😺 Bard v2

PLUS: why we might be living in a simulation...

Welcome, humans.

Those shrivelled little “aliens” in Mexico may not be real, but if we had to make some predictions, the world’s only going to get crazier from here.

Give your cats (and dogs, fine) a big cuddle today for keeping the world sane.

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

Bard v2 can sync with Google apps, but isn’t very good.
Research found that AI characters can show human-like behavior.
OpenAI wants redteaming experts to spot risks in its models.
TikTok is letting creators “label” AI content.

Google’s Bard Got An “Upgrade”.

this would be great … if we’ve ever had an annual gala

UPDATE: Bard v2 is here, and this version can access Drive, Docs, Gmail, Maps, YouTube, & more.

UPDATE: It stinks. So far, at least.

The big draw of Bard v2 is that it can work with content in Gmail, Docs, & Drive, so that you could ask things like: “Bard, pull up the key points from our Q3 meeting notes in Docs and create an agenda summary in email format.”

Great in theory, awful in practice.

We tested it with dozens of prompts (similar to the ones Bard advertised), and it consistently pulled the wrong content or just made sh*t up. Here are a few laugh-worthy tests Pete ran.

It wasn’t 100% bad. Once Bard finds a specific document, it does a decent job summarizing itm. Plus, it pinky-promises not to use your data to train its models.

One cool new feature “[G]” lets you double-check answers via Google Search. Bard then highlights the parts of its output that could be false. Handy for reducing hallucinations (assuming Google Search knows what’s up).

Why it matters: Google seems to have all the right ideas for integrating a powerful AI with your work apps, but just can’t seem to execute that vision with Bard (insiders agree). Maybe it’s upcoming model “Gemini” will be the fix it’s looking for.

We’ll keep testing Bard v2, but for now we recommend relying on ChatGPT-4 for the bulk of your work tasks!

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Gaming Companies Want To Create AI Characters That Act Like Humans.

Imagine Westworld … but IRL.

So, there’s this gaming company called miHoYo (>$1B revenue) that did some serious research into how lifelike they could make online robots.

For context, most games have these things called NPCs — non-player characters. They're pre-programmed to behave in set ways.

But this makes for a boring video game…

miHoYo’s 86-page research study simulated AI-powered characters (aka agents) and found that they were way better at mimicking humans than NPCs. They could:

learn to do new things with little training.
work together with other agents.
reason out loud.

This is really freaking cool, ‘cause it means we can simulate virtual worlds to better understand social patterns & human behavior.

It’s still a ways away (efficiency and cost are big hurdles), but it got us thinking: if simulations become so advanced, how do we know we’re not just agents in a simulation?!

That would surely explain why we bump our heads on our doorframe every morning!

Around the Horn.

OpenAI is launching a network of expert redteamers (people who can assess the risk of their models).
TikTok will let creators “label” when their content is AI … though we’re not sure who would actually do this.
An overview of AI apps and tools that can help with personal finances.
AI is making side-hustlers lives easier.

Wednesday Wirings.

Writer, an AI writing assistant for enterprises, raised $100 million.
Pryon, an enterprise chatbot/search engine, snagged $100 million.
HiddenLayer, which protects AI systems from cybersecurity threats, raised $50 million.
Betterleap, an AI outbound recruiting platform, secured $13 million.
Sailes, an automation tool for enterprise sales teams, raised $5.1 million.
Truewind, an AI-powered bookkeeper/accountant, raised $3 million.

We curated the top 27 tools you need for work in our “Top Tools For Business”!