OpenAI executives say releasing ChatGPT for public use was a last resort after running into multiple hurdles — and they're shocked by its popularity

Abstraction: OpenAI's surprise at ChatGPT's viral adoption and CEO's AI risk warnings

Key points:

• ChatGPT surpassed 1 million users in its first five days following its November 2022 release
• Public release was described by co-founder Greg Brockman as a "last resort" after beta testing revealed users didn't know what to ask and topic-specific chatbot experiments failed
• Brockman admitted uncertainty before launch: "I don't know if this is going to work"; CTO Mira Murati called the viral response "definitely surprising"
• CEO Sam Altman warned the worst-case AI outcome is "lights out for all of us" and called AI safety and alignment work impossible to overstate
• Altman expressed greater concern about accidental near-term misuse than intentional long-term catastrophe

Connections: Openai · Chatgpt · Sam Altman · Large Language Models · AI Safety

Source: https://www.businessinsider.com/chatgpt-openai-executives-are-shocked-by-ai-chatbot-popularity-2023-1