When OpenAI demoed ChatGPT's ability to have a natural conversation a few months back, even the staunchest AI critics couldn't help being impressed. The presenters conversing with the AI like it was their friend sitting next to them felt like something out of the future.
And it turns out it was from the future because the feature wasn't ready to launch due to safety concerns and other issues. However, OpenAI is finally ready to let the general public try its Advanced Voice feature — or at least, it's ready to let a very small subset of the public try. The company announced plans to release an Alpha of ChatGPT Advanced Voice to a small subset of ChatGPT users.
In an X post today (July 30), the company said, "We’re starting to roll out advanced Voice Mode to a small group of ChatGPT Plus users." OpenAI didn't say how many users would get it, but some X users responded with screenshots showing they had access. Also worth noting is that only paid Plus users will get in, so if you're using the free version of ChatGPT, don't expect to have authentic conversations with your AI companion soon.
As far as the safety issues, such as the tool being used to mimic real people's voices, OpenAI said, "To protect people's privacy, we've trained the model to only speak in the four preset voices, and we built systems to block outputs that differ from those voices."
If you're unsure whether you received access, OpenAI says, "Users in this alpha will receive an email with instructions and a message in their mobile app." If you haven't gotten that email, then you'll have to wait until another wave goes out.
This is just the first wave of people to get access. "We'll continue to add more people on a rolling basis and plan for everyone on Plus to have access in the fall," OpenAI added in its post.
One feature that won't be ready immediately is video and screen sharing, as the company posted that those will launch at the ever-vague "later date."
Wrapping up its barrage of X posts, OpenAI spoke about the future: "Learnings from this alpha will help us make the Advanced Voice experience safer and more enjoyable for everyone. We plan to share a detailed report on GPT-4o’s capabilities, limitations, and safety evaluations in early August."
