Latest news with #NickTurley
Yahoo
10-07-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
OpenAI will take on Chrome with a new AI-powered browser
If you purchase an independently reviewed product or service through a link on our website, BGR may receive an affiliate commission. The rivalry between Google and OpenAI has been among the most fascinating storylines in the tech industry over the past few years, and if recent reports are to be trusted, it's about to heat up another notch. According to Reuters, OpenAI plans to launch an AI-powered web browser in the coming weeks to challenge Google's Chrome browser. The report doesn't include many details about the browser, but notes that some interactions will occur within a ChatGPT-like interface that doesn't redirect users to other websites. It's not much of a surprise that OpenAI wants users to be locked into its ecosystem, even if it's not how many of us currently engage with our web browsers. Today's Top Deals XGIMI Prime Day deals feature the new MoGo 4 and up to 42% off smart projectors Best deals: Tech, laptops, TVs, and more sales Best Ring Video Doorbell deals That said, the browser will likely look and feel fairly familiar, as it's reportedly built on Chromium, which is the same codebase that powers Chrome, Microsoft Edge, Opera, and others. Sources tell Reuters that the browser is part of the company's long-term strategy to integrate its services into the work lives as well as the personal lives of its users. For instance, OpenAI could build its Operator agent directly into the browser, allowing it to perform tasks autonomously after being provided instructions. Imagine telling your browser to find the best Prime Day deals on a new lawn mower or find relevant sources for a research project. More importantly, running its own browser gives OpenAI access to the same endless, invaluable stream of user data that Google and its parent company Alphabet receives through Chrome. It is impossible to overstate how important Chrome is to Google's ad business, given that it provides the company with data on over 3 billion individuals worldwide. It's a source of revenue that's simply too enciting for OpenAI to pass up. Plus, if a majority of the 400 million ChatGPT users migrate over to OpenAI's browser, it will immediately become one of the three or four biggest web browsers on the planet. Interestingly enough, ChatGPT head of product Nick Turley recently told the courts that OpenAI would likely put in an offer for Chrome if Google were forced to sell it off. He noted that OpenAI would be able to integrate ChatGPT directly into Chrome. Would the company still be interested in the acquisition if its own AI browser takes off this year? More Top Deals Memorial Day security camera deals: Reolink's unbeatable sale has prices from $29.98 See the
Entrepreneur
07-07-2025
- Business
- Entrepreneur
Here Are the Traits OpenAI Executives Look For in New Hires
These traits matter more than a Ph.D or formal schooling in AI, say the executives. What kinds of skills do OpenAI leaders look for in new hires? OpenAI's head of ChatGPT, Nick Turley, and chief research officer, Mark Chen, tackled this question on an episode of the OpenAI podcast released last week. It turns out that the two OpenAI executives don't seek out an Ivy League educational background or AI breakthroughs in new hires. Instead, they search for more intrinsic traits: curiosity, agency, and adaptability. "Hiring is hard, especially if you want to have a small team that is very, very good and humble, and able to move fast," Turley admitted on the podcast. "I think curiosity has been the number one thing that I've looked for, and it's actually my advice to students when they ask me, 'What do I do in this world where everything's changing?'" Related: Getting a Wharton MBA Was 'a Waste of Time,' According to a Global Bank CEO. Here's the Degree He Recommends Instead. There's still so much that AI researchers have yet to learn about the technology that approaching its development requires "a certain amount of humility," Turley said. He explained that building AI is less about knowing the right answers and more about knowing how to ask the right questions with an innate curiosity. Turley looks for new hires who are "deeply curious" about the world and what OpenAI does. Related: Goldman Sachs CIO Says Coders Should Take Philosophy Classes — Here's Why Chen agreed with Turley and added that he looks for agency in new hires, or the ability to find problems and fix them with little oversight. He also searches for adaptability, or a willingness to adjust to a fast-changing environment. "You need to be able to quickly figure out what's important and pivot to what you need to do," Chen stated. Chen noted that agency and adaptability were more important than having a Ph.D in AI. He said that he himself joined OpenAI in 2018 as a resident without much formal AI training. "I think this is a field that people can pick up fairly quickly," Chen said. Related: These Are the AI Skills You Should Learn Right Now, According to the World's Youngest Self-Made Billionaire There are other skills that other executives have pinpointed as essential in the age of AI. Alexandr Wang, the MIT dropout who co-founded data training startup Scale AI and now leads Meta's AI efforts, noted in an interview with WaitWhat media CEO Jeff Berman last year that prompt engineering was an important skill to have. He recommended studying fields like math and physics that emphasized long-term thought. Meanwhile, Goldman Sachs' chief information officer, Marco Argenti, wrote in a post last year in the Harvard Business Review that he recommended studying philosophy in addition to engineering. OpenAI was worth $300 billion as of March, following a record-breaking $40 billion fundraising round, the biggest tech funding round on record from a private company.
