OpenAI, whose mission is to “promote and develop friendly artificial intelligence for the benefit of all humanity,” recently pulled a clever move that most competitors in the internet era… ahem, or rather the generative AI era, wouldn’t have thought of. That’s right, now you can call ChatGPT directly to chat.
▲Image source for this article: OpenAI
That’s right, now you can just call ChatGPT directly to chat.
Does anyone still remember the era when phone dating ads were plastered all over tricycles, advertising everywhere on the streets?
Although this type of demand may have now all shifted to subscription model Online platforms, LINE, or apps, but for services that hope to benefit all of humanity, traditional channels also seem to be a target that cannot be overlooked.
OpenAI, whose mission is “to promote and develop friendly artificial intelligence for the benefit of all humanity,” recently pulled off a clever move that most rivals in the internet era… ahem, or rather the generative AI era, probably wouldn’t have thought of.
Simply call ChatGPT directly at 1-800-242-8478 (the easter egg is that if you remember it using the English keypad layout, it’s 1-800-CHATGPT).
When this news came out, the first question that popped into many people’s heads was, “Who still uses a regular phone these days?”
In fact, according to information from foreign media, at least in the U.S., as of 2024, about 1/4 of people still had landline phones installed (whispering: but in this data, the estimated “actual users” are only 5%). All in all, since OpenAI has the lofty mission of benefiting all of humanity, it’s only natural that they need to further meet everyone’s needs (nod nod).
▲Image source: Search Engine Journal
According to official sources, in addition to the 1-800-CHATGPT phone line, you can also reach OpenAI’s ChatGPT via WhatsApp – OpenAI Chief Product Officer Kevin Weil mentioned in an online presentation that this phone service offers 15 minutes of free usage per number, per month. This clearly encourages people to chat with ChatGPT whenever they have spare time.
If you’re curious about the technology behind it, for the phone service part, OpenAI uses their Realtime API; for WhatsApp, GPT-4o mini is integrated into the WhatsApp API.
According to TechCrunch, OpenAI’s landline voice service feels similar to the current advanced voice mode in ChatGPT when you call it. Both have the ability to be interrupted at any time and can provide more emotional responses—so, pretty much like a real person.
As for what other benefits this kind of benevolent service might have besides its “mission,” foreign media have pointed out that Google previously launched a similar landline phone directory service, and it was revealed earlier that the hope was to collect more real human voice data for speech recognition technology.
But at this point in 2024, how much data this 1-800-CHATGPT number—which is easy to remember yet may see little interest—can actually collect is clearly a big question mark. Perhaps being able to push AI into that last 5% that the internet struggles to reach is really what OpenAI sees value in.
Citation source:TechCrunch| Via:Neowin｜
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