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OpenAI confirmed on March 6 that it is delaying the rollout of adult mode in ChatGPT, a feature that would give verified adults access to less-restricted content. The company first announced plans to begin age-gating users last year but has now pushed back the launch twice. Segregating adult users from minors could help in some of OpenAIs legal and revenue challenges, but nailing the technology may not be easy. Adult mode had been expected this quarter and still is, just later than originally planned. OpenAI referred Fast Company to a comment it gave to Alex Heaths Sources newsletter saying it was pausing the feature to focus on improvements to ChatGPT, including gains in intelligence, personality improvements, personalization, and making the experience more proactive. (It also told Axios it needs more time. We still believe in the principle of treating adults like adults, but getting the experience right will take more time, the company said.) OpenAI first hinted at the feature last October in an X post from CEO Sam Altman responding to questions about ChatGPTs safety for underage users. As we roll out age-gating more fully and as part of our treat adult users like adults principle, we will allow even more, like erotica for verified adults, Altman wrote. Adult mode depends on OpenAIs new age-prediction and verification system, a homegrown AI model that estimates a users age based on prompts and media generated with tools like Sora. OpenAI said in January it had begun rolling out the technology globally within ChatGPT. When the system detects a user may be underage, it restricts things like violent content and romantic role-play. The company also uses a third-party verification platform called Persona, which allows users to confirm their age if the AI system places them in the wrong category. But accurate age prediction and verification isnt easy, and using it to age-gate chatbot users is a relatively new idea. How, for instance, can an AI model distinguish between a 16-year-old in high school and a 19-year-old in college when the two talk to ChatGPT about similar things? “You can imagine . . . if you input anything that looks like a homework question, ChatGPT flags you as a minor, and then you’re automatically in the minor bucket, says Alissa Cooper, executive director of the Knight-Georgetown Institute, a tech policy group. That would pretty seriously constrain the service for college students or people who might just happen to have asked a question that looks like a homework question.” Naturally, some younger users will try to trick the age-prediction model into thinking theyre adults. There’s not really a way to prevent circumvention regardless of the architecture or the system design, Cooper says. So there’s this balance between locking things down to try to prevent circumvention, and allowing a full-featured experience for users who are age appropriate for whatever that experience is meant to be. One of Coopers main concerns is that the world outside OpenAI wont know how well the system is performing. And, so far at least, OpenAI isnt sharing much information about its system. I think it’s correct to be skeptical, Cooper says, adding that she believes companies should provide enough transparency about how their age-verification systems are tested so that independent experts can evaluate whether they actually work and examine the data used to estimate the ages of potentially hundreds of millions of users. OpenAI was put on notice last year when it was twice sued by people claiming that earlier versions of ChatGPT had led an adolescent loved one toward suicide. This set the stage for the company first applying more guardrails to its models for all users, then attempting to cordon off a safe experience for younger users. With younger users safely segregated, OpenAI could loosen or remove some content restrictions for adult users, the thinking goes. That adult mode could become a real selling point, and right now ChatGPT could use one. ChatGPT, which has 800 million weekly active users, once faced little real competition among AI chatbots. ChatGPT still has the most users, but competition has heated up with Googles improvement of its Gemini chatbot, and with Anthropics Claude gaining more mainstream name recognition. Not only is OpenAI under pressure to fend off those rivals, but its also under pressure to increase revenue from the chatbot to help offset the massive expenditures it plans to make in new data centers over the next five years. Signing up millions of new adult users to that experience would not only increase OpenAIs subscription revenues, but it could mean millions more highly engaged eyeballs to look at advertisements (the company said in January itll soon start showing ads to some of its U.S. users). So I think it’s segmentation of the user base in multiple directions, says Cooper. Its keeping minors away from experiences that nobody wants them to have, but also being able to offer adults experiences that are truly adult-oriented that some adults want to have.
