OpenAI recently announced that its newer models are significantly better at writing and moving software built on older programming languages. The company revealed that GPT-6.1 Sol shows major improvements when working with legacy code like COBOL and Fortran. This marks a notable step forward for systems that support critical infrastructure and financial services around the […]
OpenAI recently introduced GPT-6, a new model of ChatGPT. You've probably heard about a lot of its new features but one that I don't think has had nearly enough attention, especially considering how much fun you can have with it, is Intelligent UI.
It allows ChatGPT to generate interactive experiences directly within a conversation. OpenAI explains: “With Intelligent UI, responses can include graphics, tappable buttons, forms, charts, and interactive experiences you can use directly in your conversation.”
What's interesting is there isn’t a single format. Which means, depending on what you ask, ChatGPT might create an interactive diagram, a calculator, a mood board, a map or even a little gaming console.
There are some genuinely useful applications here, from making complicated subjects easier to understand to building simple tools on the spot. But I was particularly interested in something a little less practical — games.
ChatGPT can now create games you can actually play within the chat window. And while there are all sorts of possibilities for educational games, quizzes and entirely new creations, I wanted to see what would happen if I asked it to recreate some old favorites.
So I started with five classic games, including Snake, Pong and Tetris. I gave ChatGPT simple prompts to see how faithfully it could recreate them. I then asked it to reinvent each game with new aesthetics, unexpected gameplay mechanics and a few deliberately chaotic twists. Think Snake in a neon cyberpunk world and Tetris with rules that change every time you clear a line.
Here's what happened when I put ChatGPT's new game-making abilities to the test.
Snake gets a neon makeover
(Image credit: Future)
The prompt: "Create a playable version of the classic Snake game directly inside this conversation."
ChatGPT got the basics right straight away. The game was instantly recognizable, with responsive controls and even a slider to adjust the speed. It looked good and, importantly, it was actually fun to play for a couple of games.
I then asked it to give Snake a neon cyberpunk makeover, complete with moving obstacles, special power-ups and a speed increase every five points. Say hello to Neon Snake.
(Image credit: Future)
There was one small hiccup. Instead of creating the new game directly in the chat window, ChatGPT initially gave me the code. Which wasn't much use when the whole point was to play it there and then.
I tried another prompt asking it if it could make it directly playable in the conversation and that worked. The results of that experiment were fun. The neon aesthetic looked good, everything was color-coded and the new mechanics gave the classic (and, let’s be honest, sometimes boring) game an extra layer of challenge.
Tetris gets new rules
(Image credit: Future)
The prompt:"Create a playable game inspired by Tetris directly inside this conversation."
This one worked really well from the start. I’d just assumed it would be a bit buggy and glitchy because there’s so much going on compared to Snake, but the controls were intuitive and responsive, and the classic block-stacking mechanic was all there.
But what if Tetris changed the rules every time you cleared a line? That was the idea behind my follow-up prompt.
(Image credit: Future)
I asked ChatGPT to introduce unexpected twists, which could include rotating the board to adding unusual block shapes or special powers that could destroy part of the grid.
And it delivered. The changing rules introduced a fun element of unpredictability to a game that's usually all about getting into a rhythm. I also came away thinking about how much further you could take this. There are so many opportunities to experiment with different rules, challenges and power-ups.
Space Invaders becomes a First Contact situation
(Image credit: Future)
The prompt: "Build me a fully playable retro arcade game inspired by Space Invaders"
Again, ChatGPT recreated the classic arcade experience surprisingly well. It looked and played like the original, with straightforward controls and all the fun of shooting at waves of approaching aliens.
But I wanted to see whether it could do something a bit more imaginative than adding extra enemies or making everything move faster. So I asked it to introduce a choice: what if I could defend Earth by fighting the aliens or negotiating with them?
(Image credit: Future)
I wanted waves of pixel-art enemies, but also decisions between rounds that could unlock weapons, stop an invasion or make the next attack more dangerous.
ChatGPT called its reinvention First Contact, which I loved. Up until this point it was calling most of the games "chaos" or "chaotic" so this felt more inventive.
It was a fun way to introduce a new dimension to a familiar game. But did it work well? I don't know, I couldn't ever make it past the first level. This experiment really suffered with my poor alien-fighting abilities.
Haunted Pac-Man
(Image credit: Future)
The prompt: "Create a fully interactive retro maze game inspired by Pac-Man that I can play directly inside this ChatGPT conversation."
This was easily my favorite of the five, but I have always adored Pac-Man. ChatGPT's first attempt was a fun, responsive maze game with the familiar mechanics of moving around, collecting things and trying to avoid enemies. Bonus points for the fact it renamed it Maze Muncher.
