OpenAI goes retro with dial-in line to access ChatGPT

In an attempt to broaden access to ChatGPT, OpenAI now allows users to contact the artificial intelligence chatbot through a telephone call.

“The mission of OpenAI is to make generative artificial intelligence benefit humanity, and part of that is to make it available for all,” said Kevin Weil, OpenAI’s chief product officer, during a livestream on Wednesday.

“Today, we are taking the next step and bringing ChatGPT to your telephone,” he added.

During the livestream, Weil proceeds to call 1-800-ChatGPT on a rotary phone to gain access to the chatbot. He asks ChatGPT how to explain reinforcement fine-tuning to a five-year-old. After a brief pause, the chatbot responded: Imagine you have a robot friend, and you want to teach it to clean up your room. You give it a treat every time it does a good job. That’s reinforcement fine-tuning. The robot learns to do better by getting rewards.

Calls to ChatGPT are only available in the U.S. Callers are allowed 15 free minutes per month with the chatbot. All other regions must use WhatsApp. Through WhatsApp, users text with ChatGPT.

The reveal was part of the Microsoft-backed (NASDAQ:MSFT) startup’s 12 Days of OpenAI event.

Additional announcements through the 12 Days of OpenAI included free ChatGPT Search; Projects with ChatGPT, the launch of Sora, an artificial intelligence-powered video generator that can create videos with as little as a few words of text; ChatGPT Canvas; Advanced Voice with video and screen sharing; and the integration of ChatGPT into Apple’s (AAPL) latest operating system update.