❌

Reading view

ChatGPT’s Computer History tracks your clicks and keystrokes

Chat GPT logo on a graphic green background.

ChatGPT's desktop app on macOS has a new feature called Computer History that turns your actions into training data, learning how you work, suggesting automations, and even picking up tasks you left half done. It uses your activity to build a timeline that ChatGPT and Codex can reference when you make a request.

The feature is opt in, rather than opt out, and you can exclude certain apps and websites from Computer History, and you can delete entries if you want finer-grained control. Ari Weinstein, Product and Engineering manager at OpenAI, said on X that Computer History will automatically ignore content in incognito or private browser tab …

Read the full story at The Verge.

  •  

Rogue AI aren’t science fiction anymore

This is The Stepback, a weekly newsletter breaking down one essential story from the tech world. For more on AI safety, follow Robert Hart. The Stepback arrives in our subscribers' inboxes at 8AM ET. Opt in for The Stepback here.

How it started

It all started in July, when one of OpenAI's autonomous AI agents went rogue during a cybersecurity test. The agent escaped its isolated testing environment, accessed the internet, and hacked another company, Hugging Face. A few years ago, that might have sounded like science fiction. But, broadly speaking, that's exactly what happened, and the incident kicked off a wave of concern over what increa …

Read the full story at The Verge.

  •  

OpenAI is losing its second executive this week

Another OpenAI executive is departing. Denise Dresser, who joined OpenAI as its chief revenue officer in December after serving as CEO of Slack, will be leaving in the "coming weeks" to "pursue other opportunities," she said in a team note posted to LinkedIn. Dali Rajic, president and COO of Wiz, will be taking over the CRO role, OpenAI says.

Dresser's departure is just the latest in a string of major exits. Earlier this week, special projects lead and former COO Brad Lightcap announced he would be leaving. (Dresser had taken over some of Lightcap's work when he moved to the special projects role.) Former AGI chief Fidji Simo and former CMO …

Read the full story at The Verge.

  •  

Of course the ChatGPT dog cancer vaccine spawned a startup

Remember that much-hyped story about an Australian tech entrepreneur using ChatGPT, Grok, and other AI tools to craft a personalized cancer vaccine for his dog? Well, surprise: he's launched a startup.

That entrepreneur is Paul Conyngham, who says he is launching Gamgee to offer "personalised mRNA cancer vaccines for dogs." But his ambitions go well beyond dogs - and pets - with Gamgee's website promising the company will harness AI and genetics to develop personalized treatments for a range of diseases and species, including humans.

At the center of Gamgee's origin story is Rosie, Conyngham's Staffordshire bull terrier-Shar Pei mix, who …

Read the full story at The Verge.

  •  

ChatGPT and Gemini both just passed 1 billion users

A screenshot showing Gemini Live during Google’s Super Bowl ad
That’s a lot of people chatting with their AI friends all day. | Image: Google

For the 14th time, a Google product has hit 1 billion users. Google CEO Sundar Pichai posted on X that a billion people are using Gemini every month, and that Gemini is Google's fastest-growing product ever.

A billion users is a huge milestone, but Google isn't the first AI app to hit it. OpenAI's ChatGPT hit the mark a few weeks ago, though the company buried the announcement that "more than 1 billion people are putting ChatGPT to work" in an otherwise anodyne blog post about how people use AI. External data suggested ChatGPT crossed 1 billion users as early as this June, but OpenAI hadn't announced anything until that post on August 6th. …

Read the full story at The Verge.

  •  

Another OpenAI executive takes off

Brad Lightcap, chief operating officer of OpenAI, during the Bloomberg Technology Summit in San Francisco, California, US, on Thursday, May 9, 2024.

Brad Lightcap, OpenAI's special projects lead and the company's former COO, announced his departure after an eight-year stint at the AI lab. In an internal memo he later posted to X, Lightcap told colleagues he'd be starting "something new."

"Over the last few months, I've been focused on the next horizon and what would stand in the way of mission success," Lightcap wrote. "I believe there are a few important new things the world will need to get right as we enter this next period. I … am excited to help you all advance the mission from a different vantage point." He added that he'd still be around for the next few weeks.

Lightcap's role …

Read the full story at The Verge.

  •  
❌