šŸ˜ŗ Rufus

PLUS: The internet is changing in a big way

Welcome, humans.

Our favorite Hollywood actors always taught us to use your platform for social change (satire, sort of), so here we go: Dear OpenAI, lately, ChatGPT-4 has been a big pain in the arse, refusing to respond to the simplest of questions. We know you're busy, but kindly address this at your earliest convenience. With love, N & P. šŸ§”

Hereā€™s what you need to know about AI today:

  • Amazon announced an AI conversational shopping experience.

  • Bard got an upgrade with Gemini Pro and can now generate images.

  • ChatGPT performs pretty damn well in technical interviews.

  • Meta is developing its proprietary AI chips.

Amazon is making its shopping experience more like ChatGPT.

Amazon

Amazon is called ā€œThe Everything Storeā€ for a reasonā€”you can literally buy everything you want.

However, these days, ā€œeverythingā€ means endless scrolling through Chinese ripoffs that make it difficult to find what you actually want (for us, thatā€™s Charmin Ultra Soft).

Amazon believes AI can preserve Bezosā€™ cherished customer experience ethos.

In September, it introduced AI-generated product descriptions for sellers, followed by AI-summarized reviews two months later. BUT, in our (mostly) humble opinion, these were low-hanging fruit.

Yesterday, Amazon announced its boldest AI move yet: Rufus, an AI shopping assistant well-versed in everything about ā€œThe Everything Storeā€ā€”including its product catalog, customer reviews, and community Q&As.

Amazon

Itā€™s a conversational layer on top of the regular shopping search experience. So, instead of simply searching for ā€œheadphones,ā€ you can engage Rufus in a back-and-forth dialogue, asking:

  • ā€œWhat should I consider when buying headphones?ā€

  • ā€œWhich headphones are best for long runs?ā€

  • ā€œCompare the newest AirPods to Raycons.ā€

*why this matters in a secā€¦but first* ā†“ā†“ā†“

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Just describe your dream environment in detail, and Auctoria brings it to life in minutesā€”not monthsā€”without skimping on quality. This tool is a game-changer for:

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The internet is evolving from search to chat.

Why it matters: While weā€™re far from fashion gurus, Rufus just feels like a superior shopping experience if Amazon can pull it off.

BTW, not to get too existential, but are we moving towards a future where websites are essentially navigated by AI assistants?

Itā€™s a possibility.

Readers know that weā€™re big fans of Perplexity, which sifts through the internet for us so we donā€™t have to scan a sea of Googleā€™s blue links.

And hereā€™s another example:

The tongue-in-cheek commentary from insiders is that AWSā€”Amazonā€™s cloud services and a cherished sponsor of oursā€”became so complex that instead of making it easier to use, Amazon just slapped a chatbot called ā€œQā€ on top of it.

AWS

In other words, Q is programmed with your organizationā€™s entire knowledge base, letting users ask business questions directly vs. hunting for information across various tabs.

As for us? Weā€™re not opposed to saving time!

Around the Horn.

  • Bard is getting an upgrade with Gemini Pro and can finally generate images using Googleā€™s Imagen 2 model.

  • Meta is building its own AI chips to lessen its reliance on Nvidia.

  • Google is using AI to improve discovery on Google Maps.

  • 73% of Microsoft Copilot users report that its new AI features helped them complete tasks faster.

  • A less expensive ChatGPT-3.5 Turbo is now available for developers!

Intelligent Insights.

  • How Beloved Indie Blog 'The Hairpin' Turned Into an AI Clickbait Farm (link).

  • How hard is it to cheat with ChatGPT in technical interviews? We ran an experiment. (link).

  • Hottest Job in Corporate America? The Executive in Charge of A.I. (link).

  • How Copyright Should Work in the Age of AI: Readers Weigh In (link).

  • Salesforce AI CEO Clara Shih says AI is a ā€˜moving targetā€™ ā€” but her aim is steady (link).

Friday Faculty.

  1. 42 technical & non-technical roles at Moveworks (all over the place).

  2. Software Engineerā€”Machine Learning at Meta (Menlo Park/remote).

  3. Machine Learning Engineer at ServiceNow (San Diego/remote).

  4. 34 open jobs at Waymo (mostly in the Bay Area).

  5. 12 open roles at UpstageĀ AI (remote).

Search from over 10,000 AI roles to find your perfect fit on The Neuronā€™s Jobs Board.

A Cat's Commentary.

Thatā€™s all for today, for more AI treats, check out our website.

Get your brand in front of 250,000+ professionals here.

See you cool cats on Twitter: @nonmayorpete & @noahedelman02

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