What Is GPT-3 and Should We Be Terrified?

Breakdown-7.20
20 July 2020

The internet is alive with demos of GPT-3, the latest artificial intelligence tool to have you questioning the veracity of what you see online. Should we be nervous?

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This episode is sponsored by Bitstamp and Crypto.com.

Today on the Brief:

  • Mastercard, Standard Chartered and PayPal all deepen their engagement with crypto
  • Japan inches closer to a central bank digital currency
  • The real estate “doom trade” opens up

Our main discussion: GPT-3

Generative pertained transformer-3 – or GPT-3 as it’s better known – absolutely took over the internet this weekend. 

It’s a new AI language model that can do some truly incredible things, from writing poetry to composing business memos to generating functioning code from natural language descriptions.

In this episode of the Breakdown, NLW provides a 101-level overview of GPT-3, including:

  • What an AI language model is
  • Why AI for language is more difficult than image-based AI
  • The background of OpenAI, the Elon Musk-backed project behind GPT-3
  • Some examples of what GPT-3 can do
  • Why reasoning and narrative still elude the technology

See also: A Primer on the US and China’s ‘New Cold War’

Reference posts:

GPT-3 Examples, a Twitter Thread

Jonathan Johnson on AI Language Models

Rob Teows: GPT-3 Is Amazing – And Overhyped

For more episodes and free early access before our regular 3 p.m. Eastern time releases, subscribe with Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pocketcasts, Google Podcasts, Castbox, Stitcher, RadioPublica, iHeartRadio or RSS.