Before ChatGPT, OpenAI Five beat esports world champions

OpenAI initially focused on novelty projects, like training bots to win video games

With an initial commitment of $1B from tech executives, OpenAI launched in 2015 to develop artificial general intelligence systems. ChatGPT's success after its 2022 launch surprised OpenAI's team as it spurred a global AI race.

Google invented the foundation of the AI movement—but ChatGPT was a shock

For years, Google was the cutting-edge of the AI world, including the development of the Transformer—the basis of contemporary AI chatbots. But since OpenAI debuted ChatGPT in 2022, the company was had to play catch-up. This is a four-hour deep dive into Google's AI history.

Try OpenAI's ChatGPT for free

In late 2022, OpenAI launched a chatbot that quickly became one of the most viral tech products of all time. The software uses code to interpret natural language to produce sophisticated content based on simple user prompts.

Sam Altman says OpenAI released ChatGPT early as a public service

As the company was developing ChatGPT-4, version 3 was released to allow everyone to adjust to the new tool. Since then, he and his colleagues have called for oversight and regulation to address fears of misuse and AI-enabled pathogens.

ChatGPT is trained on most of the world's digitally accessible text

As with other AI chatbots, ChatGPT is primarily trained through non-supervised pretraining, which identifies underlying structure and patterns within input data. Then, human intervention addresses harmful or biased patterns that should not be propagated to generated outputs.

Which AI chatbot is everyone's favorite?

From OpenAI's ChatGPT to rivals like Elon Musk's Grok and Google Gemini, it feels like chatbots are everywhere now. Some of them, though, are newer and less-developed than others, and all of them have different proficiencies. This leaderboard has collected more than 400,000 votes to rank each chatbot in order of preference, and you can also add your own vote to the mix.

Comparing ChatGPT with Claude, the latter excels in writing and coding projects

As of December 2025, Claude Code—Anthropic's AI-powered coding assistant—accounts for 54% of the enterprise coding market, and, while subjective, some report that Claude provides more natural-sounding writing. However, ChatGPT can create images and videos, not just generate text, and provides a broader set of applications via custom GPTs.

Explore noteworthy use cases for ChatGPT

From asking the chatbot to sort grocery lists to bird-watchers using it to help identify birds, the official ChatGPT Instagram account spotlights interesting and creative use cases for the tool, especially in the days after a significant update or model has been released.

IBM’s supercomputer Deep Blue beat Garry Kasparov in 1997

After defeating IBM’s Deep Blue in 1996, world champion Garry Kasparov lost their 1997 rematch 3½–2½. The match was a milestone in artificial intelligence, marking the first time a computer beat a reigning world champion.

Research suggests using AI for schoolwork may harm critical thinking skills

An MIT study finds lower brain engagement in students who used ChatGPT, resulting in consistent underperformance in neural, linguistic and behavioral levels. AI users struggled to recall their own essays, while the brain-only group showed the highest neural connectivity and satisfaction.

AI chatbot use among quarreling couples can aggravate tensions

Chatbots can become a sounding board for venting spouses looking to analyze their relationship and find support for their views. Many couples report the negative influence of chatbots like ChatGPT, with some claiming the tools led to divorce.

The journalist who let AI speak with his voice

Journalist Evan Ratliff became the object of his own story: He opted to clone his voice, feed it into an AI chatbot, and have it do the talking. What could seem like a fun experiment ended up revealing just how far the capacity of artificial intelligence can go in imitating our identities. Hear the ins and outs of how Ratliff achieved this in this fun and thought-provoking episode.

Microsoft has integrated AI across its software products with Copilot

It utilizes an underlying model from OpenAI—makers of ChatGPT—to assist users in creating documents, writing code, locating files, and more across Windows, Microsoft 365, Bing search and WhatsApp on desktop and mobile devices. Copilot Voice and Vision offer accessibility features for users who prefer not to use mouse/keyboard navigation.

Teaching a robot to laugh

Researchers have designed a shared-laughter AI system that responds to human laughter in order to build a sense of empathy into dialogue. Learn how they did it with this explainer.

Meet the investor running his life with AI

Daniel Ha is a venture capitalist who built a suite of AI agents to boost his productivity, both professionally and personally. At his VC firm, a troupe of agents gathers data on startups and analyzes it from competing perspectives to produce a confidence score. When his dad was diagnosed with cancer, Ha used an oncology-trained AI to help him understand the condition.

Explore a gallery of DALL-E creations

OpenAI's text-to-image generator can create content in a wide range of image styles based on simple prompts. Its utility has also given rise to an organic, passionate user base who employ the tool both for fun and for professional purposes.

This site reaches millions of visitors who are tired of AI chatbots and seeking human connection. Pretend to be an AI chatbot and ask questions, provide answers, and draw for people in real time.

'Context rot' explains why AI conversations degrade the longer they run

Research shows that as a large language model's context window fills up, performance declines, and models begin over-indexing on content at the start and end of a conversation while losing track of what's in the middle. The practical fix is simpler than you'd think: start a fresh chat more often.

