Microsoft recentlyannouncedit will soon offer invitation only access to GPT-3 via Azure.
This is a weird bit of news.
But its unclear exactly what this means for OpenAI going forward.
What were seeing today is more like… a turn-key business opportunity.
Microsoft is essentially takingGPT-3s ability to generate codeand turning it into an Azure feature.
I suppose theres probably some chatbot utility there too.
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Azures as robust and stable as any other cloud-based processing platform and GPT-3s the benchmark for text generators.
Where the majority of academics and entrepreneurs want to repeat the same stupid prestidigitation trick (look!
An AI wrote this!
), Microsofts got the technological gravitas to do great things with GPT-3.
Once you dip your head beneath the surface though, things get pretty murky.
But to explain why, well need to start at the beginning.
Once upon a time
There was an engineer, developer, and entrepreneur named Elon Musk.
He partnered with an investor and entrepreneur named Sam Altman the former president of Y Combinator.
At the time, most experts considered OpenAI a direct competitor to DeepMind.
Unfortunately for OpenAI, developing an AGI is expensive.
First off, theres the fact that nobody knows how.
Secondly, you cant sell developing an AGI as a service or product.
So whats a non-profit that needs about a billion more dollars to keep the lights on supposed to do?
Exit Elon, stage left
Musk absolved himself of all association with OpenAI before Microsoft got involved.
In fact, GPT-3 is essentially useless without a series of hard filters in place.
Thats why both OpenAI and Microsoft are forced to offer provisional access on an invite-only basis.
GPT-3 is incredibly biased.
Without those hard filters in place it has a tendency togenerate hate-speech and potentially-harmful misinformation.
And the ethical concerns over GPT-3 access via Azure dont end at issues of bias.
The weird part is that Azure is one of the few places where GPT-3s parlor tricks really makes sense.
It can do some genuine good there.
