Open AI
On Thursday, OpenAI announced that all paying API customers now have access to the GPT-4 API. It also introduced updates to chat-based models, announced a shift from the Completions API to the Chat Completions API, and outlined plans for deprecating older models.
Generally regarded as the most powerful API product, the GPT-4 API was first launched in March, but has been tested closed so far. As an API, developers can use a special interface to integrate OpenAI’s large language model (LLM) into their own products for use as a summary, coding aid, analysis, and composition. The model runs remotely on OpenAI’s servers and provides output to other apps over the internet.
OpenAI says the GPT-4 API with 8K context is accessible to existing developers with a successful payment history, with plans to give access to new developers by the end of July. And in an effort to move away from older GPT-3 style models, OpenAI has also chosen to retire “Completions API” models in favor of newer Chat Completions API models. Since launching in March, OpenAI says its Chat Completions API models now account for 97 percent of OpenAI’s API GPT usage.
This depreciation plan means that models that are part of the Completions API will be retired within six months. Starting January 4, 2024, these older models, which simply complete a prompt instead of entering a chat-like dialog, will be replaced with newer versions, and developers using some of these models will need to manually upgrade their integration. For now, the older models will remain available, but will be labeled as “legacy” products. Here is a partial list of models that are being deprecated:
- ada
- chat
- curia
- davinci
- davinci-instruct-beta
- curie-instruct-beta
- text-ada-001
- text-babbage-001
- text-curie-001
- text-davinci-001
- text-davinci-002
- text-davinci-003
OpenAI will provide drop-in replacements for these older models. For example, OpenAI recommends that users of the text-davinci-003 model switch to the gpt-3.5-turbo-instruct model instead. Similarly, the ada-002, babbage-002, curie-002, and davinci-002 models will replace previous versions of each. Applications that use some of these GPT-3 models (such as ada, babbage, curie, davinci) will be “automatically upgraded to the new models listed above on January 4, 2024,” according to OpenAI.
OpenAI also announced that “based on the stability and readiness of these models for production-scale deployment,” it is also making APIs for Whisper, DALL-E, and GPT-3.5 Turbo “generally available.” And the company expects to continue refining its models throughout the year.
Developers can find more details in OpenAI’s pre-announcement blog post.
