The origins of ChatGPT and making cement greener

We have reached the ChatGPT peak. Launched in December as a web application by San Francisco-based OpenAI, the chatbot exploded into the mainstream almost overnight.

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

But the resounding success of OpenAI didn’t come out of thin air. The chatbot is the most refined iteration yet in a line of great language models dating back years. That’s how we got here.

—Will Douglas Heaven

The climate solution under your feet

Technologies designed to fight climate change are getting wilder these days. Hydrogen planes, underwater mining robots and nuclear fusion reactors – each could play a role in reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

But there are also less glamorous elements to solving climate change. Take building materials, for example – the most widely used material in the world, by mass, is cement, and it’s kind of a climate nightmare. The good news is that a handful of companies are working hard to address the climate impact of cement. Read the full story.