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1–800-ChatGPT

Now, you can call your favorite AI and have a meaningful real-time conversation.

John Iovine
1 min readDec 19, 2024
Licensed

What’s Happening:

  • OpenAI is making it possible to interact with ChatGPT, through a traditional landline. By dialing 1–800–242–8478 (1–800-CHATGPT), users can converse with the AI using their phones.
  • This setup replicates the experience of OpenAI’s Enhanced Voice Mode — it is a real-time, two-way conversation with ChatGPT.
  • The AI can handle common requests, including answering general questions or translating languages, all through voice commands.
  • To encourage exploration, OpenAI is initially offering American callers 15 minutes of free talk time each month.

Why It Matters:

This approach bridges the digital divide, particularly benefiting individuals who do not own smartphones, and aligns with OpenAI’s larger vision of making artificial intelligence useful and accessible to as many people as possible. Seniors, for example, may find this especially helpful, and it’s a format worth paying for if it helps older family members comfortably engage with AI.

This is an experimental launch, so service availability, features, and limitations are not guaranteed and will evolve over time. Nonetheless, this is a meaningful step toward expanding AI’s reach beyond the computer screen and instituting better user-friendly technology for interacting with AI’s.

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John Iovine
John Iovine

Written by John Iovine

Science writer, thinker, self-experimenter, focusing on personal development and health — www.john-iovine.com

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