Head of ChatGPT says not doing ad tests, despite a Target notice this week

These were not ads, OpenAI says, and anyway, they have been shut off.
Many users were confronted with this graphic at the end of ChatGPT’s responses this week. OpenAI says they are now stopped, and that they weren’t ads. (Picture: screenshot)
People have been complaining about ads being sneakily inserted in their ChatGPT responses late this week, with a «Shop for home…» Target link showing up in their responses.

This comes hot on the heels of an engineer discovering ad code in the Android app — which left a lot of people cautious of such inserts.

It happened to enough people to notice, along with this writer, but it has since been turned off, says Mark Chen, Chief Research Officer at OpenAI:

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OpenAI loses privacy fight for ChatGPT message logs in NYT lawsuit

OpenAI is on the verge of losing its fight to keep their users' chat logs private, instead of turning them over to the NYT.
Your logs belongs belong to us, the NYT lawyers say, and the court agrees. (Picture: Adobe)
OpenAI has been fighting tooth and nail to preserve the privacy of their users’ messages in the lawsuit brought by The New York Times in 2023.

A new judgement could now mean they have to turn over more than 20 million chat logs, and many more messages, from the chatbot, reports Reuters.

The logs themselves should be anonymized by OpenAI in a way that pleases the court, but their content could be easy to pin down, and OpenAI has promised to appeal to the presiding Judge.

This is merely the discovery phase of the ongoing trial, where lawyers for the NYT have said the messages are necessary to discover whether ChatGPT did indeed copy verbatim text from them.

OpenAI must now first anonymize the logs, and then submit them to the court, and NYT’s attorneys, seven days later.

Read more: Reuters has the scoop.

Altman declares «Code Red» at OpenAI, plans Gemini 3-beating model

OpenAI has put ads on hold until it can release a Gemini 3-beating model.
All other initiatives are on hold as OpenAI prepares its next model. (Picture: generated)
Competition is heating up in the AI chatbot market, as highlighted in the last weeks, with new, capable models from Google, Anthropic, and a new Codex Max from OpenAI.

This has now caused Altman to delay other initiatives, such as ads, to focus on making a better ChatGPT, paywalled The Information writes, citing an internal memo.

They are apparently planning to release a new reasoning model next week that will be «ahead of Gemini 3.» But this needs a little more polishing on the «experience.»

Just last week, a developer revealed ad code in the latest ChatGPT beta — meaning that their work on ads was fairly advanced and almost ready to ship.

This work is now on the back burner, at least until next week, when OpenAI hopes to reclaim their crown.

Read more: The Information (paywalled), and Reuters. Discussion on r/Singularity.

Three years since the debut of ChatGPT 3 — the first AI chatbot

Little did OpenAI know of how the AI age was about to ignite with their research bot.
ChatGPT was launched on an unsuspecting world some three years ago today, and promtly exploded in users. (Picture: Generated)
If you’re in the USA, today marks the third birthday of the first ChatGPT bot from OpenAI, on November 30, 2022.

It was launched «expecting a small research audience,» OpenAI’s Nick Turley says on x.com, but «within hours, the usage was far beyond anything we’d prepared for.»

Launch page is still live
On the preserved introduction page at OpenAI, it says «we are presenting ChatGPT, and look forward to feedback from users to learn more about the strengths and weaknesses of the model.»

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Developer finds ad references in latest ChatGPT beta

ChatGPT with ads? They could actually pay for more features while offering a revenue stream for OpenAI.
These little lines of code could be a harbinger of ads on the ChatGPT app. (Picture: Tibor Blaho)
This seems unconfirmed by anyone else, but strongly suggests that OpenAI is working on an ads product for their chatbot.

Tibor Blaho discovered the changes in the beta app for Android while doing routine versioning work for his job at AIPRM.com, which integrates tightly with ChatGPT.

He also likes to «share what is coming next with people who care about ChatGPT and Claude news.»

