😺 ChatGPT's huge valuation

PLUS: our thoughts on Hollywood's striking writers

Welcome, humans.

Oops, almost forgot to announce that we crossed 150,000 readers last week! It’s the little wins that count, like successfully untangling headphones on the first try.

Appreciate each and every one of you! 🧡

Here’s what you need to know about AI today:

OpenAI is eyeing a new valuation of $80-90B.
Hollywood can train its AI models on writers’ content.
Whoop announced a health coach chatbot powered by OpenAI.
The CIA is building its own ChatGPT for surveillance data.

OpenAI Is Seeking A Valuation Of $80-90 Billion.

Hello sharks,

My name is Sam Altman. I’m here seeking an investment into OpenAI at a valuation of $80-90 billion. Who’s in?

hold on, did he just say $80-90 billy?!

Yup.

OpenAI employees are expected to sell shares to new investors at 3x the company’s April valuation of $29B. This would position OpenAI as one of the highest-valued private startups … in history!

But who’s surprised? Investors are drooling over AI, assigning astronomical valuations to startups that promise “the future”. Just this Monday Amazon agreed to invest up to $4 billion in Anthropic.

But here's the flip side: Amidst the frenzy, Microsoft is one company working to cut AI costs. It’s developing its own smaller and cheaper AI models ‘cause using OpenAI for everything is too darn expensive.

And this is pretty weird, right?

Microsoft pledged $10B to fund OpenAI → essentially launched a competitor to ChatGPT Plus (Microsoft 365 Copilot) → is now working on GPT alternatives in-house.

To quote the infamous Mr. Wonderful, “I’m not trying to make friends; I’m trying to make money.”

And they might be onto something. According to a survey from The Neuron, more of you are currently using or planning to use Microsoft 365 Copilot than ChatGPT Plus.

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Hollywood Can Train AI On Writers Content With Compensation.

Finally.

Hollywood writers and execs finally reached a tentative agreement, so our beloved late-night talk shows will be brought back to life.

The agreement on AI: studios can train AI models on writers’ creative work but need to pay and credit writers if AI has a hand in writing scripts.

The details are TBD, but it seems fair to us.

Why it matters: The usage of AI to generate creative work is inevitable, and creatives deserve their slice of the (pumpkin) pie. For instance, Google and Universal Music are working to help artists in licensing their voices for AI-generated music.

We're intrigued to see if—and how—this will extend to authors. OpenAI notoriously trained ChatGPT on tons of books without permission, leading authors like George R.R. Martin to sue over “systematic theft on a massive scale.”

We're all ears for the court's decision, and equally eager for George to wrap up the final 'Thrones book—especially after we were robbed of a historic Season 8 back in ‘19…

Around the Horn.

Whoop partnered with OpenAI to build a health-coach chatbot that connects with your health data.
OpenAI released a technical paper on how GPT-4’s vision capabilities work as well as its limitations.
Tubi is integrating ChatGPT to offer users relevant movie recs.
SAP is building an AI assistant called “Joule” for customers in corporate finance and HR.
Check out this webinar on AI in Enterprise Finserv & Insurance.
Legendary Apple designer Jony Ive and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman are chatting. Are we thinking phones?