Tom's Guide
04-07-2025
- Business
- Tom's Guide
OpenAI has started a new podcast — 6 things it reveals about ChatGPT's future
There has been a considerable push for transparency in the AI world. While it might not always feel this way, most of the largest AI companies regularly publish data about what they are working on, concerns they have and, in the case of Anthropic, full reports on their chatbots having complete meltdowns. However, OpenAI seems to be taking it a step further, recently launching its own podcast. A weekly show, the podcast delves into both surface-level topics like why they believe ChatGPT has been so popular, and things a little bit deeper like their concerns over the future of AI. All in all, these podcasts are the closest link we have to the inner thoughts of OpenAI — arguably the world's biggest and most powerful AI company. Now onto their second episode, what has been said so far? And is there any valuable insights that can be found from these conversations? I dove in to bring you the highlights. The second episode of the podcast starts off with a discussion that, while not exactly revolutionary in nature, is quite interesting. They discuss the launch of ChatGPT, revealing a few interesting points. Firstly, the company was very nearly called just 'Chat' before a last-minute decision reversed the name to ChatGPT. Nick Turley, the head of ChatGPT, explains that the team thought their metrics were broken on launch because of how popular the tool was. It went viral in Japan on day three of the launch and by day four was viral around the world. Get instant access to breaking news, the hottest reviews, great deals and helpful tips. The day before the launch, the team was split over whether to launch ChatGPT. When tested on 10 questions the night before, it only offered acceptable answers for half. Sam Altman mentioned the launch of GPT-5 in the first episode of the podcast. So, do we finally have a launch date? No. Altman parroted what we've already been hearing for a while that the model update will release in 'the Summer'. They went on to discuss naming plans, potentially using GPT-5, GPT-5.1 etc. This would put an end to the confusing naming scheme that has been seen in the past which jumps around numbers sporadically. While a rough time period has been suggested for GPT-5, that could well be delayed further, especially as OpenAI has just lost a lot of its team to Meta AI, along with researchers from Google and DeepMind. OpenAI, across all of its tools, hasn't launched advertisements yet. In the first episode of the podcast, Altman emphasized the company's desire to maintain trust, believing that putting ads into AI outputs could undermine credibility. He goes on to say that other monetization options could be explored down the line, but for now, it looks like OpenAI will remain an advert-free service. ChatGPT recently had a 'sycophancy incident'. This saw the model become overly flattering and agreeable in nature. While, in theory, this sounds like a good thing, it made the model creepier and more unsettling in some conversations. It also had ChatGPT being overly agreeable, even when it shouldn't be. This raised concerns about the use of the tool where pushback is needed. For example, with mental health concerns or serious life decisions being tested with ChatGPT. They also addressed beliefs that ChatGPT has become 'woke' in nature, stressing that neutrality is a measurement challenge, and not an easy one. Mark Chen, Chief Research Officer at OpenAI discussed this on the podcast, explaining that this emerged from reinforcement learning from human feedback, inadvertently creating a bias towards pleasing responses. Chen argued that OpenAI responded quickly, explaining that long-term usability is far more important than a friendlier chatbot. They also addressed beliefs that ChatGPT has become 'woke' in nature, stressing that neutrality is a measurement challenge, and not an easy one. He went on to say that defaults must be centered but flexible enough for users to steer conversations toward their own values. Improved memory features have been one of the most requested features for ChatGPT. Turley predicted that, within two or three years, AI assistants will know users so well that privacy controls and 'off the record' modes will be critical. This feels like an undeniably creepy sentiment. While it will have its uses, with AI chatbots able to remember key details about you, for many, it will feel like a major invasion of privacy. ChatGPT already has a temporary chat. This doesn't appear in your history and won't be added to ChatGPT's memory or be used in training purposes. Other models like Claude and Le Chat have made a point of being more sensitive with your data. Turley went on to observe that many users are already forming relationships with AI. This, he goes on to point out, can be both helpful and harmful. Going forward, the team is wary of this and said it will need careful monitoring. Altman very briefly discussed the launch of OpenAI's new device in collaboration with Jony Ive. This hit a massive wall recently when OpenAI got into a lawsuit with a company claiming they stole their idea. In the podcast, Altman states that 'it will be a while' until the device comes out. He goes on to say that 'computers that we use today weren't designed for a world of AI.' This, he explains, means they've been exploring a new take on that kind of technology, aiming to create something that is more aware of your life and surroundings. Making something like this takes time though, and with everything else going on at OpenAI, it could be a while.
