ChatGPT said: OpenAI Plans to Release Its First Open Language Model Since GPT-2

OpenAI has announced its intention to release its first “open” language model since GPT-2, with the launch expected in the coming months.

The announcement was made through a feedback form published on OpenAI’s website on Monday. The company is seeking input from developers, researchers, and the broader AI community, asking questions like, “What would you like to see in an open-weight model from OpenAI?” and “What open models have you used in the past?”

“We’re excited to collaborate with developers, researchers, and the broader community to gather inputs and make this model as useful as possible,” OpenAI stated. The form also offers interested participants the opportunity to join feedback sessions with the OpenAI team.

To further engage with the community, OpenAI will host developer events to collect feedback and demonstrate prototypes of the model. The first event will be held in San Francisco within the next few weeks, followed by additional sessions in Europe and the Asia-Pacific region.

The move comes as OpenAI faces growing competition from rivals like Chinese AI lab DeepSeek, which has embraced an “open” approach by making its models available for public experimentation and commercialization. Meta has also found success with its LLaMA family of open-source AI models, recently surpassing one billion downloads.

During a recent Reddit Q&A, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman acknowledged that the company may have made missteps in its approach to open-source AI.

“I personally think we need to figure out a different open-source strategy,” Altman said. “Not everyone at OpenAI shares this view, and it’s also not our current highest priority. We will produce better models, but we will maintain less of a lead than we did in previous years.”

Altman elaborated further on OpenAI’s plans in a post on X, confirming that the upcoming model will have reasoning capabilities similar to OpenAI’s o3-mini. He assured that the model will undergo a thorough evaluation using OpenAI’s preparedness framework before its release, with additional safety measures given its open nature.

“We’re excited to see what developers build and how large companies and governments use it where they prefer to run a model themselves,” Altman said.

The announcement also follows recent controversy surrounding Altman. Excerpts from an upcoming book by Wall Street Journal reporter Keach Hagey allege that Altman misled OpenAI executives regarding safety reviews of its AI models ahead of his brief ouster in November 2023.