On the 10th of its “12 Days of OpenAI” media event, the company announced that it has set up an 800 number (1-800-ChatGPT, of course) where anyone in the U.S. with a phone line can dial in and speak with the AI via Advanced Voice Mode. Because why not.
“[The goal of] OpenAI is to make artificial general intelligence beneficial to all of humanity, and part of that is making it as accessible as possible to as many people as we can,” the company’s chief product officer, Kevin Weil, said during the Wednesday live stream. “Today, we’re taking the next step and bringing ChatGPT to your telephone.”
In a live demo, the developer team called up the chatbot to ask about an architectural marvel located along the 280 freeway in Hillsborough, California. The AI, to its credit, accurately identified the structure as the famed “Flintstones House” and answered the team’s follow-up questions about it.
The feature is currently available to U.S. users. You won’t need an OpenAI account to use the phone access, though you will be limited to 15 minutes of chatting. The functionality is nearly identical to using AVM on your mobile device. You can ask the AI for information, have it translate speech, or tell you a joke, among myriad other potential tasks.
OpenAI has been steadily spreading the reach of its chatbot. Originally only available through the ChatGPT website, the AI is now available as a desktop app for both Apple and Windows, as well as on iOS and Android mobile devices. There’s no word yet on when the AI will be made available through Morse code or semaphore.
With the 12 Days event nearly finished, OpenAI has released a litany of new models, products, and features. We’ve seen the release of the o1 reasoning model, the Sora video generator, and Projects for ChatGPT, updates to the Canvas feature, a new $200/month Pro subscription tier, and a host of new tools for developers.
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