Business Insider
03-07-2025
- Business Insider
The 'late-night decision' that led to ChatGPT's name
ChatGPT almost had a different name. OpenAI changed the chatbot's name in a "late-night decision," ChatGPT head Nick Turley said. The 2022 launch made ChatGPT a viral hit and helped push OpenAI's valuation higher. On the latest episode of the OpenAI podcast, two leadersinvolved with the chatbot's development, research chief Mark Chen and head of ChatGPT Nick Turley, spoke about the days leading up to the launch that made the tool go viral. "It was going to be Chat with GPT-3.5, and we had a late-night decision to simplify" the name, Turley said on the podcast published July 1. The team made the name change the day before the version's late 2022 launch, he said. "We realized that that would be hard to pronounce and came up with a great name instead," Turley said. They settled on ChatGPT, short for "generative pre-trained transformer." Since then, ChatGPT has gained millions of users who turn to the chatbot for everything from routine web searches to guidance on how to give a friend career advice. Rivals, including Meta AI, Google's Gemini, and DeepSeek, have also sprung up. Before ChatGPT's launch, few within OpenAI expected the name to be so consequential, said Andrew Mayne, the podcast host and OpenAI's former science communicator. He said the chatbot's capabilities were largely similar to those of previous versions. The main differences included a more user-friendly interface and, of course, the name. "It's the same thing, but we just put the interface in here and made it so you didn't have to prompt as much," Mayne said on the podcast. After OpenAI launched ChatGPT, though, the chatbot took off, with Reddit users as far away as Japan experimenting with it, Turley said. It soon became clear that ChatGPT's popularity wasn't going to fade quickly and that the tool was "going to change the world," he said. "We've had so many launches, so many previews over time, and this one really was something else," Chen said on the podcast.
Engadget
01-06-2025
- Business
- Engadget
Google plans to appeal the antitrust ruling against its search engine dominance
The complex and consequential antitrust trial against Google and its search engine practices recently heard its closing arguments, and the tech giant is already planning to appeal. In a post made on X, Google confirmed it would file an appeal, explaining that the proposed solutions went too far and "would harm consumers." 'We will wait for the Court's opinion,' Google wrote. 'And we still strongly believe the Court's original decision was wrong, and look forward to our eventual appeal.' To challenge Google's dominance of the search engine market, the Department of Justice took on the tech giant by filing a lawsuit back in 2020. The monumental antitrust case has steadily evolved over the years, with the DOJ proposing remedies like Google opening up its search engine tech to licensing, prohibiting agreements with device makers like Apple and Samsung to ensure Google was the default search engine and forcing the sale of the Chrome browser and the open-source Chromium project. According to Google, the Department of Justice's proposed actions would open consumers up to "very real privacy issues," leave the government in charge of user data and help "well-funded competitors." Instead, Google offered to loosen its agreements to allow other search engines on devices and create an oversight committee to monitor the company's activities. Since then, the federal judge presiding over the case, Amit Mehta of the US District Court for the District of Columbia, ruled in August 2024 that Google had an illegal monopoly of the search engine market. The judge agreed with the DOJ that Google owning the Chrome browser gives it an unfair advantage since it could use its search engine advantage to drive more traffic and generate more revenue for the company. The end result of this antitrust trial could have serious implications for the future of AI, which is closely tied to the search engine market. According to Google, this ruling could allow other companies with AI chatbots to step in and dominate the search engine market instead. During the trial, Nick Turley, an OpenAI executive, testified that the company would be interested in buying Chrome if Google was forced to sell it.
