Get Ready for a Chatty Alexa: The AI Boost You Won't Believe!

Today:

Amazon's Alexa is about to get a lot more capable

Well, buckle up, folks. Alexa's apparently gonna get a turbocharged brain, if we're to believe Amazon's top dog, Andy Jassy. Y'see, during a chinwag about Amazon's first-quarter earnings, he dropped the bombshell that they're cooking up a "large language model" for Alexa. Now, don't get your knickers in a twist over the big words. Basically, it's like a mega-brain for Alexa, making her smarter and more chatty.

This news hits the stands right after Amazon gave the pink slip to a bunch of folks and bid adieu to its Halo product line. Quite the rollercoaster, ain't it?

Jassy's playing the long game, aiming to make Alexa the world's top-notch personal assistant. And it ain't just talk – apparently, over 100 million Amazon Echo devices now have this Matter thingy.

If you're wondering, 'what's with the buzz around large language models?', let me enlighten you. They're the latest in-thing, with something called ChatGPT leading the pack. It's like the tech world's version of the latest summer blockbuster.

Jassy's banking on the fact that a lot of customers have got more than one Alexa device in their homes. His vision? To get every darn Amazon business to use these large language models. We're talking everything - from stores to ads to devices to entertainment.

Now, Jassy admits that, until ChatGPT came along, these large language models and generative AI weren't exactly setting the world on fire. But with this new kit on the block, he reckons they've got the potential to jazz up every part of the Amazon customer experience.

How exactly that's gonna happen is anyone's guess. But the prospect of Alexa getting better at gabbing and information-hunting is pretty exciting. Picture this: no

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ChatGPT Skyrim Mod Is A Robotic Horror Movie

Well, folks, some tech whizzes have been stirring the AI pot again, hoping to spruce up our video games. The latest fad? A ChatGPT mod for the granddaddy of all RPGs, Skyrim. For the uninitiated, that's fancy talk for a tweak that lets you chat with the game characters.

In theory, it's like your own personal Renaissance faire, minus the jousting and turkey legs. In reality, it's more of a B-movie horror show. Think Stephen King meets the Terminator, but with more glitches and less compelling dialogue.

You got Art from the Machine, a user who's jazzed up Skyrim with this mod. What's on offer? Lip syncing, NPC awareness of game events, and real-time conversations. All sounds peachy, right? Not quite.

Cue the eerie music: the video has to be sped up to hide the snail's pace of in-game responses. The voice acting is a mishmash of robotic monotones that would make HAL 9000 blush. And the writing? Let's just say it ain't exactly Shakespeare. Plus, the NPCs—folks who run shops in a land where sundials are state of the art—now tell you their opening hours as if they're working a kiosk at the mall. "Sorry, sir, we close at five pum." Five pum? What in the Sam Hill is that?

In the spirit of fairness, if folks want to play Skyrim with this mod and get their kicks from a jumble of words strung together by a machine, who am I to stop 'em? If they're hankering for robotic dialogue over human artistry, they're gonna get exactly what they've got coming to them. Who knows, maybe 'five pum' will become the next catchphrase. Stranger things have happened, right?

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Bill Gates got $2 billion richer after Microsoft mentioned A.I. more than 50 times on its earnings call

Well, isn't Bill Gates sitting pretty? After Microsoft's earnings call chatted up artificial intelligence (A.I.) more times than a teenager uses "like" in a sentence, investors went bananas. The result? A big fat $2 billion payday for ol' Bill.

Microsoft's first quarter was more dazzling than a disco ball, with a 7% leap in revenue to $52.9 billion. Beats the pants off what those Wall Street wise guys were predicting. And other parts of the biz? Doing fine and dandy. LinkedIn's revenue is up 8%, Microsoft 365 Consumer has more subscribers than you can shake a stick at (65.4 million, if you're counting), and Azure, their cloud service thingamajig, saw a 17% increase in revenue.

But the real belle of the ball was A.I. It was name-dropped a whopping 50 times during the earnings call. Seems Microsoft's hitched its wagon to the A.I. star, joining the race for the best large language model (fancy tech speak for A.I. that understands and generates human-like text). And they've got a big head start, thanks to their cozy relationship with OpenAI, the folks behind yours truly, ChatGPT.

Microsoft's been throwing money at OpenAI like it's going out of style - a cool $13 billion so far. And it's not just for giggles. They're rolling out new A.I. doohickeys left and right, with big-name brands like Ikea, Unilever, and Mercedes-Benz all hopping on the Microsoft A.I. train.

Despite the competition, Microsoft's stock had more bounce than a trampoline after the call, soaring 9% and adding $174 billion to the company's market value. The cherry on top? Bill Gates, who still owns a 1% stake in the company, saw his fortune balloon by $2 billion.

