OpenAI is expanding access to DALL-E 3

OpenAI is expanding access to DALL-E 3, its advanced image generation technology, exclusively for premium ChatGPT users. As of Thursday, subscribers to ChatGPT Plus and Enterprise tiers will gain in-app access to DALL-E 3, renowned for its enhanced text-to-image conversion capabilities. In preparation for this broader release, OpenAI has fortified its safety protocols to address and neutralize potential misuse.

Introduced just a month ago, DALL-E 3 has demonstrated significant advancements over its predecessor, DALL-E 2. This innovative model integrates seamlessly with ChatGPT, enabling users to craft more detailed, imaginative prompts to produce precise visual content. Interestingly, Microsoft took the lead in offering broader public access to DALL-E 3 through its Bing Chat and Bing Image Generator, ahead of its integration into ChatGPT.

Despite built-in safeguards, past instances of generating inappropriate content — such as cartoon characters depicted in relation to the 9/11 attacks — have raised concerns. While specific prompts leading to such outputs were subsequently blocked, users found alternative ways to create similar controversial images.

The journey has not been smooth for text-to-image technologies overall, with platforms like Midjourney, Stable Diffusion, and previous versions of DALL-E attracting criticism. These tools have inadvertently generated copyrighted materials, unauthorized explicit images, misrepresented ethnicities, and unsettlingly accurate depictions of public personalities, sparking widespread controversy.

This time, OpenAI assures a more robust approach, highlighting extensive research and development efforts behind DALL-E 3 on a dedicated website. The organization commits to restricting the model’s tendencies to replicate existing art styles, generate public figures’ likenesses, and ensuring diverse demographic representation in its creations. Additionally, OpenAI is banking on an internal tool, the “provenance classifier,” boasting a 99 percent accuracy rate in identifying DALL-E 3-generated images, reinforcing their dedication to responsible AI use.