The origin of ChatGPT and makes cement more environmentally friendly

We’ve reached peak ChatGPT. Released in December as a web application by San Francisco-based OpenAI, the chatbot became popular almost overnight.

According to some estimates, it is the fastest growing service on the Internet, reaching 100 million users just two months after its launch. Thanks to OpenAI’s $10 billion deal with Microsoft, the technology is now being built into Office software and the Bing search engine. Spurred into action by its recently reawakened former rival in the search battle, Google is ramping up the rollout of its own chatbot, LaMDA.

But OpenAI’s breakthrough didn’t come out of nowhere. The chatbot is the most polished iteration to date in a line of great language models from years ago. That’s how we got here.

— Will Douglas Haven

Climate solution under your feet

Technologies designed to combat climate change are getting wilder these days. Hydrogen-powered airplanes, underwater mining robots and nuclear fusion reactors can all play a role in reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

But there are less glamorous parts of addressing climate change. Take building materials, for example—the world’s most used material by mass is cement, and it’s a kind of climate nightmare. The good news is that several companies are working hard to reduce cement’s impact on the climate. Read the story in its entirety.