What was the world like before ChatGPT? Students, coders and companies hardly remember. But we do because we’re not Sports Illustrated. Still, it’s a day to celebrate a year of prompts from the world’s favorite artificial intelligence (AI).

Happy BirthdAI: ChatGPT launched one year ago today and has grown like wildfire. After five days, it had over 1M users — and within two months, it became the fastest-growing app in history with 100M users. Several iterations later, its latest model, GPT-4, can interpret images and documents, converse with users like Siri and even trick a person into working for them.

• Its rapid adoption attracted a $13B investment from Microsoft, which has integrated OpenAI products into its ecosystem, including its cloud platform Azure, Bing and Microsoft 365.
• In October, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman told staff that the company’s revenue surpassed $1.3B — up 46x from just $28M in 2021.

But its AI models require expensive and short-supplied computing hardware, which Altman calls “eye-watering.” It quickly started charging for its fastest models and by November, it was forced to stop accepting new customers due to overwhelming demand. Its success has also sparked intense ethical debates.

Do GPTs dream of world destruction?

Just weeks ago, OpenAI’s board fired Altman, alleging that he hadn’t been forthcoming about developing a new model, Q*, which reportedly alarmed staff and safety researchers. But Altman had friends in high places and the support of nearly the entire company. Days later, he handed the board a reverse UNO card, had them fired and built a new board featuring tech and political leaders.

• There have been countless reports of AI replacing millions of workers — with global leaders and organizations pushing to prioritize AI safety on the scale of “pandemics and nuclear war.”
• According to a Pew Research study, over half of US adults surveyed were “more concerned than excited” about using AI in daily life.

It all happened in ChatGPT’s first year… Imagine what things could look like in ten. With his newfound power, Altman will continue towards his ultimate goal of building artificial general intelligence (AGI); a computer that can think, learn by itself, and, with enough time, perhaps walk as well.