OpenAI, the private company that developed ChatGPT, an artificial intelligence that converses in natural language, is seeking to raise capital in deals that would value the company at $30 billion, the Financial Times reported.

The firm held a value of about $20 billion in 2021, the FT noted.

OpenAI has offered to sell existing shares to venture groups, including Founders Fund, a firm created by tech billionaire Peter Thiel.

Last month, OpenAI released the newest version of its chatbot, which drew more than a million users in five days.

OpenAI is swimming against the current.

In 2022’s last quarter, the value of venture capital deals fell to $763 million, the first quarter it has fallen below $1 billion since before 2012, according to data service Pitchbook.

OpenAI was created in 2015 by Paypal co-founders Thiel and Elon Musk and venture investor Sam Altman to develop “safe” artificial intelligence. In 2019, Microsoft bought a $1-million stake in the business to co-develop new AI technologies.

TREND FORECAST: The growing capacity of AI will speed the shift of humans’ loss of control: instead of individuals being able to carry out mental processes, those processes are being taken over by digital intelligences, from simple calculators that eliminate the need for children to learn arithmetic to programs such as Chat GPT that erase the need for persons to learn to compose coherent prose, as we noted in our Top 2023 Trend, “AI: We Own You” (3 Jan 2023).

The more AI can do for us, the less we will become able to do for ourselves.

As with so many technologies, AI’s technical capability will evolve much faster than humans’ ability to understand its consequences – a prospect we emphasized in “AI Probably Will Become Impossible to Control, Researchers Warn” (27 Sep 2022).