The new code indicates an ads «bazaar,» and a «SearchAd» with a «SearchAdsCarousel.»

Presumably, ads would begin rolling out on the free version of ChatGPT, where it could pay for offering more features. Or there could be affiliate marketing in the shopping links they just announced.

Google is already rolling out ads on their AI products, and Copilot and Perplexity have started using ads on shopping and follow-up-questions, notes Blaho.

Read more: Tibor Blaho’s x.com post, Bleeping Computer, discussion on r/Singularity.

OpenAI can’t use the word «Cameo» inside and outside of Sora

OpenAI is now barred from using the "Cameo" word, which is a major feature in the Sora 2 generator
Sora 2 is barred from making use to the term until December 22, when a new hearing will be held. (Picture: generated)
Sora’s launch wasn’t just about the ability to make realistic short-form videos, but heavily featured the «Cameo» ability.

This lets you create custom characters of friends or yourself and re-use your «Cameo» in different settings.

Not so fast, said the makers of the real «Cameo,» which sells custom-made celebrity videos or greetings. This is their whole business model, and they promptly sued to get their name back.

Now, U.S. District Judge Eumi K. Lee has granted a temporary restraining order on the use of the word by OpenAI — inside the app and elsewhere — until a hearing can be held on whether or not the ban should be made permanent on December 22.

Read more: scoop by CNBC, writeups by Engadget and Gizmodo

Jony Ive and Altman detail new device as something «to take a bite of»

OpenAIs hardware device is in prototype and is less than two years out, Altman says
Delectable, delickable, Ive is making the ultimate consumer device for OpenAI. (Picture: OpenAI, screenshot).
Ive and Altman teamed up to build a ChatGPT consumer device some six months ago and seem to have settled on a prototype.

They are looking to make a device that’s «simple and playful,» The Verge reports, and it is rumored to be screen-free and about the size of a smartphone, they say.

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OpenAI introduces GPT-5.1-Codex-Max, defeating Gemini 3 on some benches

Codex-Max reaches parity with Gemini 3, just a day after launch. (Picture: Screenshot, OpenAI)
OpenAI’s new coding model outperforms «state of the art» Gemini 3 from just yesterday, in some select benchmarks — and seems to be on par at SWE-Bench Verified.

— GPT‑5.1-Codex-Max is faster, more intelligent, and more token-efficient at every stage of the development cycle–and a new step towards becoming a reliable coding partner, says OpenAI in their launch post.

It has been observed by the AI lab to work independently on tasks for more than 24 hours, iterating on its implementations and delivering a «successful result.»

Codex-Max is also the first OpenAI model trained in a Windows environment, and will achieve better performance than the previous GPT-5.1-Codex using 30% fewer tokens — meaning it’s cheaper and more efficient.

Read more: The launch post, VentureBeat. Discussion on r/Singularity.

OpenAI launches GPT-5.1 in Instant and Thinking modes

OpenAI is launching "warmer and more emphatic" GPT-5.1.
OpenAI have stopped posting benchmarks for their new models, but they should do better in AIME 2025 and Codeforces. (Picture: OpenAI)
Available for paid tiers today, GPT-5.1 Instant will become the new default model in ChatGPT.

OpenAI are uncharacteristically not posting any benchmarks on their launch page, simply describing both models as «more capable and useful,» and «more intelligent.»

Both models are also supposed to be «warmer and more emphatic.»

People want friendly bots
— We heard clearly from users that great AI should not only be smart, but also enjoyable to talk to, OpenAI writes.

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OpenAI poaches Intel’s AI chief

Sachin Katti is leaving Intel for openai.
Sachin Katti is a big win for OpenAI’s infrastructure buildout. (Picture: x.com)
Sachin Katti, the Chief Technology and AI Officer of Intel, is joining OpenAI to oversee their infrastructure expansion, according to Reuters and others.

