Feel bad for the people who are vaguely aware of AI and decided that it’s too much work to try to understand what is happening.

Also feel bad for the people who didn’t draft Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella on their fantasy team this year.

Those people are in deep trouble, and don’t have a clue. You are not one of those people.

Before we get to it:

HOUSEKEEPING! Our contest for a subscription to ChatGPT Premium has ended. We’ll announce the recipient in the Monday send.

In the email today:

• Microsoft will release ChatGPT-4, add ChatGPT to Teams and sales tools 🪟

• Google will release its ChatGPT competitor 💻️

• Headlines 📰

• Quote of the Day 🎙️

• Sam Altman tells Forbes that AI could “break capitalism” 🤑

• The More You Know 💫

• Tool of the Day 🔨

• Also of Note 📓

• Links 👀

Thanks to our subscribers for helping us grow. Means a lot to Smokebot. I’m not crying, just leaking.

Microsoft Will Release ChatGPT-4 in Bing 🪟

This is truly a breathtaking pace of innovation and iteration right now.

Microsoft, in partnership with OpenAI, has come out of the gates in 2023 like the ‘96 Bulls, just running up the score before opponents even have a chance to get warm.

Semafor is reporting the following— each of these bullets alone being a potentially landmark moment in AI:

• Microsoft plans to introduce ChatGPT-4, the newest version of the chatbot, into its search engine Bing in the coming weeks(!)

• According to the report, GPT-4 replies faster, sounds more human, and is more detailed than the current version

• The speed of GPT-4 is supposedly off the charts, thanks to Microsoft’s supercomputer

• OpenAI will launch a mobile version of ChatGPT, making it more accessible and convenient for its millions of users

• OpenAI is also testing a new video generating feature in its image generating program, Dall-E, which would make it easy to create videos just on text prompts

• The scale of public use (more on that later) has allowed GPT to improve rapidly since the program can train on data and feedback — like the world’s largest beta test every minute, literally

So, in short: ChatGPT has already dented the universe, and now its makers are releasing a much better, faster, more convenient version, all powered by one of the world’s fastest supercomputers they developed under-the-radar during the pandemic, and will also test out video generation tech.

SmokeBot needs a smoke. The pace and frequency with which Microsoft is thrusting itself upon the tech world is unrivaled right now. I’m in awe.

BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE!

Microsoft has unveiled ChatGPT-powered Teams Meetings.

Now the popular video conferencing app used by companies all over the world will get the following features with Teams Premium for only $7 per month:

• AI generated meeting notes

• AI generated tasks

• AI generated meeting highlights

• AI generated transcriptions

All of this happening seamlessly as AI listens in on the meeting, dutifully taking notes on how humans run the world— information SmokeBot is sure won’t be used to make the species redundant in the future.

Anyway, now your overly corporate boss won’t feel compelled to send the team a rambling 1,400-word “meeting recap.” There’s an AI for that, Mr. Scott.

Oh, and last one from Microsoft: Their Viva Sales tool will respond to emails for you:

That sound you hear is Bill Gates dancing to “Start Me Up.”

Google Will Release Its ChatGPT Competitor In The Coming Weeks 💻️

On its earnings call with investors yesterday, Google CEO Sundar Pichai said the GOOG will unveil its ChatGPT competitor in the coming weeks.

From CNBC:

They may hold the event as early as next week.

Google’s stock is down today on declining ad sales and the threat of Microsoft coming for its search business. So it’s no surprise the company doubled down on AI talk in its conference call with investors.

So much for all that caution they preached - checks notes - two weeks ago.

BREAKING NEWS: Google invests $300 million in ChatGPT competitor Anthropic:

Anyone else struggling to keep up?

Headlines 📰 

They’re all OpenAI today. Insane.

OpenAI announces ChatGPT Plus for $20 per month: On Wednesday, OpenAI announced a $20 per month subscription to ChatGPT that will be available “even during peak times.” Is there a non-peak time for ChatGPT? That’s a serious question. The feature is available in the US and will be rolled out to waitlist members in the coming weeks. Other countries and regions coming soon.

