Ever since the launch of GPT-4 in March 2023, the AI community has been abuzz with speculation about when its successor GPT-5 will arrive. GPT-4 brought major leaps in capabilities like multimodality, increased accuracy, and larger context windows. However, its high cost and latency issues left many eagerly anticipating what GPT-5 will offer.
Let’s explore what’s known and unknown about the release timeframe, expected capabilities, and key challenges GPT-5 may face on its deployment.
GPT-5 Potential Release Date
Initially, rumours circulated that GPT-5 could launch in December 2023. However, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman recently refuted this, stating OpenAI has no plans to release GPT-5 anytime soon.
Instead, experts now believe GPT-4.5, an intermediate upgrade, could arrive by October 2023. GPT-4.5 may finally unlock multimodal capabilities in GPT-4, which were announced but not yet activated. Microsoft’s integration of image abilities into Bing Chat using GPT-4 technology hints multimodality may soon be available.
Realistically, OpenAI seems to have its hands full, enhancing GPT-4 before tackling GPT-5. Issues like high latency, limited API access, and removed internet browsing capabilities indicate GPT-4 still needs refinement.
Add in new features like ChatGPT plugins and Code Interpreter, still in beta, and OpenAI is likely focused on incremental improvements to GPT-4 for now. GPT-5 in 2024 is a reasonable estimate, potentially coinciding with Google’s Gemini release. Regulatory concerns could also delay an official launch.
Expected GPT-5 Capabilities and Features
Reduced Hallucination
GPT-4 already reduced hallucination by 40% compared to GPT-3.5. But minimizing false information remains critical for trustworthiness. GPT-5 may lower hallucination to under 10%, given GPT-4’s major strides in accuracy.
Improved Compute Efficiency
GPT-4’s large mixture-of-experts architecture comes at a high computational cost. GPT-5 will need greater efficiency via distillation into a smaller model or more optimized training approaches for commercial viability.
Multisensory Abilities
While GPT-4 is proclaimed as multimodal, it currently only handles text and images. GPT-5 could expand into a multisensory model, incorporating audio, video, and other data streams.
Enhanced Long-Term Memory
OpenAI boosted GPT-4’s context length to 32,000 tokens. But models like Claude already reach 100,000+ tokens. GPT-5 may push memory limits even further for multidomain knowledge retention.
More Reasonable Pricing
At $0.12 per 1,000 GPT-4 tokens, OpenAI faces pricing criticism. Making cutting-edge AI economically accessible will be key for GPT-5’s success.
Possibility of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI)
Some speculate GPT-5 could achieve AGI – AI with generalized reasoning ability surpassing humans. OpenAI leaders have acknowledged AGI’s massive potential risks. Government regulation may constrain development.
The Path Ahead for OpenAI
OpenAI has grown increasingly secretive, in contrast to its nonprofit origins. Neither GPT-4 nor GPT-5 will be open-sourced. However, OpenAI intends to release a new open-source model, signalling a slight strategy shift.
Between enhancing GPT-4 and navigating societal impacts, OpenAI has plenty to figure out before GPT-5 sees the light of day. But if realized responsibly, GPT-5 could take AI to unprecedented heights and demonstrate technology’s immense potential to benefit humanity. The wait continues for what comes next on the horizon for artificial intelligence.
