OpenAI Provides a “Playground” for Developers to Experiment With

E. OpenAI’s API and ChatGPT

Today, there are two primary ways to interact with OpenAI’s models. The first is an application programming interface (“API”) that allows developers to prompt the models directly with computer code. Compl. ¶ 62. Developers must specify a number of parameters, including their desired “Model” version and “Temperature” (i.e., the degree of randomness). See, e.g., id. ¶ 140. Developers can supply a “System” prompt, which tells the model how to behave, e.g., “You are a thespian who speaks only in iambic pentameter.” Id. OpenAI also provides a “Playground” for developers to experiment with the models. See id.

The second is ChatGPT, a consumer-friendly platform—accessible for free at chat.openai.com—to “chat” with an OpenAI model through a user interface.[24] Its “Browse with Bing” feature enables ChatGPT to fetch recent information about events that occurred after the models’ training “cutoff,” using the Bing search engine. Compl. ¶¶ 72, 108, 112. Using it is the equivalent of instructing a research assistant to use the Internet to look up a fact she does not yet know. The feature goes hand-in-hand with others that collectively amplify ChatGPT’s utility. See Bubeck Paper at 45 (describing ability to “coordinate a dinner” using “APIs to retrieve information about the user’s calendar, coordinate with other people over email, [and] book the dinner”).

After its release in November 2022, ChatGPT became an “instant viral sensation.” Compl. ¶ 61. According to the Complaint, by April 2023, the service had 173 million users globally who rely on ChatGPT to “craft clearer communications, accelerate coding tasks, rapidly explore answers to complex business questions, assist with creative work, and much more.”[25]

[24] Compl. ¶¶ 62, 102; OpenAI Blog, Introducing ChatGPT Plus (Feb. 1, 2023), https://openai.com/blog/chatgpt-plus; see also Compl. ¶ 149 n.41 (citing this page).

[25] Compl. ¶ 149; OpenAI Blog, Introducing ChatGPT Enterprise (Aug. 28, 2023), https://openai.com/blog/introducing-chatgpt-enterprise; see also Compl. ¶¶ 63, 149 & nn.5 & 42 (citing this article);