The departure seems amicable, with Intel thanking him for his contributions and wishing him good luck ahead — while noting that their AI efforts will now be led by CEO Lip-Bu Tan.

Intel have struggled with developing proper AI infrastructure products to rival the likes of Nvidia, and while they do produce chips for Copilot PCs, they are not making inroads in data centers.

The main focus for Katti at OpenAI will be «designing and building our compute infrastructure» to power their AGI research, writes Greg Brockman on x.com.

Read more: Twitter announcement, Reuters, Communications Today

OpenAI estimated to lose daily $15 million on Sora videos

Video is more expensive than text, and OpenAI is currently bleeding money on free Sora 2 generations.
Sora 2 generations are bleeding money for OpenAI, and they say they will reduce the number of free «gens.» (Picture: generated)
There are no official figures on just how much the free Sora service costs, but Forbes has done the math.

It works out by putting a price of $1.30 per video from GPU costs, multiplying it to an estimated 4.5 million users and then presuming that about 25% on average generate ten videos per day.

$15 million per day works out to a cool $5.4 billion annual bill.

That’s a lot of money, and Bill Peebles, head of Sora, recently said that «eventually we will need to bring the free gens down to accommodate growth (we won’t have enough gpus to do it otherwise!), but we’ll be transparent as it happens.»

Read the full story on Forbes

Altman: There is a «chance» GPT-6 will deliver real scientific discovery

GPT-6 will get massive levels of compute, and should be able to do scientific discovery, Altman said.
GPT-6 will be paired with historic levels of computing power, with OpenAI having invested in excess of 40 GW of capacity. (Picture: Generated)
In a recent podcast called Conversations with Tyler, he also said we are getting close to AI running entire corporations.

— GPT-5 is the first moment where you see a glimmer of AI doing new science. It’s very tiny things, but here and there someone’s posting like, “Oh, it figured this thing out,” or “Oh, it came up with this new idea,” or “Oh, it was a useful collaborator on this paper,” Altman said.

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OpenAI says policy on health not changed, ChatGPT still answering

You can still ask ChatGPT about health, just not presonal advice.
OpenAI clarified its policy, but it was not a new one, they say. (Picture: Adobe)
According to several social media posts about an updated OpenAI guidance this weekend, it could seem that professional advice had been banned on the platform. It has not, according to OpenAI themselves.

The policy wasn’t new, nor a change, but a consolidation of several different ones, and led to some confusion, it would seem.

OpenAI’s head of health, Karan Singhal, denies any changes entirely, saying ChatGPT will «continue to be a great resource for health information:»

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OpenAI partners with AWS for $38 billion of compute power

OpenAI are free to negotiate deals with Microsoft's rivals, but is still on tap to buy $240 billion of compute from them.
Microsoft no longer has dibs on OpenAI compute, and AWS are moving in to stifle their hunger. (Picture: generated)
After removing Microsofts «first right of refusal» in their Public Benefit makeover last week, OpenAI is already busy making deals with Microsofts competitors.

The new seven-year agreement doesn’t put a gigawatt number on the compute OpenAI is buying, but it costs roughly $40B to build out a 1 GW data center.

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OpenAI shuts down pipeline of professional advice on ChatGPT [updated]

Reddit used to be democratizing tool for expert professional advice, but now it's all over. OpenAI lawyered up.
You can no longer use ChatGPT as your personal doctor, as it defies the EU AI Act and FDA guidance, according to OpenAI. (Picture: Adobe)
UPDATE: OpenAI says there are no changes, simply a consolidation of several usage policies that might have lead to confusion.

OpenAI has updated ChatGPT’s usage policies of October 29, banning a vast swath of content where it was arguably the most useful — as in interpreting medical imagery and helping with medical diagnosis, and offering legal or financial advice.

The idea is to stop ChatGPT (and any other OpenAI model) from giving advice that could be interpreted as professional, fiduciary, or legally binding guidance, as required by the EU AI Act and American FDA guidance.

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