Technologies

AI Gets Smarter, Safer, More Visual With GPT-4 Release, OpenAI Says

ChatGPT Plus subscribers can try it out now.

The hottest AI technology foundation, OpenAI’s GPT, got a big upgrade Tuesday that’s now available in the premium version of the ChatGPT chatbot.

The new GPT-4 can generate much longer strings of text and respond when people feed it images, and it’s designed to do a better job avoiding artificial intelligence pitfalls visible in the earlier GPT-3.5, OpenAI said Tuesday. For example, when taking bar exams that attorneys must pass to practice law, GPT-4 ranks in the top 10% of scores compared to the bottom 10% for GPT-3.5, the AI research company said.

GPT stands for Generative Pretrained Transformer, a reference to the fact that it can generate text on its own and that it uses an AI technology called transformers that Google pioneered. It’s a type of AI called a large language model, or LLM, that’s trained on vast swaths of data harvested from the internet, learning mathematically to spot patterns and reproduce styles.

OpenAI has made its GPT technology available to developers for years, but ChatGPT, which debuted in November, offered an easy interface that yielded an explosion of interest, experimentation and worry about the downsides of the technology. ChatGPT is free, but it falter when demand is high. In January, OpenAI began offering ChatGPT Plus for $20 per month with assured availability and, now, the GPT-4 foundation.

GPT-4 advancements

«In a casual conversation, the distinction between GPT-3.5 and GPT-4 can be subtle. The difference comes out when the complexity of the task reaches a sufficient threshold,» OpenAI said. «GPT-4 is more reliable, creative and able to handle much more nuanced instructions than GPT-3.5.»

Another major advance in GPT-4 is the ability to accept input data that includes text and photos. OpenAI’s example is asking the chatbot to explain a joke showing a bulky decades-old computer cable plugged into a modern iPhone’s tiny Lightning port.

Another is better performance avoiding AI problems like hallucinations — incorrectly fabricated responses, often offered with just as much seeming authority as answers the AI gets right. GPT-4 also is better at thwarting attempts to get it to say the wrong thing: «GPT-4 scores 40% higher than our latest GPT-3.5 on our internal adversarial factuality evaluations,» OpenAI said.

GPT-4 also adds new «steerability» options. Users of large language models today often must engage in elaborate «prompt engineering,» learning how to embed specific cues in their prompts to get the right sort of responses. GPT-4 adds a system command option that lets users set a specific tone or style, for example programming code or a Socratic tutor: «You are a tutor that always responds in the Socratic style. You never give the student the answer, but always try to ask just the right question to help them learn to think for themselves.»

«Stochastic parrots» and other problems

OpenAI acknowledges significant shortcomings that persist with GPT-4, though it also touts progress avoiding them.

«It can sometimes make simple reasoning errors … or be overly gullible in accepting obvious false statements from a user. And sometimes it can fail at hard problems the same way humans do, such as introducing security vulnerabilities into code it produces,» OpenAI said. In addition, «GPT-4 can also be confidently wrong in its predictions, not taking care to double-check work when it’s likely to make a mistake.»

Large language models can deliver impressive results, seeming to understand huge amounts of subject matter and to converse in human-sounding if somewhat stilted language. Fundamentally, though, LLM AIs don’t really know anything. They’re just able to string words together in statistically very refined ways.

This statistical but fundamentally somewhat hollow approach to knowledge led researchers, including former Google AI researchers Emily Bender and Timnit Gebru, to warn of the «dangers of stochastic parrots» that come with large language models. Language model AIs tend to encode biases, stereotypes and negative sentiment present in training data, and researchers and other people using these models tend «to mistake … performance gains for actual natural language understanding.»

OpenAI, Microsoft and Nvidia partnership

OpenAI got a big boost when Microsoft said in February it’s using GPT technology in its Bing search engine, including a chat features similar to ChatGPT. On Tuesday, Microsoft said it’s using GPT-4 for the Bing work. Together, OpenAI and Microsoft pose a major search threat to Google, but Google has its own large language model technology too, including a chatbot called Bard that Google is testing privately.

Microsoft uses GPT technology both to evaluate the searches people type into Bing and, in some cases, to offer more elaborate, conversational responses. The results can be much more informative than those of earlier search engines, but the more conversational interface that can be invoked as an option has had problems that make it look unhinged.

To train GPT, OpenAI used Microsoft’s Azure cloud computing service, including thousands of Nvidia’s A100 graphics processing units, or GPUs, yoked together. Azure now can use Nvidia’s new H100 processors, which include specific circuitry to accelerate AI transformer calculations.

Technologies

Today’s NYT Strands Hints, Answers and Help for Jan. 5 #673

Here are hints and answers for the NYT Strands puzzle for Jan. 5, No. 673.

Looking for the most recent Strands answer? Click here for our daily Strands hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle, Connections and Connections: Sports Edition puzzles.

Today’s NYT Strands puzzle could be a challenge. Some of the answers are difficult to unscramble, so if you need hints and answers, read on.

I go into depth about the rules for Strands in this story.

If you’re looking for today’s Wordle, Connections and Mini Crossword answers, you can visit CNET’s NYT puzzle hints page.

Read more: NYT Connections Turns 1: These Are the 5 Toughest Puzzles So Far

Hint for today’s Strands puzzle

Today’s Strands theme is: Slapped together

If that doesn’t help you, here’s a clue: When you don’t take your time.

