It’s not just you, ChatGPT is slacking for everyone
we’ve heard all your feedback about GPT4 getting lazier! we haven’t updated the model since Nov 11th, and this certainly isn’t intentional. model behavior can be unpredictable, and we’re looking into fixing it 🫡
— ChatGPT (@ChatGPTapp) December 8, 2023
November hasn’t been a stellar month for OpenAI’s claim to fame; ChatGPT. Not only did the company suffer through the firing and subsequent rehiring of its CEO, Sam Altman, but its moneymaker has been on a downward spiral of late. Throughout the last few weeks, users have begun reporting that ChatGPT and its GPT relations haven’t been performing to the standards we’ve come to expect. You’re not crazy. Over the weekend, OpenAI sort of acknowledged the slip-up (only addressing “user feedback”) before confirming it was looking into a fix.
If it’s correct, we’ve got the company’s lack of updates — last receiving one on 11 November — to blame for “GPT4 getting lazier.” It also mentioned that the impacted performance wasn’t “intentional”, but didn’t give any excuses for the long wait between updates. It might have something to do with that week-long period where its employees weren’t sure if their company was going to exist for much longer. But hey, we’re just guessing, here.
In response to a user asking how an artificial intelligence such as ChatGPT could get lazier, OpenAI clarified a few things:
“to be clear, the idea is not that the model has somehow changed itself since Nov 11th. it’s just that differences in model behavior can be subtle — only a subset of prompts may be degraded, and it may take a long time for customers and employees to notice and fix these patterns.”
There’s no word yet on when ChatGPT might be restored to its former glory. If you just can’t live without ChatGPT — a worrying concern for anyone who’s seen Her — some users have noted how they managed to ‘fix’ the model ahead of an official update. Who’d have guessed that telling an AI model to “take a deep breath and analyze step-by-step” would be a real solution?
Google Playground travels through 25 years of Search trends
Google likes to round off each year with a quick recap of the most searched trends across 2023. There are usually separate categories like films, series, and games. You know, that sort of thing. It’s repeated the trend for 2023 but, believe it or not, we don’t actually care whether Jeremy Renner was the most searched-for actor throughout the year (but seriously, how did that happen?). This year, is special, though. It’s been 25 years since Search launched, and Google is turning those trends into a Where’s Wally-like game to celebrate.
It’s known as Google Playground, and it’s a smorgasbord of colour and wacky personalities spread across a massive theme park. Google tasks players with picking out things like ‘the most searched artist’ or ‘the most searched emoji’ in five different categories: Music, Arts and Science, Games, Culture, and Travel. Tapping an illustration you’ve yet to find will give you a hint as to what it is, and where you might find it.
It’s all just a bit of fun designed to help you while away a couple of minutes (or more) while you’re at work. We won’t tell if you don’t.
Netflix lines up yet another odd live sporting event
Last month, Netflix officially got into live sports streaming. Kind of. Rather than capitalize on real sports like F1 or something similar, it decided to skip the work and do its own thing. It was known as the Netflix Cup, and it involved a mix of players from Drive to Survive and PGA Tour competing in a round of golf. We’re guessing things went well enough (or at the very least didn’t crash) last time because it’s doing it again.
This time, it’s keeping things more… normal. It’ll known as The Netflix Slam and will pit Rafael Nadal against Carlos Alcaraz in a”one-night tennis exhibition match.” It’ll be live-streamed on Netflix directly on 3 March 2024 (at 22:00 for South Africans) from the Michelob Ultra Arena at Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino in Las Vegas. While the Nadal/Alcaraz match-up is the headliner for the event, Netflix notes that “additional players and matchups will be announced at a later date.”
There’s a Hideo Kojima documentary on the way
Love him or hate him, Hideo Kojima is about as prolific as one gets. From his work on the exquisite Metal Gear Solid franchise to an exquisite Twitter profile, there’s hardly anything this man can’t do (besides work at Konami). He’s an iconic video game designer who excels in his field — and will soon be getting his very own documentary — courtesy of Disney+.
It’s also got one of the cooler titles for a documentary we’ve seen; Hideo Kojima: Connecting Worlds. The film made its debut at the Tribeca Film Festival earlier this year, but it’s Disney that’ll be premiering the thing on its streaming platform sometime during Spring 2024 (that’s South Africa’s Autumn, folks).
It follows Kojima throughout the production of Death Stranding and gives fans a glimpse behind the curtain at the process that goes into developing a game like that. Whether it’s worth watching… appears to hinge entirely on whether you’re a fan of the walking simulator. That’s what Escapist had to say, at least.
