OpenAI's new product could include sarcasm detection, report says

Updates to OpenAI's GPT technology could improve the automated customer service agent technology the company already offers, report says.

• OpenAI may unveil a new multimodal AI assistant on Monday, The Information reported.
• This technology could, in theory, help automated customer service agents detect sarcasm.
• The new model could also be integrated into OpenAI's chatbot ChatGPT.

Wannabe stand-up comedians and frustrated customers, beware: The robot phone operators may not find your deadpan insults amusing in the future.

The Information reported that machine learning company OpenAI could unveil a voice assistant with both audio and visual capabilities that could, in theory, detect sarcasm.

Finally.

According to one person with knowledge of the new tech who spoke with The Information, the mystery assistant could improve on the automated customer service agent technology the company already offers.

The AI assistant — which can talk to users and recognize objects and images — could have many other features, of course, the outlet reported, citing two people who have seen it themselves. These features include "a better understanding of image and audio" and "better logical reasoning," per the report.

The technology could be revealed as soon as Monday during OpenAI's planned livestream announcing updates on their GPT technology.

"The assistant could theoretically do a range of things not possible today, such as acting as a tutor for a student working on a paper or on math problems, or giving people information about their surroundings when they ask for it, like translating signs or explaining how to fix car troubles," the report said.

The new multimodal model is still prone to AI hallucinations — a phenomenon where models spit out answers that have no basis in reality — a person familiar with it told The Information.

This new tech could eventually be integrated into the publicly available and free version of OpenAI's popular chatbot ChatGPT.

The Information reports the tech will move CEO Sam Altman one step closer to creating a more useful AI assistant similar to the virtual Samantha, played by Scarlett Johansson in the movie "Her" — though hopefully, no one falls in love with it. (That was not sarcasm.)

Representatives for OpenAI did not immediately respond to a request for comment.