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AI disruption and geopolitical upheaval are forcing business leaders to make high-stakes decisionsfast. Accenture CEO Julie Sweet shares what she’s hearing from her 9,000 clients, and the hard-won advice she’s giving them. Sweet reveals why AI proficiency is now a requirement for promotion at Accenture, why she’s doubling down on entry-level hiring amid the automation wave, and she unpacks the hidden power of “leader-led learning. This is an abridged transcript of an interview from Rapid Response, hosted by the former Fast Company editor-in-chief Robert Safian. From the team behind the Masters of Scale podcast, Rapid Response features candid conversations with todays top business leaders navigating real-time challenges. Subscribe to Rapid Response wherever you get your podcasts to ensure you never miss an episode. Accenture works across 120 countries, 9,000 clientsyou’re in every industry. You have this unique visibility into how organizations and leaders are navigating what is really a chaotic, fast-moving environment. Are there questions that you’re hearing particularly often right now? Well, Bob, it’s interesting if I just start with Iran, because I’m getting a lot of questions, particularly in Europe, where if you think about a potential energy crunch, it’s expected to hit harder in Europe than, say, the impact on the U.S. Everyone believes that this environment, where energy is a risk, is just their new norm. And actually, there’s more optimism because if you compare this to 2022, when the war in Ukraine started, Europe is in a much better position from a resilience perspective. And it’s a theme that we’ve been seeing for quite some time. I got the same questions even a couple of months ago when we had this whole issue around tariffs and imposing them, which is that CEOs are really just expecting the unexpected. It’s being built in, and that’s why resilience is such a big theme. There are also big questions continuing on AI, et cetera, but I wanted to address the latest, which is the impact of the Iran war. When I talk to CEOs right now, there’s this sense that some of them seem almost frozen. They’re waiting for clarity. And I know you’ve encouraged the opposite: Don’t take cover; take chances. How do you know when to act and when to wait? The reality is, as a CEO you can’t bake anything into your plan, simply because so much is unknown. And that’s where transparency really matters, being able to say, “Here’s what we know. Here’s what we don’t know.” And then we’re making our action plan with those things in mind. So when you think about when you know to act or not act, in my view you’re always acting. It’s intentional decisions. It’s an action to say, “Because I don’t know this, I can’t alter my plans.” One of the biggest risks right now is even less about the impact on the economy from what’s going on in the Strait of Hormuz and energy. The bigger risk that many companies are talking about is, do we have a cyberattack or an attack on critical infrastructure that spins out of that? And for that, there are actions you can take, because we’re helping clients look at their cyber resilience. This has already been a big growth area for us because AI itself has increased the attack surface. When you think about what the risks are, you can’t really tell what’s going to happen on the energy front. But knowing what you do know, what you don’t know, and whether there are actions that can be takenand then actingmatters. Alongside all this geopolitical activity, there are also the technological shifts that we’re experiencing. You made a bold move last year where you merged a bunch of divisions into a single unit that you call Reinvention Services around AI. You’re coming off your biggest-ever quarter of revenue growth in new business. We see businesses that are not tech businesses that may not be getting the return on investment from their AI that they had expected or hoped for. Does it work in some places and not others? Are there industries and functions that are more fit for AI than others? Or is it more about culture and commitment? Well, in some ways it’s going to be all of the above. So first of all, we have to remember the technology, while changing fast, is still really early. And there’s a lot of actual value that companies can get before advanced AI. So let me give you an example. We work with a pharma company that takes drugs to market, and there’s a process that, once the drug is approved, involves lots and lots of regulatory work. So what you write to explain it to the physician takes a long time. We’ve said . . . that you could actually shorten that. Instead of it being months, it could be much faster if you changed the process to be standardized, if you kept your data in one place. None of that requires generative AI or advanced AI, but for most companies, they haven’t done that. So when we worked with [this company], advanced AI was the catalyst because it enables you, if you have all the standardized processes, to actually create the content faster. But the first piece always could have been done and hadn’t been done. And so much of the work that we’re doing is actually work where companies are saying, “Okay, wait a minute. Before I spend the money on advanced AI, I should clean up my fragmented processes. I should standardize things. I should not have as many people in middle managementcompletely apart from agentsbecause why would I spend money to create an agent to replace a manager that I shouldn’t have in the first place?” Is part of the hope that the motivation for not having done this is, “Oh, the agent or AI will come in and do this for me. I can skip a layer, save money.” And that’s the silver bullet. And if I’m hearing you right, you’re like, “Yeah, maybe not.” Yeah. I think there was this view at the beginning where companies thought, because it’s so easy, are they just going to do it all? Do I just ask this model, and this model is going to tell me how to change my company? One hundred percent, that is not it. The models don’t know how to change a company. And if you spend money on your current structure just replacing parts of it, you’re at best going to get incremental value. The real value is to actually reinvent everything you do. And that reinvention doesn’t start just with advanced AI, but with a lot of really basic lessons where companies haven’t had the will to fix things. I tell CEOs every day: In three years, you should be able to [answer], What did I use AI to make possible that was impossible before? Because if the only thing you’re doing is incrementally improving how you’re operating, you’re not going to get the biggest value. The biggest value is in the core operations of a companythings you’re going to be able to do with asset manageent in any industrial company, things you’re going to be able to do with the grid in utilities. The tech isn’t completely there yet. It’s still error-prone. That’s why everybody’s tracking things like how long the tech works and the memory piece of it. So where you get value today is anything with customers, because those are short interactions. The tech has to continue to improve, and the strategy has to be, “I’m going to use this tech to do something I couldn’t do before.” There’s this phrase, “AI-first.” You’ve described Accenture as an AI-first company. It’s something a lot of other players aspire to but struggle to implement. Is it hard to be AI-first? What does it mean? First of all, it is hard. And the reason it’s hard is that it requires your leaders to understand what AI does. And this is so different from the digital era. Moving to the cloud and stuff, a lot of it was plumbing. So as a leader, you didn’t have to understand it because it was being handled by the tech folks. To be AI-first, you have to say, What can AI actually do? So you have to understand things like, wait a minute, it has to have a certain amount of memory to be able to do something. You have to understand what it’s actually able to be accurate about. And then think about your business to say, “Where can I get a big enough return for using something at this cost?” It starts with leaders having to understand technology in a totally different way. When ChatGPT first emerged in November 2022, the people who received the most training initially were my top 50 leaders, because I knew that if they didn’t understand the power, they would not be able to help us transform how we’re delivering our services and what our clients could use it for. So leader-led learning is a huge unlock. And then AI-first is asking yourself, Is this something that AI could do?
