Sam Altman and UK government discussed giving every resident free ChatGPT+ at a cost of $2.7 billion

[midian182]

In brief: OpenAI boss Sam Altman has had discussions with the UK's technology secretary about giving the $20-per-month ChatGPT+ to every citizen in the country for free. Allowing almost 70 million Brits access to the premium tier would cost the government as much as £2 billion, which is around $2.7 billion.

Altman's meeting with technology secretary Peter Kyle was part of a broader discussion in San Francisco about collaboration opportunities between OpenAI and the UK.

Kyle is a strong proponent of AI use within the government. He's also a fan of using it in his own role – a freedom of information request in March showed he had asked ChatGPT for advice on work-related issues, including why British businesses are not adopting artificial intelligence and what podcasts he should appear on. He also asked for media and policy advice.

"ChatGPT is fantastically good, and where there are things that you really struggle to understand in depth, ChatGPT can be a very good tutor for it," Kyle said in January.

Kyle dined with Altman in March and April, according to The Guardian. One topic of discussion was to give every UK resident free access to the $20/£20-per-month ChatGPT+, thereby enabling access to faster responses, reliable access even during high-demand periods, and priority to new features.

But sources say the $2.7 billion price tag meant Kyle never took the idea seriously – there's little doubt that Brits would be angry at so much being spent on AI access when extra money is needed in the National Health Service, police, education, etc.

That price seems especially high given that a $20 subscription for everyone living in the UK would come to around $1.4 billion. Moreover, the UK is already one of OpenAI's top five markets for paid ChatGPT subscriptions.

The meetings did lead to a collaboration between OpenAI and the UK government. Kyle signed an agreement with the company in July to use its services in the UK's public sector. The memorandum of understanding could lead to the likes of ChatGPT being used in education, defense, security, and the justice system. OpenAI, in return, could receive access to government data, which one expects will lead to plenty of outcry over security and privacy concerns.

The government's Department for Science and Technology confirmed that there are no plans to give UK residents free access to ChatGPT+, but OpenAI might try to introduce similar schemes elsewhere. The company has agreed a deal with the United Arab Emirates to "enable ChatGPT nationwide," and remains in talks with other governments

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Sam Altman and UK government discussed giving every resident free ChatGPT+ at a cost of $2.7 billion

 

[pnntmp]

The cost of $2.7 billion is per month or per year? Or something else?

If per month that's clearly insane, if per year (which I guess is the case) it sounds kinda OK. Indeed the price can be reduced further, these are just talks.

 

[opckieran]

That anybody would spend a dime, let alone billions, on such a flawed, limited, model is beyond me.

 

[IronPredator]

This is a great idea, UK Gov have been wanting to get more involved with AI and this is a great way to invest in the product and everyone finally gets something for their money. Well onboard with this! Now fix the NHS!!

 

[Theinsanegamer]

It's not free if it costs $2.7 billion.......

 

[VitalyT]

He is looking for $2.7 billion per month. That's 2 times more than it costs to everyone else, given the UK population. Way more than double, considering people under 7 or after 60 won't be touching that AI, worse, lots of people will never touch it.

Realistically, not more than 10mln people in UK would ever use it, which would come down to the cost of $270 per month per user, vs $20 for the same subscription, I.e. 13.5 times more.

Somebody needs to tell that clown to take that offer and shove it.

 

[Axeia]

Hah, to put things in perspective of how much the UK is struggling with money.

• They planned for 2 aircraft carriers
  • Tried to make it one in a cost cutting measure
    • Turns out canceling the second already under construction would cost more than finishing it - so finished it
      • Cut out any form of assisted launch system to save on costs - restricting it to F35-B use exclusively
        • Struggling to afford enough F35s to equip one of the two carriers so it's borrowing them from the airforce

Oh and Her Majesty's Naval service doesn't have enough ships to form a carrier group. So when they're deployed it's whilst other nations are used to complete the group.

The new High Speed Rail project "HS2"? Over budget by two-fold. Cut in half in scope making it rather useless, especially considering how much it costs... probably never earns itself back.
And from personal experience, the NHS is a joke. The only good thing that can be said is that it's free. Getting an appointment with a dr? Have to ring at stupid-o-clock in the morning because they stop accepting appointments after that period, and the phone or in person is the only possible way to do so. The internet is for chumps I guess. Oh and the appointment will be in about 4-8 months.
Coming into A&E in grave pain? Go suffer on the hallway for a couple of hours, indicating you can't move from pain and will throw up soon... no one has time to deal with that so it ends up on the hallway itself.

This is all before supposedly increasing the NATO budget to 5%. So perhaps there's other things to spend money on before giving everyone access to gpt+ that no one really asked for.

Not that I wish harm upon anyone but I bet if everyone in the British parliament (and this guy that I admittely haven't even heard of before) would get a sudden painful medical condition and HAD to deal with the NHS rather than private clinics that priorities would very quickly shift.

--

Hopefully I don't get arrested for hate speech by posting this. Great country.

 

[unoficialoficial]

Give UK residents a 30% discount that will be paid for by the public sector. Simplicity.

 

[ferrellsl]

Give UK residents a 30% discount that will be paid for by the public sector. Simplicity.

Who do you think the public sector are? For your edification, the British people ARE the public sector. It's their taxes that pay the public sector's bills. So you're in favor of the British paying for their own discount, by footing the bill of their own discount. How clever. You're obviously the product of a public sector education.

 

[p51d007]

It will be like "crack". They will give it to you for a while, get you hooked into using it for everything,
then due to the "outrageous" cost, take it away for free, but you can still subscribe to it. wink wink

 

[Angga B]

Government sponsored "dehumanization". Huge effort in reducing individual agency and relegate it into "centralized" hive mind.

Despite issue of budgets, huge deficit, financial failures, this is UK govenment priority above them all. S c a r y.

 

[OortCloud]

The Russian trolls are out in force as always when a UK article comes up.
When your GDP (despite your size and mineral wealth) is almost half the size of the UK's I guess all you can do is ***** and moan on the internet - As for your GDP per capita it's a QUARTER - lower than countries like Cuba and Kazakhstan. UK GDP per capita a nice comfortable $55,000. Russia? - $14,200. I guess that's what happens when you live in a dictatorship run by a deluded madman who pays an army of people to spread misinformation, skims off all the mineral wealth for himself and his cronies and now leads the world in only one thing - AI trolling.

https://www.csis.org/analysis/russian-bot-farm-used-ai-lie-americans-what-now

 

[Str8Shot]

He is looking for $2.7 billion per month. That's 2 times more than it costs to everyone else, given the UK population. Way more than double, considering people under 7 or after 60 won't be touching that AI, worse, lots of people will never touch it.

Realistically, not more than 10mln people in UK would ever use it, which would come down to the cost of $270 per month per user, vs $20 for the same subscription, I.e. 13.5 times more.

Somebody needs to tell that clown to take that offer and shove it.

The dude is already packing the fudge, so he’s used to taking it up the rear. Him, and Peter Thiel from PayPal, Tim Cook from Apple, all cut from the same cloth. Surely those are just coincidences…

 

[wiyosaya]

Even "free," its not worth the cost, IMO.

 

[kippapa]

Is this the same government which suggested to delete old emails to save water?

 

[Underdog]

Today, as always, there's no such thing as "Free".