OpenAI's CEO Sam Altman revealed that the surge in usage after the DevDay developers conference has presented capacity challenges for ChatGPT. As a response, OpenAI has decided to temporarily pause signups for ChatGPT Plus to address these issues and ensure a high-quality user experience for existing subscribers.
During this temporary pause, the subscription service offering features like the new GPT-4 Turbo and custom GPTs will be put on hold. Despite this, users can stay informed about the reopening of subscriptions by signing up within the app. This ensures they can promptly access the enhanced features of ChatGPT Plus when availability resumes.
“We are pausing new ChatGPT Plus sign-ups for a bit. the surge in usage post devday has exceeded our capacity and we want to make sure everyone has a great experience. You can still sign-up to be notified within the app when subs reopen,” Altman wrote on X.
The recent surge in demand is linked to the introduction of Generative Pre-trained Transformers (GPTs) at OpenAI's DevDay 2023. Developers and companies have harnessed the power of GPTs for various purposes, including graphic design on platforms like Canva. The conference unveiled GPTs that allow users to easily build their own models without the need for coding, resulting in over 5,000 GPTs currently available.
However, OpenAI has faced challenges beyond capacity issues. Periodic outages in ChatGPT were experienced recently, indicating a potential Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack. The source and motive behind this attack remain under investigation.
After the release of GPT-4 Turbo, the OpenAI is quietly working on developing GPT-5. Altman disclosed that the training process for GPT-5 will require a substantial increase in data volume. This data will be drawn from a combination of publicly accessible datasets on the internet and exclusive datasets from private companies.
While GPT-5 is anticipated to be more sophisticated than its predecessors, Altman acknowledged the challenge of predicting its exact capabilities and skills. In addition to technical advancements, OpenAI is planning to seek additional financial support from its major investor, Microsoft, to realise its vision of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI).
