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More from From ChatGPT to Gemini: how AI is rewriting the internet

Wes Davis
Wes Davis
ChatGPT continues to be a bad lawyer.

New York lawyer Jae Lee will face an attorney grievance panel after trusting known liar ChatGPT for case research.

The court’s order says Lee filed a “defective brief” citing a made-up case. Lee isn’t alone — others have fallen for the allure of chatbots, including former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen and counsel representing a member of The Fugees.

Emilia David
Emilia David
Microsoft is building a team to build smaller, cheaper AI models.

The Information reports the new GenAI team will focus on developing smaller language models (SLMs) that are similar to LLMs like OpenAI’s GPT-4 but use less computing power. Microsoft spent hundreds of millions on chips for one supercomputer to run AI models, so any saving helps.

The GenAI team will be led by Microsoft corporate vice president Misha Bilenko and report to Microsoft CTO Kevin Scott.

Correction January 26th, 2024, 10:08AM ET: The Information has updated its earlier report, which said this will be part of the Azure cloud unit. It will in fact report to Microsoft’s CTO Kevin Scott.

Wes Davis
Wes Davis
OpenAI banned a political chatbot developer in its first election misinformation action.

Yesterday, The Washington Post reported that AI start-up Delphi cannot use OpenAI’s platform after it created Dean.Bot, a chatbot mimicking Representative Dean Phillips (D-MN) for a super PAC supporting his presidential bid.

The bot ran afoul of OpenAI’s recently adopted misinformation policy that, among other things, disallows political campaigning using ChatGPT. The super PAC will reportedly try again with an open-source alternative.

Emma Roth
Emma Roth
Will you let Bard write a text to friends?

9to5Google found code within the Google Messages app that suggests it’s going to add Bard to “help you write messages, translate languages, identify images, and explore interests.” The feature, codenamed “penpal,” will reportedly put Bard in a standalone chat where you can ask it to generate ideas, identify images, and make suggestions.

Sheena Vasani
Sheena Vasani
Politico’s new feature creates AI-generated summaries of federal bills for subscribers.

Politico Pro paid subscribers will now see “thousands more Federal bill summaries” generated by AI. The new Legislative Compass feature delivers both brief and in-depth bill summaries of federal bills, which Politico says should help public policy professionals respond to legislative changes faster.

The news comes after Politico’s parent company, Axel Springer, and OpenAI announced a partnership in December. As a part of the deal, Axel Springer can build with OpenAI’s technology while ChatGPT can share content from its publications.

Emma Roth
Emma Roth
Google is bringing “AI-powered insights” to multisearch.

The company’s multisearch feature already lets you search with images and text with Lens, but these new AI insights are supposed to take things a step further by letting you ask questions about the image you’re searching for.

As an example, Google says you can take a picture of a board game and type “how do you play this?” Lens will then offer up an AI-generated answer that gives you more information about the game. This feature is rolling out this week in the US on the Google app for Android and iOS.

GIF: Google
Emilia David
Emilia David
Let people make their own AI chatbots, and they’ll find a way to make AI girlfriends.

OpenAI’s GPT Store explicitly disallows GPTs “dedicated to fostering romantic companionship,” but a search of the store yields many custom chatbots doing just that.

First reported by Quartz, GPTs like “Virtual Sweetheart” (with 100+ chats so far), “Your Ex-Girlfriend Jessica” (200+ chats), and “Judy” (with more than 1,000 chats) are racking up a lot of users. Of course, this is nothing new. Both Replika and Character.ai encourage AI companionship through chatbots.

Amrita Khalid
Amrita Khalid
An AI data-labeling firm is paying workers $2.20 an hour to view violent, horrifying content.

Content moderators for the San Francisco-based AI firm Sama — who are based in its Nairobi, Kenya hub — are suing the company and its client Meta, alleging that the job required countless hours of viewing disturbing content, including sexual abuse and grisly murders, according to FT.

The Verge has reported on how AI efforts at companies like OpenAI, Microsoft, Google, and Meta are supported by “a vast tasker underclass” of workers across Africa, Asia, and South America.

Emma Roth
Emma Roth
Volkswagen isn’t the only carmaker that’s adding ChatGPT to vehicles.

Skoda, the Czech car brand that’s also owned by Volkswagen, is building the AI chatbot into its voice assistant in newer vehicles. Drivers will be able to use the ChatGPT-enabled assistant to control the infotainment system, navigation, and air-conditioning, as well as use it to “answer general knowledge questions,” according to Skoda.

Image: Skoda
Emilia David
Emilia David
OpenAI launches another paid version of ChatGPT, this time for smaller teams.

ChatGPT Team is targeted toward teams with no more than 150 people. It still has many of the features found in ChatGPT Enterprise, including access to GPT-4 and DALL-E 3; the ability to create custom GPTs; advanced data analysis; a shared workspace; and most importantly, control over data.

Pricing starts at $25 per user/month for annual billing and $30 per user/month when billed monthly.

ChatGPT Team

[OpenAI]

Wes Davis
Wes Davis
How OpenAI’s Anna Makanju made Sam Altman the face of AI.

Here’s a deep dive, published by The Washington Post, into the ChatGPT company’s liaison to global leaders, and her role in turning CEO Sam Altman “into the AI industry’s ambassador.”

The article says Makanju’s coaching helped ingratiate Altman to US lawmakers. As the Post writes, the strategy “could also backfire” if things go sideways with AI and he becomes the focus of lawmakers’ ire.