OpenAI to shut down operations for a week, offering its overworked talent time to energise: Report

In a rare occurrence, OpenAI, the parent company of ChatGPT AI, is offering its employees a week-long break by shutting down its operations, as per a report. The week-long break is for the staff, reportedly overworked after dragging 80-hour work weeks, as it will give them a chance to rest and rejuvenate.

OpenAI has decided to shut down next week, a report by Wired said on Tuesday. However, the report also clarified that the executive-level employees will continue to work during the week.

This comes after Sam Altman, OpenAI CEO, claimed that Mark Zuckerberg-led Meta is trying to poach employees from AI.

The daily active users (DAU) of ChatGPT rose to a new high in April, driven by the popularity of its new image filter that transforms personal photos into famous Japanese animation-style illustrations, industry data showed on Tuesday. 

ChatGPT's DAU reached a record 1.25 million in April, up from 1.03 million on March 10 and 790,000 on March 1, according to the data from industry tracker IGAWorks.

The rapid growth came with OpenAI's new image-generation tool, which allows users to convert their photos into illustrations inspired by Studio Ghibli films, reports Yonhap news agency.

However, the surge in AI-generated animated images raised copyright concerns and technological issues.

Altman said OpenAI plans to introduce rate limits on the feature, saying, "Our graphic processing units are melting."

In a post on social media platform X, he said: "Can yall please chill on generating images this is insane our team needs sleep (sic)".

Despite his appeal, many users were not convinced, with some even suggesting that he should fire his team. Responding to one such post, Altman defended his team, saying they had built one of the biggest websites in the world in just 2.33 years.

(with inputs from syndicated feed)