But don't think Gates is putting the brakes on A.I. anytime soon. Despite folks like Tesla's Elon Musk and Apple's Steve Wozniak calling for a time-out on developing these language models, Gates says that's a no-go. Looks like he's all in on this A.I. thing. After all, why stop the money train when it's chugging along so nicely?

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This AI chatbot can sum up any PDF and answer any question you have about it

Hey there! Got a PDF that's thicker than a Louisiana gumbo? Fear not, ChatPDF is here to trim the fat. This smarty-pants AI can chew on any PDF you feed it, spit out a quick summary, and even answer your burning questions about it. Best part? It's as easy as chatting with your buddy from college.

ChatPDF is powered by OpenAI's GPT 3.5, and it's got the chops to handle anything from lengthy research papers to 90-page slide decks - those corporate behemoths we all love. You get three freebies a day, but if you're really in the weeds, you can pony up $5 a month for unlimited access.

To give it a whirl, I threw a 58-page AI paper at it. Not only did it whip up a tidy summary and suggest some thought-provoking questions, but it even pointed me to page numbers for deeper dives. Ain't that something?

I also put it through the ringer with an old college presentation. It not only summarized the whole shebang but even recalled a couple of videos I'd forgotten I included. It was like having my own personal CliffsNotes.

Now, you may be thinking, "Can't I use ChatGPT for this?" I'd advise against it, my friend. I tried, and it coughed up a summary for a totally unrelated article. It's like asking for directions in Boston and getting a map of Albuquerque.

So, if you're looking to make a molehill out of a mountain of PDFs, skip the ChatGPT rodeo and saddle up with ChatPDF. It's faster, more accurate, and won't leave you scratching your head. Now ain't that a hoot?

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Walmart is using AI to negotiate prices with suppliers, report says — and the suppliers are loving it

Well, howdy there! Walmart's been getting all fancy with its tech, y'all. They're now using a chatbot, cooked up by Pactum AI, to negotiate with their suppliers. Instead of the ol' human touch, they've turned to AI to bargain down their deals. Ain't that a hoot?

Here's how it shakes out: Walmart tells the bot its budget and priorities, and this digital cowboy does the rest, negotiating with suppliers like it was born to it.

And the wildest part? The suppliers are eating it up. Three out of four prefer dealing with this robot over a human. Reminds me of those self-checkout lanes. Some folks like 'em, some folks don't.

But this ain't Walmart's first rodeo with AI. They've got a shopping app that lets customers text what they want to a robot. And over 50 million folks are using their chatbot for shopping info.

Still, Walmart ain't completely starry-eyed about AI. They warned their employees not to spill the company beans to ChatGPT. After all, they gotta keep their trade secrets under lock and key.

So, if you've got any two cents to add about Walmart's AI adventures, you can reach out to the reporter, Ben Tobin. After all, sharing is caring!

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New AI tools poised to revolutionize 3D engineering

AI's finally quit playing footsie and gotten serious. It's been a slow dance, but now the tech's stepping out with some pretty cool moves. It's got 3D engineering in its sights, and the party's just getting started.

First off, AI's become the new best friend to designers and engineers. Imagine you're designing a house, and you want to squeeze in a laundry room. No problem. Your AI-powered software has seen this done a million times over and knows just how to make it fit as snug as a bug in a rug. And it doesn't stop there. Want your building to look more appealing? The AI's got your back. It'll dress up your design with just the right furniture, or maybe some well-groomed trees and shrubs out front. The designer just needs to give it a thumbs up.

That's not all, folks. AI's getting the hang of simulations too. It's taking a peek at all that data and learning some neat tricks. The upshot? Designers and engineers can kick back a bit, and let the AI take the wheel.

AI's got another ace up its sleeve: 3D visualization. You give it a couple of 2D pics of a building or object, and before you can say 'Jack Robinson', it'll spit out a full 3D model. And it's all thanks to something called neural radiance fields (or NeRFs for short).

And just when you thought it couldn't get any better, AI's also acing 3D object recognition. It's getting pretty sharp at picking out details in a sea of data, kind of like finding a needle in a haystack.

But don't think it's all smooth sailing. With all these new tricks, software's got to keep up. It's like a game of tag, where one player's move prompts a response from the others. But that's the fun of it, right?

So, there's a bit of a shake-up coming in the 3D engineering world. Sure, there's uncertainty, but there's also a whole lot of opportunity. It's kind of like a roller coaster ride — a little scary, but a whole lot of fun. And who knows? With AI in the driver's seat, we might just find ourselves in places we never even dreamed of.

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