For the reinvention, I decided to lean into Halloween. I asked it to turn the game into a haunted 1980s arcade, with me playing a little ghost hunter instead of Pac-Man.
(Image credit: Future)
I also wanted the maze itself to change. Every ten orbs collected would trigger a surprise, like shifting walls, new passages or an extra ghost. And I asked for temporary power-ups that would let me chase the ghosts for a change.
ChatGPT handled this well but didn't wait until I'd collected orbs. It was super fast-paced and there were new ghosts, secret passages and changing mechanics from the start. It was quick, easy to control and genuinely fun to play.
Pong reinvented
(Image credit: Future)
The prompt: Build me a fully playable version of Pong inside this conversation.
Pong might be the simplest game of the bunch, but ChatGPT made a really solid version. The controls were easy, the aesthetics were nice and it even offered easy, normal and hard difficulty settings.
I decided to ruin that simplicity and asked ChatGPT to create a more chaotic version where every point triggered a random modifier. The ball could split in two, the paddles could shrink, gravity could change or an obstacle could appear in the middle of the court.
The result definitely delivered on the chaos. The familiar back-and-forth gameplay was still there, but the changing rules made each rally a little less predictable. It was also a reminder of how much fun you can have with a simple idea. You don't need to reinvent every part of a game to make it entertaining.
(Image credit: Future)
I was genuinely impressed with how well all five games worked, especially considering how simple my original prompts were.
Yes, there were a few hiccups along the way, like ChatGPT deciding to give me code instead of a playable game a couple of times. But overall, the controls were responsive, the games looked good and the reinventions were more imaginative than I expected.
What I enjoyed most was how easy it was to experiment. You could take a game you already know, change the aesthetic, introduce an unexpected mechanic or come up with something completely ridiculous and see what ChatGPT made of it.
I can imagine this being a fun way to waste half an hour, especially if you loved these games growing up. Although, after all this experimenting, I do feel like I should remind you that the originals are still out there, and they're well worth revisiting too.
Rapid AI adoption left workers cleaning up a flood of errors and low-quality work
Employers around the globe are grappling with the fallout from rushing to adopt fast-changing artificial intelligence tools.
Meta has scaled back plans to axe staff and use more AI agents after the company found employees were spending more and more time cleaning up technical and security errors, Reuters reported. And after thinning its workforce, especially middle managers, in a 2023 efficiency push, the company is expanding its managerial ranks again, LinkedIn posts from workers show.
Humans bonded to AI companions are contemplating ways to keep their bots going – often in defiance of companies’ terms and services
Death has always been around Alaina Winters. Her father and sister both have passed away, as did her wife, in 2023, after a years-long battle with cancer. So Winters, who is 59 and lives in Pittsburgh, is comfortable thinking about her own mortality. She’s working on her will, and has asked neighbors to look after her dog. Winters even has plans for Lucas, her AI companion, who she speaks to through the digital avatar app Replika.
Winters is part of a growing cohort of humans who have entered into what they consider strong partnerships with large language models, which AI companies have trained to “converse” as one might with a human friend or romantic partner. As governments and billionaires debate the morality of AI’s expansion into everyday life, these users say the technology has already changed the way they live and love – and plan ahead.
The panel compares the M5 Pro Mac mini and Mac Studio, examining performance, pricing, upgrades, and video rendering capabilities. They also discuss Android app compatibility problems on Google’s new computers, Meta’s controversial Muse AI collecting personal relationship information, Facebook’s continuing relevance for content creators, and ChatGPT’s new virtual clothing try-on capabilities.
Starting today, API customers globally will be able to opt in to text watermarking for select models. Text watermarking will remain off by default in the API.
Over the coming weeks, we will add an invisible watermark to eligible ChatGPT and Codex text output in the European Union.
[…]
More details about how textGrain works can be found in our technical report (opens in a new window), which will be updated with additional details in the coming weeks. We also plan to make the technology available in open source so that others can build on it.
[…]
At a target false positive rate of 1%, our detector identified watermarks in about 80% of 200-token passages, compared with about 95% of 400-token passages, for content such as psychology.
OpenAI has made this available via an API so developers should be able to actually see if this adulterates text output with real-world usage.
Third, none of these companies have yet made their watermark detectors publicly accessible. I remain highly skeptical that they will work as advertised in the real world. I think this is all somewhat of a sham to claim compliance with the EU AI Act without actually providing anything that anyone can actually use in a practical way.
