The hits keep coming on OpenAI. After firing CEO and co-founder Sam Altman, inviting him back, and reappointing him as CEO a few days ago, the ChatGPT developer is apparently, at least temporarily, pulling back on its plans for a GPT Store.
Earlier this month, at the first OpenAI Dev Day, Altman introduced the concept of “GPTs,” essentially modified versions of the ChatGPT generative AI model. These custom versions would use custom data and therefore do what you wanted them to do. They would be generally less smart, like the current ChatGPT which turned 1 this week, and much more specifically smart for your needs. Perhaps the most exciting part of this announcement was that you would be able to list and purchase these custom GPTs in an online GPT Store.
Now, Axios reports Based on a developer memo, it was learned that OpenAI is pausing the launch of the GPT Store until at least early 2024. In the memo, OpenAI wrote, according to the report: “While we expected to release it this month, a few unexpected things have kept us busy!”
If this comment is real, it could be a nod to the turmoil that has engulfed OpenAI over the past two weeks.
A new beginning
Of course, that's all in the past now. On November 29 Altman posted on the company blog, he praised his team and even extended an olive branch to former board member and computer scientist Ilya Sutskever, who may have promoted the fire drill that prompted Altman's removal.
“I love and respect Ilya, I think he is a guiding light of the field and a gem of a human being. I bear no ill will towards him,” Altman wrote on Wednesday.
Perhaps remarkably, Altman made no mention of “GPTs” or the GPT store in his post. Instead, he paid a lot of attention to AI safety. He wrote that the company has three immediate priorities, listing these first: “Advancing our research plan and further investing in our full-stack safety efforts, which have always been critical to our work.”
There is no indication in the reported memo that OpenAI is pausing GPT's work or actually any part of its push towards Artificial general intelligence (AGI), about which Altman writes, “One of the most important things for the team building AGI safely is the ability to handle stressful and uncertain situations and maintain good judgment throughout.”
Assuming this pause memo is real, the postponement to early 2024 is only a matter of a few months. Given OpenAI and the rapid development pace of ChatGPT and the large language model (LLM) that powers it, the delay could shrink to weeks.
All in all, it's back to AI activities for OpenAI.