Elon Musk makes offer to buy OpenAI for US$97.4 billion

 In a major move that could redefine the artificial intelligence landscape, Elon Musk, backed by a group of investors, has put forward a staggering US$97.4 billion bid to acquire OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT. This latest development adds another layer to the ongoing rivalry between Musk and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. Altman dismissed the offer on X with a playful response: “No thank you, but we will buy twitter for $9.74 billion if you want.” Despite Altman’s refusal, OpenAI’s board still holds the power to determine the company’s fate and may entertain the deal if a higher bid is presented.

OpenAI released ChatGPT to the public near the end of 2022, and while it's astonishing even to some of the biggest figures in tech for its advanced writing skills, it's also incredibly concerning. From the threat it poses to schools, to the unethical treatment of those manually filtering out toxic content from the source data on which the AI is trained, there are many valid worries attached to this incredibly innovative tech. For everything you need to know about ChatGPT, click through this gallery.

It's available to the public

Made available to the public on November 30 on OpenAI’s website, anyone can sign up for and use ChatGPT for free, though it’s still in the research review phase. The software hit one million users less than a week after its launch.

How it works

ChatGPT, or Chat Generative Pre-Trained Transformer, can expertly generate realistic, human-like text about almost anything. English essays, news articles, computer code, and songs are all examples of what this bot can produce, and all from a simple prompt.

The bot uses a dialogue format in which users can provide both simple and complex instructions, to which ChatGPT will provide a detailed response. It can also answer follow-up questions, admit when it made a mistake, challenge incorrect premises, and reject inappropriate requests—all of which makes it perfect for customer service.

Revolutionizing search engines

Many see this technology as an alternative to Google, because instead of just providing links for users upon request, ChatGPT can revolutionize the way people use search engines by solving elaborate problems and providing descriptions, answers, and solutions to complex questions.