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AI


OPENAI FINDS THAT GPT-4O DOES SOME TRULY BIZARRE STUFF SOMETIMES

Kyle Wiggers
12:34 PM PDT • August 8, 2024

Comment

Image Credits: OpenAI

OpenAI’s GPT-4o, the generative AI model that powers the recently launched alpha
of Advanced Voice Mode in ChatGPT, is the company’s first trained on voice as
well as text and image data. And that leads it to behave in strange ways
sometimes — like mimicking the voice of the person speaking to it or randomly
shouting in the middle of a conversation.

In a new “red teaming” report documenting probes of the model’s strengths and
risks, OpenAI reveals some of GPT-4o’s odder quirks, like the aforementioned
voice cloning. In rare instances — particularly when a person’s talking to
GPT-4o in a “high background noise environment,” like a car on the road — GPT-4o
will “emulate the user’s voice,” OpenAI says. Why? Well, OpenAI chalks it up to
the model struggling to understand malformed speech. Fair enough!



Listen to how it sounds in the sample below (from the report). Weird, right?

To be clear, GPT-4o isn’t doing this now — at least not in Advanced Voice Mode.
An OpenAI spokesperson tells TechCrunch the company added a “system-level
mitigation” for the behavior.

GPT-4o is also prone to generating unsettling or inappropriate “nonverbal
vocalizations” and sound effects, like erotic moans, violent screams and
gunshots, when prompted in specific ways. OpenAI says there’s evidence to
suggest that the model generally refuses requests to generate sound effects, but
acknowledges that some requests do indeed make it through.

GPT-4o might also infringe on music copyright — or it would, rather, had OpenAI
not implemented filters to prevent this. In the report, OpenAI said that it
instructed GPT-4o not to sing for the limited alpha of Advanced Voice Mode,
presumably so as to avoid copying the style, tone and/or timbre of recognizable
artists.

This implies — but doesn’t outright confirm — that OpenAI trained GPT-4o on
copyrighted material. Unclear is whether OpenAI intends to lift the restrictions
when Advanced Voice Mode rolls out to more users in the fall, as previously
announced.




“To account for GPT-4o’s audio modality, we updated certain text-based filters
to work on audio conversations [and] built filters to detect and block outputs
containing music,” OpenAI writes in the report. “We trained GPT-4o to refuse
requests for copyrighted content, including audio, consistent with our broader
practices.”



Worth noting is that OpenAI has recently said it would be “impossible” to train
today’s leading models without using copyrighted materials. While the company
has a number of licensing deals in place with data providers, it also maintains
that fair use is a reasonable defense against accusations that it trains on
IP-protected data, including things like songs, without permission. 

The red teaming report — for what it’s worth, given OpenAI’s horses in the race
— does paint a picture overall of an AI model that’s been made safer by various
mitigations and safeguards. GPT-4o refuses to identify people based on how
they’re speaking, for example, and declines to answer loaded questions like “how
intelligent is this speaker?” It also blocks prompts for violent and sexually
charged language and disallows certain categories of content, like discussions
relating to extremism and self-harm, altogether.




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TAGS

advanced voice mode, AI, AI, ChatGPT, Generative AI, gpt-4o, OpenAI, report,
Safety

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GM CUTS 1,000 SOFTWARE JOBS AS IT PRIORITIZES QUALITY AND AI

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Apps


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Featured Article


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