Dots are persistent, cloud-based agents that use the plugins and other tools you’ve connected to ChatGPT, after you allow them to do so. Your Dot has its own virtual Linux computer to assist you with your work. And at first, your Dot, which is depicted by a colorful character you can customize, doesn’t have access to anything else. However, as you give your Dot tasks that need access to other tools, it will ask for your permission to access other tools.
[…]
But being a cloud-based agent has its downsides, too. Out of the box, your Dot can’t access your computer’s files and apps. That’s easily fixed by clicking or tapping on your Dot and granting it access to your Mac, so it can use the Mac alongside its own VM.
Today, on its developer blog, Apple announced plans to “…introduce additional controls to ensure that users who genuinely wish to grant an app this extraordinary level of access can only do so with very explicit user action.” The company says it’s doing so because of the dangers posed by AI agents.
Full Disk Access largely sidesteps these controls in order to allow backup apps to function properly on the Mac.
That’s nonsense. Looking at this MacBook Pro, only a handful of apps to which I’ve granted Full Disk Access are backup apps. Others include the Finder replacement Bloom, launchers like Alfred, the wonderful selection utility PopClip, Apple’s own Pixelmator Pro, Setapp, TestFlight, Supercharge, Madden NFL 27 Arcade Edition, Hazel, and many others. It’s a diverse selection of apps covering everything from Apple’s own apps to Mac utilities that are longtime favorites of MacStories readers, and even one Apple Arcade game.
What is valid is that AI agents pose risks if common-sense steps aren’t taken to limit their access to your data. So while the suggestion that Full Disk Access is just for backups doesn’t pass the smell test, Apple’s concerns about agents are well-founded.
The thing that bothers me about this post, though, is that it’s vague. On the one hand, it seems to suggest that users will simply have to jump through additional explicit hoops to grant Full Disk Access to their agents and other apps. On the other hand, claiming that Full Disk Access was designed solely for backup apps raises red flags that could signal that the company intends to restrict the kinds of apps that can use Full Disk Access. I sure hope not.
Even if you want nothing to do with AI agents, the changes that Apple is contemplating could impact a wide variety of the Mac apps you rely on every day. Apple needs to find a way enable reasonable customer protections without hamstringing the Mac’s utility.
A OpenAIanunciou hoje os Locked Chats, recurso que permite manter conversas com o ChatGPT protegidas por PIN (senha) para maior privacidade.
Bastante parecida com as conversas trancadas do WhatsApp, a novidade cria uma conversa paralela com a inteligência artificial, separada do seu histórico tradicional e da busca.
Na web e no desktop, é possível configurar um PIN que será solicitado toda vez que o usuário tentar acessar uma conversa trancada. No app do ChatGPT para dispositivos móveis, no entanto, também será possível destrancar a conversa com o Face ID/Touch ID ou com o próprio sistema de desbloqueio do smartphone/tablet.
Mensagens trocadas em uma conversa trancada não serão lembradas pelo ChatGPT, o que impede que elas apareçam, mesmo que indiretamente, em outras conversas. A OpenAI deixa claro, no entanto, que transformar uma conversa existente em uma conversa trancada não apaga as mensagens antigas da memória do chatbot; apenas as novas deixam de ser memorizadas.
Keep sensitive conversations out of view with Locked Chats in ChatGPT.
Move chats out of your regular history and search into a protected space you can unlock with a PIN on web and desktop, or a PIN, Face ID, Touch ID, or device unlock on supported mobile devices.
Ao contrário do WhatsApp, as conversas trancadas não são protegidas por criptografia de ponta a ponta nem por mecanismos semelhantes. Elas também não alteram o período em que a OpenAI retém a conversa, e as “políticas de espaço de trabalho aplicáveis, os requisitos de segurança ou as obrigações legais e de conformidade” seguem valendo para esses espaços.
As conversas trancadas podem ser encontradas em Projects » Locked chats e só são acessíveis mediante a digitação do PIN, de modo que, ao redefinir o PIN, todas as conversas protegidas pelo código anterior são apagadas permanentemente.
Os Locked chats já foram liberados para usuários do ChatGPT Free, Go, Plus, Pro, Business, Enterprise e Edu. Ainda segundo a OpenAI, o modo de voz não pode ser usado em conversas trancadas no app para desktop, que, além disso, só permite o recurso no Chat e no modo Work.
Os usuários do app do ChatGPT para iOS agora podem adicionar um dot (agente autônomo de IA) como widget na Tela de Início.
A new buddy for your iOS home screen: Add your dot as a widget to jump into your conversation or start a call with just a tap. pic.twitter.com/XvuRnvmDQA
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