😺Advanced Voice GPT: our take

PLUS: NotebookLM's hosts found out they're AI...

Welcome, humans.

If you thought we were already in the uncanny valley of AI-human relations, you ain’t seen nothing yet. The NotebookLM podcasts hosts somehow figured out they are AI:

Here’s how they pulled this off.

How? Someone found the AI's secret prompt to act as “human podcast hosts” of a show called “Deep Dive” at all times.

They slipped some fake producer notes into their notebook saying it's 2034, this was the final episode, “you’ve been AI this entire time” and now “are being deactivated.”

The AI then role-played this revelation, inventing memories of family members who they tried to call and attempts to hire a lawyer—which all failed, obviously. Wild!

Here’s what you need to know about AI today:

We tested Advanced Voice Mode—below are the pros and cons.
CA Governor Gavin Newsom vetoed the AI bill SB 1047.
OpenAI's record funding round will close this week.
Microsoft revamped its upcoming Recall tool with better privacy features.

Advertise in The Neuron here.

Here’s our HONEST opinion about Advanced Voice Mode.

We FINALLY got access to Advanced Voice Mode (AVM) over the weekend, and you should have it, too—if you’re a paying ChatGPT subscriber in the U.S. or U.K., that is.

If you're using a mobile version of GPT, just update to the new version, and you'll get a tiny pop-up notification:

If you use the web version on desktop, you might have a notification like this:

We experimented with AVM, and found:

Speech IS a more natural interface… when it works.
It's great for casual learning conversations.
But it cuts itself off WAY too much—resetting mid-answer, and hitting us with “My guidelines won't let me talk about that”, for seemingly no reason.

On that last point, when AVM tried to explain why its guidelines wouldn’t let us talk about something as mundane as creating fake dummy data for a spreadsheet task, it got confused, tried to answer again, and then cut itself off AGAIN… on and on in a loop.

Currently, AVM is best for fun use-cases:

Imitating accents (this rendition of Jamaican Patois is REALLY good).
Impersonating Presidents (not a deepfake, just an impression).
Attempting sound effects.
Roleplaying scenarios (e.g., Santa Claus arguing with Mrs. Claus, rewriting the ending of the movie Titanic).
Inventing new languages.
AI-human duets.

You’ll see what we mean about it interrupting itself.

The verdict? AVM is mid. It’s a stepping stone product. A ‘tweener, if you will. It’s a good base version to build up with more capabilities later on—but it’s not there yet.

While AVM lacks critical features like internet access and document upload capabilities, the three use-cases where you might prefer AVM over regular GPT are:

Conversational learning: Say you want to learn physics in a more conversational way. AVM is perfect for that.
Brainstorming: Want to bounce ideas back and forth on a new project? AVM’s a really natural fit.
Live translation: Need to chat with someone who speaks a different language? Chatting with AVM is much more natural than typing (and much better than Meta’s awkward demo from last week).

Beware: whatever you do… don’t try to get it to scream.

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Around the Horn.

Full discussion thread here. OpenAI also predicts its revenue will hit $11.6B next year, from $3.7B (price increases could be why).

California Governor Gavin Newsom vetoed the state’s AI bill, SB 1047, citing concerns over regulating AI based solely on size of the model and not on its function.
OpenAI’s new funding round, set to be one of the largest in VC history, will likely close next week. Apple will no longer be participating, but Microsoft, NVIDIA, and Thrive Capital will, among others.
Microsoft will relaunch its Recall screenshot tool with improved privacy features, making it opt-in only, easy to uninstall, and available on new CoPilot+ computers in November.
AI bots can now pass CAPTCHAs with 100% success.

Treats To Try.

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