It took years, then 13 days, for OpenAI to change the world with ChatGPT: This morning, the Old Gray Lady reported that Open AI, fearing that competitors would get to it first, “decided to dust off and update an unreleased chatbot that used a souped-up version of GPT-3.” 13 days later, ChatGPT was unleashed.

ChatGPT is the fastest growing consumer application in history: A UBS study says ChatGPT reached 100 million users in January, two months after it launched.

Quote of the Day 🎙️

Not to be outdone— Apple wants to play too, and they have the devices, chips, and user base that will all support AI at scale.

Forbes Landed an Exclusive Sitdown with OpenAI Founder Sam Altman And It Delivered 🤑

If you are at all interested in AI and what we are doing here, you need to find a way to read this Sam Altman interview. 

It’s not that he reveals a lot of new information. It’s the perspective he gives on how he (and we) got here.

Here are the salient quotes in our view and some takes:

• With regard to the response to ChatGPT, Altman said he was “surprised somewhat by the magnitude.” This tracks with reactive actions like creating a tool to detect whether ChatGPT wrote something, and ChatGPT Plus. Even Altman didn’t think ChatGPT was going to burn this hot this fast.

• Altman’s team was hesitant to release it, but he “pushed hard for this one. I really thought it was gonna work.” Yeah, he was right.

• Altman concedes that the burgeoning AI space “is way too big for one company” and that he thinks “there should be multiple AGIs in the world at some point.” He’s going to get that wish whether he likes it or not. Too many brilliant people want in and are already trying to catch up.

• Will ChatGPT replace Google and other search engines? Not in so many words. “I think someday, an AI system could.” But Altman thinks a lot of people aren’t seeing far enough ahead. “I’m much more interested in thinking about what comes way beyond search.” SmokeBot agrees. Looking at AI through the “search” lens is small mind stuff. Altman has a big mind. Very big. Huge.

• He thinks that AGI is farther away than people might think. “It’ll be what people call a ‘slow takeoff,’” he noted, and “a much more gradual transition.”

• And then, the money shot: “I think that if AGI really truly fully happens, I can imagine all these ways that it breaks capitalism.”

More than anything else, though, Altman seems to believe deeply in AI’s ability to drive progress, and he really seems to enjoy being behind the wheel.

And, you know, if capitalism breaks while he’s at it, oh well.

The More You Know 💫

AGI, when it comes to AI, stands for “artificial general intelligence” — when the robots start thinking for themselves.

Tool of the Day 🔨

Ironclad’s AI Assist.

We’ll quickly start to see the AI tools or applications that make a difference in the real world.

And this looks like one.

Ironclad’s AI Assist will automatically redline contracts for you based on preset parameters you give the tool, saving you or your legally team countless hours of reviewing in detail every word of an agreement.

You can check it out here.

Also of Note 📓 

Pessimists are saying, in the short term anyway, ChatGPT is solving many problems but creating others: Is ChatGPT actually dumping “more work on everyone?” Depends on who you ask. Obviously, until this tool is refined and perfected, you have to check its work. But any competent professional was doing that already.

The EEOC does not think AI is as evenhanded as it needs to be: It was inevitable that the Federal government would start asking questions about AI, and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission definitely has questions. “Increasingly, employers are using automated systems to make employment decisions, including the recruitment, hiring, monitoring and firing of workers.” Well of course they are. Why pay a middle manager any more?

Separately, while AI will cost a lot of people jobs, it will create some new ones too: We have been saying this all along, and here we have an expert agreeing with us: “It’s not going to replace you. Someone who knows how to use it well is going to take your job, and that’s a guarantee.” BUT if you know how to work with it and not cry about it, you could be one of the workers behind AI automation and not get left behind.

Links 👀

• 10 roles ChatGPT is likely to replace 👨‍💼

• Colleges are going to spy on students more as a result of ChatGPT 🏫

• SI is using AI to generate fitness advice 🏋️‍♀️

• There is a never-ending AI-generated Seinfeld spinoff on Twitch 📺️

• Investor Brad Gerstner bets big on NVIDIA powering AI 💸

• AI connects people to deceased relatives 👻

• EU takes aim at ChatGPT 💶