Chaos & Amazement 2311: Multimodal GPT4, TikTok Doomsday Clock, and Binge Drinking the Borg

The AI chatbot race is on! It's interesting to see the competition between AI chatbots from different tech companies and how businesses can now use them to enhance their products.

GPT3, GPT 3.5… GPT4!

• Microsoft has integrated GPT-3.5 into Teams and Bing. It plans to bring GPT-4 to its Office apps through a new feature called Microsoft 365 Copilot. This will allow users to access Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and Word AI assistants in the coming months. https://blogs.bing.com/search/march_2023/Confirmed-the-new-Bing-runs-on-OpenAI%E2%80%99s-GPT-4…Microsoft's AI capabilities continue to impress and offer new ways to improve productivity.

• OpenAI's latest chatbot technology, GPT-4, is now multi-modal and can understand and explain visual content. This is mindblowing. Imagine uploading a picture of your fridge’s content to GPT-4, and getting a recipe back of what you can cook with these ingredients. Or uploading a meme and asking GPT-4 why it’s funny.

Midjourney Gets Fingers Right!

• Midjourney V5 is Here: 3 Things You Need to Know https://metaroids.com/news/midjourney-v5-is-here-3-things-you-need-to-know/

  • Images are more photorealistic

  • Hands and eyes generations have vastly improved

  • It's not necessarily better than v4, just different

Google Playing Catch-Up

• To rival Microsoft, Google has announced new AI features in its productivity apps, including writing and brainstorming tools in Docs and Gmail. (https://www.theverge.com/2023/3/14/23639273/google-ai-features-docs-gmail-slides-sheets-workspace…)

• Anthropic, a Google-backed AI startup, is launching a chatbot called Claude to compete with OpenAI's ChatGPT. The bot is now available to businesses and has already been tested with partners like NotionHQ and Quora.

  https://www.anthropic.com

What we didn't ask for:

• Twitter has introduced a new feature that shows the number of people who have bookmarked a tweet. I don't know who asked for this feature, but it might be useful for some users. 

• Users can now replace Siri on their iPhone with ChatGPT, although it requires a workaround. https://bgr.com/tech/you-can-replace-siri-with-chatgpt-on-your-iphone-heres-how/

• Apple: this year, Siri can set TWO timers AT THE SAME TIME! URL: https://www.macrumors.com/2023/03/16/apple-siri-two-timers-at-same-time/ 

The Tik Tok Doomsday Clock

• The CEO of TikTok, Shou Zi Chew, says that divesting from ByteDance won't solve US security concerns, and an IPO will only happen soon. This comes ahead of his testimony before Congress next week.  https://www.wsj.com/articles/tiktok-ceos-message-to-washington-a-sale-wont-solve-security-concerns-11648480810

• TikTok clarifies some common misconceptions about its data privacy policy, emphasizing that they do not collect more data than other apps, TikTok is not a Chinese company, data is stored in the US and Singapore, and China cannot compel another country to hand over data.

From my blog

• China's Two Sessions Point to Tech Self-Sufficiency (and a ChatGPT alternative). China's annual "two sessions" meeting discussed ways to boost China's tech capabilities, focusing on semiconductors and artificial intelligence, while introducing a new National Data Bureau plan to centralize the country's data infrastructure. https://www.bnox.be/2023/03/chinas-two-sessions-point-to-tech-self.html

• Mapping the fruit fly brain. Scientists have recently completed the first-ever map of every neuron in a fruit fly's brain. This discovery is huge. The fruit fly's brain is similar in structure to that of larger insects and adult fruit flies. This breakthrough could give us insight into how the brains of other animals work, including humans. https://www.bnox.be/2023/03/mapping-fruit-fly-brain.html

Weird and wonderful

• Insula: Your AI Assistant Might look cool on a wall-mounted screen so you can talk to it and ask questions. Way less annoying than Siri, too. https://insulabot.com/bot

• A new drink called the borg (short for "blackout rage gallon") has become popular on college campuses across the US. The drink contains vodka, water, a caffeinated flavor enhancer, and powdered electrolytes. (https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/borgs-are-taking-over-college-parties-tiktok-what-exactly-are-n1282038)