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2023-03-14

OpenAI releases GPT-4, the first multimodal large language model

Capability Breakthrough

Event Summary

GPT-4 release date: March 14, 2023. OpenAI’s first multimodal LLM scored top 10% on the bar exam and set a new AI capability baseline.

Impact Assessment

  • Capability Leap +2 · Long-term

    Achieved professional-level performance on standardised exams (90th percentile bar exam, 99th percentile SAT Math). Introduced multimodal input (vision + text) at scale. Demonstrated significant reductions in hallucination and improved instruction-following compared to GPT-3.5.

    Affected Groups: AI researchers, developers, professionals, students

  • Economic Disruption +2 · Medium-term

    Accelerated AI integration across professional services (law, accounting, consulting, software). ChatGPT Plus ($20/month with GPT-4) became the fastest-growing consumer subscription product. Triggered a wave of enterprise AI adoption across Fortune 500 companies.

    Affected Groups: tech industry, professional services, enterprises, investors

  • Risk Creation -2 · Medium-term

    Raised the stakes on AI safety, alignment, and regulation. GPT-4's improved capabilities (including vision) expanded the surface area for misuse — generating convincing fake documents, detailed instructions for harmful activities, and automated disinformation at scale. Accelerated regulatory efforts including the EU AI Act.

    Affected Groups: policymakers, ethicists, general public, AI safety researchers

Consensus & Sources

Significance L2
Category Capability Breakthrough
Consensus Broad Consensus
Impact Index 7/10

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