Elon Musk-backed OpenAI to release text tool it called dangerous

OpenAI, the machine learning nonprofit co-founded by Elon Musk, has released its first commercial product: a rentable version of a text generation tool the organisation once deemed too dangerous to release. Dubbed simply "the API", the new service lets businesses directly access the most powerful version of GPT-3, OpenAI's general purpose text generation AI. The tool is already a more than capable writer. Feeding an earlier version of the opening line of George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four – "It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen" – the system recognises the vaguely futuristic tone and the novelistic style, and continues with: "I was in my car on my way to a new job in Seattle. I put the gas in, put the key in, and then I let it run. I just imagined what the day would be like. In 2045, I was a teacher in some school in a poor part of rural China. I started with Chinese history and history of science."