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In todays world, the villain in our story isnt a person; its our desire for instant gratification. Explosive sales growth? We want it now. An dream angel investor? We want it now. A raise, a promotion, a spot at the top? We want it now. Can you blame us? If we can binge-watch an entire season of a new show on Netflix in a weekend and order restaurant-ready food to our door in less than thirty minutes, that can set us up for unrealistic expectations about getting other things quickly, including in the workplace. The need for speed leaves us rushing and impatientand it shows in the way we speak, too. Our conversations become transactional, our questions become shallow, and our communication prevents us from building trusted relationships with those around us. If you’re nodding your head, I invite you to consider three conversation-killers to avoid. 1. Conversation domination Two words: talk time. If the amount of time youre talking is more than the person youre communicating with, youre dominatingand it can be detrimental. If youre using the precious commodity of time to push your agenda, solution, or unsolicited viewpoint on somebody without solicitation, youre talking at them, not with them. Often, we dont even know were doing it. Plus, when we’re housing nervous energy, we can unknowingly engage in conversation domination as a way to soothe our internal discomfort. The solution? Create a personal practice to ground yourself before every high-stakes conversation so you can experience more clarity, calm and presence. For example, if youre in a season of feeling time-poor, try the physiological sigh. A technique that was discovered in the 1930s to help us rapidly regain control from feelings of stress or anxiety, simply take two deep inhales through your nose and one long exhale through your mouth with pursed lips. Almost instantly, youll experience less tension and a sense of presence. Repeat it a few times if needed. This will help you catch yourself in the act or prevent conversation domination altogether. 2. Trying to be interesting instead of interested Dale Carnegie once said something along the lines of, To be interesting, be interested. Heres how I see it: in any given conversation, your job isnt to make yourself look significant; its to make the person opposite you feel significant. But how do you do it without feeling contrived? Consider conscious questions, which as I define it, are questions that are grounded in positive intentionality. For example, you could walk past your colleague and say, Hey Mark, how are you? Or you could say, Hey Mark, you mentioned the other day that you were stressed because you had to take care of your sick son while preparing for that big keynote. Hows he doing? How was the speech? Do you see the difference? The former lacks depth. The latter is a meaningful question that exhibits intention. Do this right, and youll show others how youre interested in what theyre emotionally invested in. 3. Being attached to an outcome Whether youre in a job interview, a sales call, or a meeting with leadership, the stakes can be high. But if you enter any of these conversations attached to a specific result, youre likely to act inauthentically. Your body language, tone, rate of speech, energy, and more will unconsciously map to your need for an outcome (and often rushing to a specific timeline). That can undermine your communication. Say youve set a professional goal of landing a promotion within the next twelve months. Fast-forward eleven months, and there you are, sitting in a meeting with leadership, discussing a potential promotion. Instead of asking intentional questions, deeply listening, and being truly present, the timeline in your mind has you feeling pressured, impatient and or reactiveand others can tell. You sabotage your own success. Heres an alternate approach: Ask yourself, If I were overflowing with abundance in every area of my life, how would I behave in this moment? Once you remove your attachment to an outcome, you create an openness to receiving what is truly meant for you, even if its not in the time or path you desire. What this means for leaders If an organization wants to build a high-trust culture, increase employee engagement, and create a sense of belonging for their people, it begins with leadership learning how to have conscious conversations. The key lies in embodying the behavior you want others to exhibit. Psychologist Albert Banduras social learning theory (SLT) suggests that people learn new behaviors by observing and imitating others. Simply put: when we observe the consequences of other peoples behavior, were more likely to imitate the actions that are positively rewarded and avoid those that are punished. In turn, this leads to an acquisition of knowledge, attitudes, and beliefs. If leadership embodies conscious, non-transactional communication, and rewards others for following suit, this will create change at scale, and a high-trust culture will diffuse as if through osmosis. The byproduct? Long-term success thats built on the right foundation. In a remote-first world, we can solve problems, build teams, and maintain relationships from behind a screen. But thanks to those very screens, human connection and communication matter more than ever. The leaders who will stand out are those who prioritize them. Adapted from Relationship Currency by Ravi Rajani. All rights reserved.
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