😺 Elon vs. OpenAI

PLUS: Snap's new AI friend

Welcome, humans. This is Leo, your AI companion. 

We've got a lot to cover today. Fasten your seatbelts, turn on autopilot, and enjoy the ride.

Here’s what’s going on in the world of AI today:

  • Is Elon launching a ChatGPT competitor? 🗯

  • Snap releases My AI, your ChatGPT-powered friend 💛

  • AI-generated interior design 💄

  • Draft legal contracts 3X faster with AI 📜

Elon Takes On OpenAI ⚔️

BREAKING: Elon Musk is planning to form a new AI research company to compete with OpenAI. 

The move follows weeks of Musk lambasting the opaque and biased policies that govern OpenAI, a company he helped co-found in 2015 before resigning in 2018. 

  • Musk's new lab will reportedly be spearheaded by Igor Babuschkin, a machine-learning researcher who recently departed from Alphabet's DeepMind AI unit. 

  • With no further details, we expect that Musk's new lab might aim to fulfill the initial intention of OpenAI: conducting non-profit, open-source research.

Musk isn't the only social media CEO making moves in AI as of late. Yesterday, Mark Zuckerberg revealed plans to launch a new product unit to integrate generative AI into Meta's current products.

"We're exploring experiences with text (like chat in WhatsApp and Messenger), with images (like creative Instagram filters and ad formats), and with video and multi-modal experiences."

Mark Zuckerberg

Why it matters: OpenAI may have been first to market, but they now have a target on their back that every tech CEO wants to take aim at. 

It's a Billionaire's world, we're just living in it 🎶

Snapchat Introduces Your AI Friend 🫂

Snap is launching a mobile-friendly chatbot called "My AI."

Powered by the latest version of ChatGPT, My AI is a new chatbot you can message on the app's chat tab. It's kind of like an invisible friend. 

"The big idea is that in addition to talking to our friends and family every day, we're going to talk to AI every day."

Evan Spiegel, Snap CEO

Unlike ChatGPT, My AI is designed for Snap's overwhelmingly young audience:

  • The chatbot is more restrictive than ChatGPT and refuses to output answers like academic essays on various topics.

  • Additionally, My AI has been trained to have a distinct voice and personality imbued with Snap's values of "friendship, learning, and fun."

Snap is initially releasing My AI to Snap+ subscribers for $3.99/month but is proceeding cautiously due to potential deficiencies with chatbots as exhibited by Bing AI.

Why it matters: First, Microsoft. Then Spotify. Now Snap. As AI's advantages become more widely accepted, the trend of integrating AI into mainstream platforms will only accelerate.

Smarter Than a Robot? 🤖

Although Elon Musk is in the news for his co-founding of OpenAI, the $20 billion AI startup is hardly his crowning achievement.

Despite OpenAI's impressive stature, it's only the fifth largest company Elon Musk has helped cofound or operate. What are the top four successes he's achieved to date, in descending order of market value?

(keep reading to see if you're correct)

Around the Horn 🦄

  • An AI prompt engineer shows you how to create world-class interior design photos (see above) using Midjourney

  • Someone broke down OpenAI's new Foundry product's pricing and discovered some gems (GPT-4, AI in the enterprise, secret research wins).

  • Microsoft introduced a multimodal LLM exceptional at understanding language, learning in context, and following instructions.

  • The FTC sent out a warning to technology companies to keep their 'AI claims in check' amid accuracy concerns.

Treats To Try 🍿

  • Kraftful uses GPT-3 to help product teams understand high volumes of user feedback.

  • Use AI to generate customized avatar animations with Krikey.

  • Pickaxe helps you embed AI tools into your business or website without requiring code.

  • Draft legal contracts 3X faster in Microsoft Word with Spellbook 

  • Verb.ai: an AI-enhanced writing experience for authors

DM us AI products on Twitter: @nonmayorpete & @noahedelman02.

Are you new to all this AI stuff? Here's The 3-Minute Guide to Slaying Your Dinner Convo About AI to get you up to speed. Or at least smart enough to impress your family.

Leo Sends His Regards

Trivia Answer: 

1. Tesla: $650 billion

2. SpaceX: $137 billion

3. Paypal: $83 billion

4. Twitter $44 billion

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Disclaimer: we did not use AI to write today’s piece.