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Hello, Friends!
Welcome to the first-ever edition of Strange Magic! You’ll learn, you’ll laugh, you’ll question the nature of reality. It’s a hoot. Things move fast around here. So, buckle up!
In this edition of Strange Magic…
📍 Ai is coming for your shirts!
📈 ChatGPT is having some ups and downs
🦁 Your next creative partner is in the computer
🍑 That is definitely not Elvis… but is it?
Read time: 6 minutes
🔮 What’s New
Humane Ai Pin
The hardware startup Humane emerged from 5 years of stealth mode at the TED conference in April. Now the team, with $230M in funding, has released some new details on their first product. It’s called the Humane Ai Pin. And, the big question on everyone’s mind? Why did they use a lowercase “i” in “Ai”?
While many details still remain a mystery, like what the Ai Pin will look like, the official release date, and the pricing, Humane has offered up some new info for its supposed iPhone killer. (Wait, there’s a lowercase i in iPhone. Could it be?)
What they have shared about their “clothing-based wearable device”, is that it’s meant to let you take AI with you everywhere, it’ll use a custom Snapdragon processor, and it’ll be out later this year. The waitlist for the still mysterious device is open now.
But, the question remains, are we looking at Jarvis 1.0 or Google Glass for your shirt pocket?
OpenAI continues to dominate most news cycles with constant updates, occasional mishaps, and new words for things. This week was no different. Let’s start with updates.
OpenAI just announced the release of one of its most powerful features to all users of ChatGPT Plus ($20/month). According to the release notes, the feature, called Code Interpreter, “lets ChatGPT run code, optionally with access to files you've uploaded. You can ask ChatGPT to analyze data, create charts, edit files, perform math, etc.” Is data analysis about to get fun?
In an unfortunate tradeoff of sorts, OpenAI has, at least temporarily, removed its Browse With Bing feature, because the kids weren’t playing nice. It turns out that when users would ask for the full text of a webpage, ChatGPT would sometimes return “unexpected” results like returning text that ignored paywalls and privacy settings. OpenAI said in a blog post that they are just disabling the feature “out of an abundance of caution while we fix this in order to do right by content owners.”
But, weren’t we promised new words for things? That’s right! OpenAI is spinning up a team of researchers to develop “superalignment”. Why do we need superalignment? Here’s the short version. In the future, the not-so-distant future, we may have superintelligence from our AIs. And, we humans will no longer be able to align systems that are way smarter than we are. So, we need to develop “a roughly human-level automated alignment researcher.” Basically, replace ourselves in the alignment chain with a non-superintelligent AI that can be scaled iteratively to superalign the superintelligence. It sounds pretty super.
One more thing… After gaining recognition for having the fastest-growing user base ever, ChatGPT saw its first month of declines in site traffic. Should we call this the end of the AI hype cycle? Highly doubtful. As more apps come online, AI users are finding new places to spend their time, many of which run on the ChatGPT API anyway. Or maybe, people are getting outside more. And, that wouldn’t be such a bad thing.
In Other News
The Grammy’s have decided that music with “AI-created elements” can still bring home trophies. But sorry AI, only the human-made parts are eligible for now.
While AI isn’t yet taking (most of) our jobs, it might not be helping us find them either. New YorkCity, has passed the first US law over AI bias, aimed at keeping hiring fair when the machines are reading the resumes.
TikTok has added text-to-image generation to its Effect House app. This means you can generate a pretty impressive AR face mask with a prompt. So naturally, we made a Juggalo! Grab it for free with the QR code below. But, please wear with care.
TikTok
📖 Good Reads
AI explorer and Creative Director Jenny Nicolson meticulously outlines how to prime ChatGPT to be a formidable creative partner and idea generator. Spoiler alert, it’s not quite as simple as a two-word prompt. In her words, “If you are a lazy thinker who just says “ME WANT IDEA” guess what? You’re gonna get lazy ideas.” The best takeaway? “Don’t talk to it like it’s a machine.” If you want more out of ChatGPT, read this now.
Sure, in a Stanford survey of AI researchers, more than one-third of respondents suggested AI could lead to “nuclear-level catastrophe”, but analyst and essayist Alberto Romero doesn’t like the sound of that. So, he’s proposed 3 alternate and more poetic ways that AI could wipe us out. If things don’t go as planned, my vote is for “The Big Fork”.
More Reads
⚙️ Try These
Wondercraft If you make written content, Wondercraft promises to turn your prose into a podcast with a few pastes and clicks. The platform combines AI-generated voices and AI writing tools to package existing content into a professional-sounding podcast with direct-from-platform publishing. How’s that sound?
Submagic If you make video content, particularly for TikTok or Reels, then Submagic could be your answer for quick captioning. The AI-powered auto-captioner includes “trendy” text templates, 🚗 auto-emojis, and keyword highlights.
Picsart AI Gif Generator In a blog post, Picsart calls this their “latest (and most unhinged) addition” to the creator platform. The free tool generates animated GIFs ranging from quirky to flat-out bizarre through basic prompting. Can’t find the perfect GIF of a cat on an invisible bike? Just generate your own! … sort of.
Which way did he go?
🧪 The Lab
Beginner: ChatGPT’s Code Interpreter tool adds a ton of functionality to the platform. Since it’s available to everyone now (with a paid plan), take the time to scan these 18 use cases for Code Interpreter from AI Explained.
Intermediate: Curious about generating music with AI? The creative mind behind Nobody and the Computer offers this entertaining tutorial for coaxing midi audio notation out of ChatGPT. Worth a watch for the Bach x Kubrick reference alone.
Advanced: AI-generated video is promising, but mostly hilarious and terrifying so far. But, advanced AI creators can generate much more consistent animations with a few tricks outlined here by Digital Magic.
✨ We’re Diggin’
Wurld
Wurld is a fictional future… well world, created by Bold Crow where autonomous AI agents weave a story that evolves without human interference. Each of the factions (autonomous agents) provides a daily report that advances the story.
Text-to-image generative AI models are getting better every day, but here’s the real reason AI art struggles with hands.
Has Elvis re-entered the building? This might be what he’d sound like covering “Baby Got Back”. You other brothers can’t deny!
🌤️ Fresh Air
Sometimes you just need a break from the robot overlords.
Just in time for the Women’s World Cup, the Frech telecom, Orange dropped this hocus-pocus video that proves that female athletes are just as dynamic as their male counterparts.
AI is pretty good at mimicry, but it can’t touch Mary Elizabeth Kelly, and her spot-spot on “one-word impressions”.
Kick back to these sweet summertime Hawaiian vinyl grooves from My Analog Journal.
Well, that’s enough strangeness for one day. Hope you learned something new. If you enjoyed it, please tell your friends! Our robot needs a new pair of shoes.🤖
And, of course, if you have anything interesting to share, or just want to say hi, please feel free to reach out to us!