Techonology

Openai unveils AI agent that can access websites on its own

Two years ago, Openai launched the chatbot craze with the release of CHATGPT. Now it hopes to generate interest in a new wave of AI technology.

On Thursday, Openai unveiled a device called Operator that can go out on the Internet and perform tasks autonomously, such as shopping for groceries or booking restaurant reservations.

“It can navigate websites and take actions on websites, much like you and I do,” said Yash Kumar, OpenEye product and engineering lead, in an interview.

Artificial intelligence researchers call this kind of technology AI agents. While chatbots can answer questions, write poems, and generate images, agents can use other software on the Internet.

During a briefing with The New York Times, Mr. Kumar demonstrated how the system could book San Francisco restaurant reservations through the Openable website and purchase groceries through Instacart. Operator Chat looks and behaves like chatbots and other chatbots. The user types a request in a small window. Then the system gives the best answer.

The user can see that the tool opens a web browser and visits particular sites. Operators may make mistakes. But in some cases, it can fix these mistakes. During the Times’ demonstration, the system mistakenly assumed Mr. Kumar was in Iowa, before finding a restaurant in San Francisco.

The operator is not completely autonomous. At times, a user needs to correct his or her mistakes and provide additional requests and suggestions. For sites like Opentable and Instacart, users must provide their personal username and password. But Openai said it does not store this private information.

However, the company does capture data about the way the system interacts with users and accesses sites on their behalf. It can use this data to train future versions of the operator.

Openai said that, starting Thursday, the operator will be available to anyone who subscribes to CHATGPT PRO, a $200-a-month service that provides access to all of the company’s latest tools. It plans to offer the tool through other paid services and eventually roll it into a free version of CHATGPT. Users in the United States will be the first to receive the new device.

(The New York Times has sued Openai and its partner, Microsoft, accusing them of copyright infringement of news content related to its AI system. Openai and Microsoft have denied those claims.)

In recent months, other major companies including Google and Anthropic have unveiled similar devices. Many of these devices, however, are not yet widely available.

The operator is based on the same technology that underpins CHATGPT. This technology is what AI researchers call a neural network – a mathematical system that can learn skills by analyzing huge amounts of data.

Newer versions of this technology learn from a wider range of data, including text, images, and sounds. In this case, the operator learned from images of how people use spreadsheets, shopping sites, and other online services. After pinpointing patterns in this data, the new system can access similar services on behalf of computer users.

Mr Kumar acknowledged that, like Chat and other chatbots, Operator is still an experimental technology. But he said it would continue to improve in the coming months.

“It’s not the strongest thing in the world,” he said. “But it’s better than this kind of technology.”

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