The race of AI labs heats up

Every so often, a new technology captures the world’s imagination. The latest example, judging by the chatter in Silicon Valley, as well as on Wall Street and in corporate corner offices, newsrooms and classrooms around the world, is ChatGPT.

In just five days after its unveiling in November, the artificially intelligent chatbot, created by a start-up called OpenAI, drew a million users, making it one of the fastest consumer-product launches in history. 

Microsoft, which has just invested US$10 billion (S$13.2 billion) in OpenAI,

wants ChatGPT-like powers, which include generating text, images, music and video that seem like they could have been created by humans, to infuse much of the software it sells.