OpenAI tempers expectations with less bombastic, GPT-5-less DevDay this fall | TechCrunch

🌈 Abstract

The article discusses OpenAI's plans for its upcoming DevDay conference, including a shift away from major model announcements and a focus on developer engagement and updates to its APIs and services. It also explores the challenges OpenAI faces in accessing high-quality training data for its generative AI models due to increasing data restrictions by content creators.

🙋 Q&A

[01] OpenAI's DevDay Conference

1. What changes is OpenAI making to its DevDay conference this year?

• OpenAI is changing the format of its DevDay conference from a major event to a series of on-the-road developer engagement sessions.
• The company will not be announcing its next major flagship model during DevDay, and will instead focus on updates to its APIs and developer services.

2. What will the DevDay events this year include?

• The DevDay events will feature workshops, breakout sessions, demos with OpenAI's product and engineering staff, and developer spotlights.
• The events will take place in San Francisco, London, and Singapore.
• Registration will cost $450, with scholarships available for eligible attendees.

[02] Challenges Faced by OpenAI

1. What challenges is OpenAI facing in accessing high-quality training data for its models?

• More than 35% of the world's top 1,000 websites now block OpenAI's web crawler, limiting the data available for training.
• Around 25% of data from "high-quality" sources has been restricted from the major datasets used to train AI models.
• This trend of data access restrictions could lead to a shortage of data to train generative AI models between 2026 and 2032, according to the research group Epoch AI.

2. How has this data access issue impacted OpenAI?

• The data access restrictions have forced OpenAI to enter costly licensing agreements with publishers and data brokers to obtain the necessary training data.
• This challenge, along with the high costs of training its models and hiring top-paid research staff, has reportedly led to OpenAI hemorrhaging billions of dollars.