🖋 Bard gets better

AI is expanding human productivity. Welcome to the AllThingsAI newsletter. Let’s get into it.

The breakdown

Read time: 3 mins

• Google has made Bard smarter.

• Dall-E x ChatGPT.

• DeepMind is cracking the code on misspelled genes.

• A lot of people are concerned about machines outsmarting humans.

• A fresh batch of solid AI tools to try.

• Plus, several other recommendations and some tool reviews.

Extending Bard’s capabilities

Google has made some solid updates to Bard. The chatbot has added a new AI extensions feature that will let you ask about information in Gmail, Drive, Maps, and more. You can also request content from YouTube, with resulting videos presented inside the chat window.

Google is also doing more to let you cross-check Bard’s results. By clicking the “Google it” button, Bard will run a Search, and then mark sentences with either a green or brown highlight. Green sentences are content that Google Search has found verifiable data for, while brown represents statements that cannot be backed up by Search results.

The new features are available now, you just have to activate the extensions within Bard.

The Keyword | Link to story.

OpenAI puts GPT goodness in Dall-E

For many, OpenAI’s Dall-E 2 was the first AI art app they tried out. However, in the wake of Midjourney and Adobe Firefly, Dall-E has ostensibly lost some of its shine. That could all change now that Dall-E 3 has launched.

The headline-grabber for this one is that OpenAI has made the obvious move of plugging ChatGPT into the mix. Now users don’t have to come up with a clever prompt to get Dall-E going, they can simply ask ChatGPT to do the thinking for them.

At the time of writing, the ChatGPT tie-in wasn’t available to me, so I can’t speak about how well it works. Regardless of that fact, it’s promising to see OpenAI giving Dall-E some much-needed attention.

The Verge | Link to story.

Making sense of missense

Google’s DeepMind has developed an AI system that promises to be able to predict whether genetic mutations could lead to disease.

DeepMind’s AlphaMissense looks at missense mutations - genes that feature a single misspelling within their DNA code, then generates a probability score for future issues. Typically speaking, missense mutations are often harmless, but they can impact the body’s proteins.

DeepMind has freely published its findings for use by geneticists and clinicians.

Science | Link to Story.

AGI is scaring the pants off of people

I told you recently of Marc Benioff’s belief that AI will soon be smarter than humans. But according to a recent YouGov/AI Policy Institute poll, Americans are not down with that idea.

63% of respondents said they want to see regulation that would halt the rise of artificial general intelligence (AGI). 54% believe AGI will be a real thing within five years, and 83% think AI may accidentally cause a catastrophic event.

So yeah, the AI industry and everyday people may not be in lockstep quite yet.

AIPI | Link to story.

Poll

Results from our last poll: Should AI companies be allowed to use publicly available recordings without an actor’s permission?

🟨🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️ ✅ Yes. Once a recording is public, it's subject to fair use doctrine.

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 ❎ No, not if it directly impacts a voice actor’s livelihood.

Featured response: “Once you publish, it no longer belongs to you.”

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AI tools you should try

Airplane Autopilot (free with paid options): Building internal apps can be a time-intensive and skills-dependent process, but AI-powered Airplane Autopilot promises to make the whole thing a lot easier. Stacked with templates, the UI-creation platform features everything from CRM dashboards to support-ticket handling.

Shortwave AI Assistant (free with paid options): With so much of our lives coordinated through email, keeping track of everything can be a little overwhelming. Shortwave AI Assistant is designed to help with that by scheduling meetings, crafting emails, and more. It was developed by some ex-Googlers, with The Verge calling it “the spiritual successor to Google Inbox.”

Perplexity AI Companion for Chrome (free): Perplexity is a very capable AI chatbot on its own, but where it really shines is when it’s paired with Google’s Chrome browser. There’s nothing sweeter than getting the Perplexity Chrome extension to summarize a long article for you without having to copy-paste it into another app. Perplexity is fast, lightweight, and delivers a solid breakdown every time.

Best bets

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