Gary Marcus said that on 2023-03-23 Microsoft had put out what he called a press release masquerading as science, which claimed that GPT-4 was an early (yet still incomplete) version of an AGI system.

The substantive claim is that around 23 March 2023 Microsoft (including its researchers) published a document stating that GPT-4 could be seen as 'an early (yet still incomplete) version of an artificial general intelligence (AGI) system'. Calling it a 'press release masquerading as science' is Marcus's characterisation, not a factual test. True: a Microsoft-authored document with that statement was made public on 2023-03-23, or a little before. Mostly true: such a document with that statement exists and was released within a few days of 23 March 2023 (for example on 22 March), or it is a research paper rather than a formal press release, with the substance otherwise as stated. Mostly false: Microsoft published such a document, but the wording materially differs (for example it does not describe GPT-4 as an early version of AGI), or it was released well away from that date. False: no such Microsoft document making that statement existed.

Set before the research began.

1. E1 Sparks of Artificial General Intelligence: Early experiments with GPT-4 ar5iv (arXiv HTML rendering of arXiv:2303.12712)

   “Given the breadth and depth of GPT-4’s capabilities, we believe that it could reasonably be viewed as an early (yet still incomplete) version of an artificial general intelligence (AGI) system.”

2. E2 Microsoft Researchers Claim GPT-4 Is Showing "Sparks" of AGI Futurism · 23 March 2023

   ““Given the breadth and depth of GPT-4’s capabilities,” they continue, “we believe that it could reasonably be viewed as an early (yet still incomplete) version of an artificial general intelligence (AGI) system.””

3. E3 Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) Is A Very Human Hallucination Forbes (Gil Press, Senior Contributor) · 28 March 2023

   “Microsoft researchers reported on March 22 the results of their investigation of an “early version” of GPT-4, claiming that it exhibits “more general intelligence than previous AI models.””

4. E4 Sparks of Artificial General Intelligence: Early experiments with GPT-4 | CenterConsulting CenterConsulting · 22 March 2023

   ““Sparks of Artificial General Intelligence: Early experiments with GPT-4” was submitted to arXiv on March 22, 2023 by a Microsoft Research team led by Sebastien Bubeck, with co-authors including Eric Horvitz and Yin Tat Lee.”

E1 and E2 confirm that a document by Microsoft researchers, "Sparks of Artificial General Intelligence: Early experiments with GPT-4", says GPT-4 "could reasonably be viewed as an early (yet still incomplete) version of an artificial general intelligence (AGI) system", matching the quoted wording. E3 and E4 date its release to 22 March 2023 on arXiv, one day before the date the claim implies. It was also a research paper rather than a formal press release. Under the criteria, those two differences make the verdict mostly true.