Clue words to unlock in-game hints

Your goal is to find hidden words that fit the puzzle’s theme. If you’re stuck, find any words you can. Every time you find three words of four letters or more, Strands will reveal one of the theme words. These are the words I used to get those hints but any words of four or more letters that you find will work:

SKIT, SWIPE, SWIPES, DIPS, SIPS, DIRT, GRAND, SPEED, QUICK

Answers for today’s Strands puzzle

These are the answers that tie into the theme. The goal of the puzzle is to find them all, including the spangram, a theme word that reaches from one side of the puzzle to the other. When you have all of them (I originally thought there were always eight but learned that the number can vary), every letter on the board will be used. Here are the nonspangram answers:

BRISK, SWIFT, SPEEDY, FILTHY, GRUBBY, STAINED

Today’s Strands spangram

Today’s Strands spangram is QUICKANDDIRTY. To find it, start with the Q that’s three letters down on the farthest right row, and wind backwards and down.

Don’t miss any of our unbiased tech content and lab-based reviews. Add CNET as a preferred Google source.

Technologies

Today’s NYT Connections Hints, Answers and Help for Jan. 5, #939

Here are some hints and the answers for the NYT Connections puzzle for Jan. 5 #939.

Looking for the most recent Connections answers? Click here for today’s Connections hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands puzzles.

Today’s NYT Connections puzzle has a tough purple category, to no one’s surprise. Read on for clues and today’s Connections answers.

The Times has a Connections Bot, like the one for Wordle. Go there after you play to receive a numeric score and to have the program analyze your answers. Players who are registered with the Times Games section can now nerd out by following their progress, including the number of puzzles completed, win rate, number of times they nabbed a perfect score and their win streak.

Read more: Hints, Tips and Strategies to Help You Win at NYT Connections Every Time

Hints for today’s Connections groups

Here are four hints for the groupings in today’s Connections puzzle, ranked from the easiest yellow group to the tough (and sometimes bizarre) purple group.

Yellow group hint: Facebook tasks.

Green group hint: Way far away.

Blue group hint: Think museum displays.

Purple group hint: Letter near the end of the alphabet.

Answers for today’s Connections groups

Yellow group: Things you can do on social media.

Green group: Furthest point.

Blue group: Art movements, with «ism.»

Purple group: What «V» might mean.

Read more: Wordle Cheat Sheet: Here Are the Most Popular Letters Used in English Words

What are today’s Connections answers?

The yellow words in today’s Connections

The theme is things you can do on social media. The four answers are comment, like, lurk and post.

The green words in today’s Connections

The theme is furthest point. The four answers are end, extreme, opposite and pole.

The blue words in today’s Connections

The theme is art movements, with «ism.» The four answers are brutal, impression, manner and real.

The purple words in today’s Connections

The theme is what «V» might mean. The four answers are five, versus, very and volt.

Don’t miss any of our unbiased tech content and lab-based reviews. Add CNET as a preferred Google source.

Technologies

My CES 2026 Secret Weapon? This New Wearable AI Note-Taking Pin From Plaud

During a week of information overload, I’m outsourcing my memory to the Plaud NotePin S.

CES is always one of the most hectic weeks of the year for CNET journalists — myself included. I’ll be jumping between booths, often speaking to multiple different companies within the span of an hour, having interesting and intense conversations about different products as I go.

Sometimes these conversations begin before I’ve even had a chance to pull my recorder from my bag, never mind switch it on. Often I end up scribbling down extra details or quotes in my notepad — a fun challenge for my memory and eyes when the time comes to sit down and write and I’m forced to decipher my own handwriting.

Not this year, though. At CES 2026, AI note-taking company Plaud is launching its new NotePin S, an AI wearable that can clip to your collar, strap onto your wrist, hang around your neck or cling to your shirt with a magnet and record your conversations as you go about your day.

Plaud sent me this updated version of the NotePin ahead of CES, so I’ll be able to test it out as I wander the show floors. Just as with the previous version of the pin and the Plaud Note Pro, which the company announced back in August, the NotePin S connects to your phone via Bluetooth, and transcriptions of your conversations will appear in the Plaud app.

I already expect the NotePin S, which is a sleek pill-shaped device that’s smaller than a USB stick, to be a game changer for me as I roam the halls of CES. In a briefing ahead of the show, Plaud said that the pin had been successfully tested out at the Dreamforce conference earlier this year, so I know the dual microphones, which have a range of around 9.8 feet, are capable of working well in a noisy convention center.

To activate the recording, all I’ll need to do is long press on the front of the pin. But the feature I’m most looking forward to testing out is the press to highlight button on the pin, which will allow me to mark key moments in conversations so they’ll be easy to find when I come to look through my transcriptions later.

I’m also glad that, thanks to the range of the wearable accessories bundled with the NotePin S, the device will work with a variety of different outfits. In such a busy environment, I might be tempted to use the lanyard to carry it around my neck, but on the days I’m wearing a jacket, the lapel clip might be more suitable. For sit-down interviews, I’m tempted to switch to wristband so that I can press to highlight with the least amount of intrusion into the conversation.

For when I’m back home, conducting interviews from the comfort of my office, Plaud has another new toy for me to play with. At CES the company also announced Plaud Desktop — an AI notetaker designed to bridge in-person and online meetings by capturing your conversations natively.

This means no intrusive meeting bots joining your call. (If you know, you know.) Instead, it will sit on your computer and detect when a meeting is taking place, record that meeting discreetly and then provide a context-rich summary within your Plaud account.

The most appealing part of this for me is the idea that all of my notes, meetings and conversations — whether captured by my wearable or my computer — will be accessible and organized in one place.

Both the NotePin S and Plaud Desktop will be available immediately, with the pin costing $179 (£159).