This week, OpenAI hinted that it will soon start charging for ChatGPT, its popular AI-powered chatbot that can create essays, emails, poetry, and even computer code. OpenAI has announced on its Discord channel that it is "beginning to think about how to commercialize ChatGPT" to "secure [the tool's] long-term survival."
It seems that ChatGPT Professional will be the name given to the paid edition of the program. For example, "At what price (per month) would you consider ChatGPT to be so costly that you would not consider purchasing it?" is one of several questions concerning preferred payment methods included in a waitlist link OpenAI posted in the Discord server.
The waitlist information also includes a description of the features and advantages of ChatGPT Professional, such as the absence of "blackout" (i.e., unavailability) periods, the removal of throttling, and the opportunity to send "at least 2x the standard daily limit" of messages. Waitlisted users may be invited to participate in ChatGPT Professional's pilot program, but OpenAI emphasizes that the software is still in development and won't be made generally accessible "at this moment."
Despite its unpopularity and frequent suspensions, ChatGPT has been a huge public relations success for OpenAI, garnering widespread media coverage and inspiring innumerable internet jokes and memes. A minority of financial backers have integrated ChatGPT into their operations. Actor Ryan Reynolds hired ChatGPT to produce a commercial for Mint Mobile, the telecommunications company he co-owns. And the AI powering ChatGPT will be included in Microsoft's Office and Bing.
As of early December, ChatGPT's user base had grown to over one million people, a sizeable and active audience by any metric. But maintaining this level of service doesn't come cheap. Operating costs for ChatGPT are "eye-watering," OpenAI co-founder and CEO Sam Altman says, totaling a few cents per session in total compute costs. (The Azure cloud service provides hosting for ChatGPT.)
To attract the reported $10 billion investment from Microsoft, OpenAI must show a return on products like ChatGPT. Despite receiving over $1 billion in funding, OpenAI predicts a meager $200 million in revenue in 2023.
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