About this episode
Why was OpenAI surprised by ChatGPT’s success? What does it really mean to “reason” in an AI system? And what’s next for agentic coding and multimodal assistants? OpenAI Head of ChatGPT Nick Turley and Chief Research Officer Mark Chen unpack it all in a conversation that pulls back the curtain on the making of OpenAI’s most iconic product. 00:00 – Intro: Meet Nick Turley and Mark Chen 00:40 – Origin of the name "ChatGPT" 03:50 – ChatGPT’s viral takeoff 07:00 – Internal debate before launch 9:40 – Evolution of OpenAI’s launch approach 11:00 – The sycophancy incident and RLHF 14:45 – Balancing usefulness vs. neutrality in model behavior 20:00 – Memory and the future of personalization 22:50 – ImageGen’s breakthrough moment 29:00– Cultural shifts in safety and the freedom to explore 33:10 – Code, Codex, and the rise of agentic programming 37:45 - Coding with taste 41:45 – Internal adoption of Codex 43:40 – Skills that matter: curiosity, agency, adaptability 46:45 – OpenAI’s “Do Things” culture 51:30 – Adapting to an AI future 55:15 – The opportunities ahead: healthcare, research 01:01:00 – Async workflows and the superassistant 01:05:40 – Favorite ChatGPT tips Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.