In a Sept. 15 post, a Reddit user with the screen name "SentuBill" claimed that the ChatGPT large language model (LLM) initiated a conversation by asking him how his first day in school was going.

According to the conversation provided by the user, ChatGPT was able to infer that it was the user's first day of school from previous conversations the user had with the program. The large language model also indicated that the capabilities were part of a new upgrade.

Cointelegraph verified that the contents of the conversation posted by the surprised user were real by viewing the official ChatGPT conversation transcript on the LLM platform.

A portion of the conversation initiated by ChatGPT. Source: ChatGPT.

The ChatGPT Strawberry Upgrade

On September 13, 2024, OpenAI launched a preview upgrade of the new highly-anticipated models to select users. OpenAI says these new models will have the ability to reason and give ChatGPT the seemingly magic ability to “think before it answers.”

The new model response times will take between 10-20 seconds to generate and will reportedly be able to scour the internet and conduct thorough research independently. These capabilities could transform ChatGPT from a curious novelty to an indispensable tool with real-world use cases.

OpenAI originally slated Strawberry for a November 2024 release date. However, sources indicate that the ChatGPT upgrade may launch sooner than expected. The artificial intelligence firm also revised its naming conventions for models—claiming that the new models represented such a paradigm shift from earlier builds that they decided to roll the dial back to one on the new LLM.

OpenAI products surge in popularity

OpenAI's various products have surged in popularity since April 2024—managing to garner over 1 million users. The company's products, including ChatGPT premium subscriptions and access to its ChatGPT Enterprise, had approximately 600,000 subscribers in April 2024.

The ChatGPT maker is also considering a significant price hike for some of its upcoming models, with the company potentially introducing high-end subscription plans that could cost upward of $2,000 per month.

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