had a lot of questions. Not much is known yet about how the search engine works, but OpenAI divulged a few tidbits. Does ChatGPT still use Bing as a search engine? “We use a set of services and Bing is an important one,” said Narayanan.
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Redditors were also curious about how SEO strategy plays into publishers and businesses get ranked in ChatGPT Search. And the answer was a big fat non-answer. “The product just launched today so there’s a lot to figure out still about where search will be similar and where it will be different in an AI world,” said Weill.
Altman also teased potential plans about ChatGPT Search, saying he “look[s] forward to a future where a search query can dynamically render a custom web page in response!” In short, if ChatGPT Search succeeds, it could significantly reshape search traffic.
Hallucinations will always be a tough problem
No matter how advanced ChatGPT gets, hallucinations will be a persistent problem. However, SVP of Research Mark Chen attempted to shift the blame onto human error. “We’re putting a lot of focus on decreasing hallucinations, but it’s a fundamentally hard problem – our models learn from human-written text, and humans sometimes confidently declare things they aren’t sure about,” said Chen.
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Nonetheless, Chen said OpenAI’s models are “improving at citing, which grounds their answers in trusted sources.” He also believes reinforcement learning can help to check when models hallucinate and “reward it for not doing so.”
Singing ChatGPT, new DALL-E and NSFW content
What about other future plans for ChatGPT? In a demo last spring, OpenAI showed Advanced Voice Mode’s singing skills, but it’s not currently a live feature. When asked whether OpenAI will “loosen” restrictions around musical capabilities” like singing, Weill said they’re working on it.
Is there going to be a new DALL-E anytime soon? There’s no release plan yet, but “the next update will be worth the wait,” said Altman.
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And it wouldn’t be a Reddit AMA without some questions about NSFW content. Will adults be able to access NSFW content? One Redditor asked. “We totally believe in treating adult users like adults. but it takes a lot of work to get this right, and right now we have more urgent priorities. would like to get this right some day,” said Altman.