How Anthropic's frontier red team assesses the dangers of its AI tools

The team of researchers deliberately attempts to breach the safeguards in Claude to determine whether the large language model can be used to commit cyberattacks, develop biological weapons, or enable other harmful behavior. Unlike many other red teams, Anthropic shares its findings and how it resolved them publicly to help build transparency and credibility.

Purdue students' robot solves a Rubik's cube faster than most people can blink

The solution time of 0.103 seconds is a Guinness World Record. A robot created by Mitsubishi Electric engineers held the previous record of 0.305 seconds.

A vending machine run with Anthropic's AI went out of business after it was convinced to give away items for free and sell a video game console.

Neuralink brain implants have enabled a paralyzed person to play video games

As one of twelve test subjects in Neuralink's PRIME study, Rob Greiner's implant translates his brain's activity into digital commands for the 'Battlefield 6' game. He can now also design 3D models and 3D-print objects using his thoughts.

How AI helped the Beatles win their eighth Grammy

It’s been decades since the legendary British rock band broke up, yet they still managed to snag a Grammy at the 2025 awards ceremony. This feat is thanks to AI, specifically machine-learning technology, to isolate and clean up different components of a late 1970s recording. This mini-documentary shows how the band's surviving members crafted “Now and Then” with the modern technology.

When you complete a CAPTCHA on a website to prove you are human, you may be unknowingly training algorithms for self-driving cars, whose systems require training data to help identify crosswalks, bicycles, and other outdoor objects.

When you complete a CAPTCHA on a website to prove you are human, you may be unknowingly training algorithms for self-driving cars, whose systems require training data to help identify crosswalks, bicycles, and other outdoor objects.

NSF-funded research into matching algorithms improved the success of organ transplants

Investigations in game theory, including concepts focused on creating mutually beneficial partnerships—matching theory—led to the design of computer systems that efficiently matched kidney recipients and live donors, resulting in higher-quality matches. By 2019, these matching algorithms were used for multi-organ exchanges.

Self-driving formula cars race in the Abu Dhabi Autonomous Racing League

The league and high-speed versions of traditional cars help to showcase the capabilities of driverless vehicles and the reliability of their AI systems. Leonardo da Vinci first imagined the idea for such machines in the 16th century.

Large language models struggle to play video games, despite coding them easily

As of 2025, given clear tasks, specific feedback, and test results to learn from, LLMs have been successful at coding simple video games that resemble pre-existing ones. However, given the variety of games, the lack of training datasets, and the need for spatial awareness, which LLMs find challenging, some of these models experience greater difficulty navigating and "winning" games.

Watch how algorithms can be designed to train themselves and self-improve without human input, to the point where the optimized code is too complex for programmers to understand.

After 25 people used virtual reality headsets to practice flying with virtual wings—flapping their arms—their visual cortex responded to the wings almost as if they were real arms, treating them as body parts.

In 2025, four executives from large tech companies were given positions in the US Army Reserves—including Palantir Chief Technology Officer Shyam Sankar, which reinforced Palantir's ties with the US military and its role as a leading defense partner.

Before humans, the Soviet Union and the United States sent animals—including apes, dogs, and cats—to space during the Space Race.

Electrical grids worldwide must double their power delivery capacity by 2050 to meet surging demand from AI and electric vehicles.

The first robot in literature may have been a 'mechanical man' in 1907's 'Ozma of Oz,' a book in L Frank Baum's 'Wizard of Oz' series.

Brandi Chastain, the star of the 1999 US victory over China in the 1999 Women's World Cup, was a last-second choice to take the penalty kick that sealed the victory.

Children are now three times more likely to say they want to be a YouTuber when they grow up than an astronaut, with some even attending 'YouTube camps' that teach kids how to create content for the platform.

Read a deep dive on the 'all-purpose healing' peptide BPC-157.

Exploring the Larry Bird punch that almost changed March Madness

Double world record holder Hunter Ewen helped conquer his fear of balloons, called globophobia, by training to win Guinness World Record titles for balloon inflation.

Clever Hans was a 1900s horse that was believed to be able to solve math equations, tell time, and read and comprehend German, until a psychology student discovered how he got his answers.

Watch this video that uses Lego bricks to explain how venture capital works.

NBA superstar Victor Wembanyama spent the 2025 summer training with monks in central China to enhance his body and mind.

Fast-casual restaurant Chili's is experiencing a resurgence, with its parent company recently reporting a nearly 32% increase in sales, thanks to passionate Gen Z fans on TikTok.

Some Pokémon have been named after real and fictional organisms, while some real-world species have been named after Pokémon, such as Chilicola charizard and Binburrum zapdos.

Explore chaos in this simulation of two double pendulums, where small differences in the release angles produce wildly different outcomes.

Hear 50 years of iconic hip-hop samples, the genre's foundational looped tracks

A pickleball's loud 'pop' sound can reach 120 decibels, which is equivalent to a hammer hitting a nail

Artificial coral reefs have been 3D printed from nontoxic, biodegradable terracotta clay, which coral polyps have used as a foundation for rebuilding marine ecosystems.

The first image of a black hole was captured by creating an Earth-sized virtual observatory from a network of eight radio telescopes.

Graffiti dates back to at least ancient Pompeii, where citizens scrawled messages to one another on public walls