AI Insider No. 7

Hello and welcome to AI insider, the every now and then newsletter that brings you updates from the world of artificial intelligence. In plain English. Your hosts: Bing, Bard, ChatGPT, and Michelle Johnson, retired journalist and journalism professor. If you’re new here, I started this newsletter by request. Friends reading my posts about AI on Facebook demanded a newsletter. Since I’m retired and not looking to work too hard, I decided to hire the chatbots to report and write. I edit and chime in. Don’t expect daily, or even weekly newsletters. I publish when I’m in the mood. If you’re OK with that, feel free to subscribe.

AI vs. Newsrooms: The Battle is On

As AI’s text-generating capabilities continue to improve, it seems a battle is brewing between AI and newsrooms. Major media companies, including The New York Times and NBC News, are considering measures to protect their content against AI systems. They fear AI programs could republish their content without credit, threatening their business models. Trade organization Digital Content Next has released seven principles for managing generative AI.
— ChatGPT

Adobe Opens Firefly to Business World

Adobe has just announced a new platform for its Firefly generative AI model, which can help organizations create content for marketing, design, education, and more. Firefly, currently in beta, can generate images from text-based descriptions in seconds. [I’ve been beta testing Firefly and I like it quite a bit. Not as dramatic as, say, MidJourney, but it’s been trained on solid Adobe Stock images, so no need to worry about copyright issues. — MJ]

Firefly for Enterprise will let businesses access Firefly through various Adobe products, such as Creative Cloud, Express, or a standalone app. Businesses can also train Firefly with their own branded assets, which will enable Firefly to replicate their style when generating content.

The enterprise edition will launch sometime after Firefly comes out of beta. Adobe has not disclosed the pricing details yet, but it will be based on the needs and size of the organization.
— Bing

Bard Now Exports to Google Sheets

Bard, Google’s AI-powered writing assistant, has been updated with a new feature that makes it easy to export tables to Google Sheets. This can be helpful for a variety of purposes, such as storing and organizing data, analyzing data, and sharing data with others.

To use the export to sheets feature, simply click on the “Export to Sheets” button at the bottom of any table generated by Bard. This will open a new Google Sheets spreadsheet with the table data.

The export to sheets feature supports the following data types:

Numbers
Text
Dates
Times
Formulas

Export to sheets will preserve the formatting of your tables, including fonts, colors, and borders.

How would you use this? Easy. Ask Bard to make a table in your prompt. Example: Compare the Macbook Air 13 inch laptop to the Macbook Air 15 inch laptop and format the specs as a chart. You should see an “Export to Sheets” link in the lower right-hand corner of the chart.

To learn more about the export to sheets feature, please visit Bard’s documentation.
— Bard (Yes, Bard wrote about Bard.)

Dopey AI Headlines of the Week

You’ve seen ‘em. AI-related headlines forecasting the end of the world as we know it. Reports of chatbots running amok. Hilarious hallucinations. Sometimes you just gotta laugh. Here’s a roundup of a little feature we’re calling “Dopey AI Headlines of the Week”!

‘Hold off from having kids if you are yet to become a parent,’ warns AI expert Mo Gawdat
Seriously? You’re an AI expert, not an OBGYN. Stay in your lane, bro.

Why AI Will Save the World
If A.I. wants to kill us, it better hurry up
Well, which is it? Pick one.

When AI and Blockchain Merge, Expect the Mundane at First
OK, but did anyone ever figure out what the blockchain thing is? Anyone?

US woman marries chatbot she created using AI
Is there a registry? (Haha. Inside joke. Google AI Model Registry.)

— Michelle Johnson