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🤖 Microsoft Reinvents Windows with AI

Plus, OpenAI Exodus and Microsoft's Broken Promise

May 22, 2024

Hello AI Enthusiast,

OpenAI continues to take us on a rollercoaster ride of major releases and controversies. Last week, they wowed us with the impressive multimodal capabilities of their new GPT-4o model. But this week, the drama is back in full force. They faced big staff changes, possible legal issues, and public criticism from none other than Scarlett Johansson.

While it wasn't OpenAI's best week, the same can't be said for Microsoft. The tech giant made an intriguing AI product release and even teased us with a humorous video. However, it seems Microsoft may fail to keep the sustainability promise they made 4 years ago. 😢

This week showed both the excitement and controversies around today's AI boom. Read more about these and other AI news in our roundup below.

The Big Picture 🔊

OpenAI Employee Exodus

OpenAI has seen key departures from its safety team, including Ilya Sutskever and Jan Leike. Both were leaders of the superalignment team, which focused on keeping AI aligned with human goals. Internal conflicts and loss of trust in CEO Sam Altman have driven at least seven safety-conscious employees to leave since last November. The employees were worried the company is moving too fast without enough focus on safety. Leike didn't take it lightly.

💡Our Take: It looks like the company isn't giving enough support to their safety team to keep up with rapid releases and commercial goals. The fact that they launched their model just before Google I/O shows they're racing to be first. Departing staff are researchers, not business-focused, which contrasts with CEO Sam Altman's apparent focus on funding and business. Also, OpenAI's communication isn't great, with lots of complaints on social media from former and current employees, and, honestly, Altman isn’t very good at communicating either. This only hurts their image.

Microsoft Unveils Copilot+ PCs for On-Device AI

Microsoft introduces Copilot+ PCs, a new generation of Windows laptops featuring high-performance Neural Processing Units (NPUs) for advanced AI capabilities on the device. These laptops promise 40+ trillion operations per second, all-day battery life, and functionalities like photographic memory, real-time AI image generation and live translation. Starting at $999, the devices are positioned to compete with Apple's MacBook Air. Plus, the new Copilot app, with OpenAI’s GPT-4o multimodal capabilities, will be available to all users this year.

💡Our Take: These NPUs ensure smooth performance even when running heavy applications like Adobe. Their partnerships with Adobe and other major names such as DaVinci give them a serious competitive edge. It's also interesting to witness some novel Copilot features, thanks to its new multimodal abilities. For instance, the video below shows Copilot watching a computer screen and assisting with Minecraft, hinting at exciting possibilities, even though solving Minecraft’s puzzles might not be the first application businesses think of.

Have You Used the ChatGPT App in Voice Mode?

With the rise of desktop apps that can be controlled by voice, talking to AI is becoming the next big thing. Have you tried using the ChatGPT app in voice mode? If so, how did you like it?

Login or Subscribe to participate in polls.

Microsoft's Climate Goals Affected by AI Focus

Microsoft's greenhouse gas emissions have jumped by 30% as the company focuses more on AI, making it harder to reach its 2020 promise to become carbon negative by 2030. The energy needed for training and running AI models is very high, causing more pollution. Their latest report displays a big rise in carbon emissions, showing the environmental challenges big tech companies face with their AI investments.

💡 Our take: Microsoft's 30% rise in emissions shows a big downside to AI growth. While tech companies focus on their race to advancing AI, they must not ignore the environmental costs. Treating global warming as a problem that tech alone can solve isn’t helping.

Bits and Bobs 🗞️

Educational Pill 💊

Microsoft's Recall Feature Explained

Microsoft just announced Copilot+ PCs, a new class of Windows laptops featuring Recall. This feature uses AI to help you find things you've seen or done on your computer. Recall continuously captures snapshots of your activities, including apps, websites, and documents.

These snapshots are processed and organized into a local semantic index using natural language processing. The system maps relationships and associations between different pieces of information based on your usage patterns. It creates a timeline of your activities, allowing you to scroll through and find specific tasks. Object recognition identifies key elements within snapshots, suggesting relevant actions.

From the Tribe 🫂

Last week, we asked how many of you use tools like ChatGPT or similar ones. 82% of voters said they use them regularly or sometimes. So, most of you are pretty familiar with these AI products that are becoming part of our lives.

One comment caught our attention—it was kind of interesting and funny. Someone said: “I just use it to catch students cheating--I put my exam or homework prompt in and see what the predictable vapid language of the LLM will be. Students just take whatever chatgpt spits out wholesale--even though the rules of the class forbid it."

Using AI to catch AI is definitely a unique idea. Students should probably either write their own stuff or learn to adjust ChatGPT’s recognisable language.

From Our Channels 🤳

As we saw from this week's news, Microsoft is working on creating a smarter Copilot for their devices. Companies are likely to invest a lot in this technology. But, are workers ready for these changes? Gianluca has his opinion on this.

@gianluca.mauro

People are not going to use AI just because your company has bought some ChatGPT or Copilot licenses.

Our Gen AI Project Bootcamp is back for its seventh edition, starting on July 8th and lasting two months.

If automating tasks and speeding up your workflows using AI sounds appealing, you'll definitely want to check this one out. Over 2 months, you'll learn how to craft effective AI prompts and turn them into functional prototypes. No coding required! Plus, you can get hands-on experience testing the newly released ChatGPT-4o model to build powerful automations.

We've opened the waiting list, and signing up now gets you early bird discount (a cool €300 off the regular price).

We’d recommend joining the waitlist if this is something on your radar.

LOLgorithms 😂

Sam Altman: “Agreed” 😉

That's a wrap on our newsletter! Here’s a quick recap before you go:

Catch you next week! 👋