AI News is Picking Up Steam - Your TLDR For The Week

The past few weeks have been somewhat slower compared to the whirlwind of AI news we witnessed in February and March. We experienced massive breakthroughs for about six weeks straight, and then things quieted down. I managed to find some news here and there, but it was nothing like that wild six-week stretch.

Well, this week, things really started to pick up again. One of the world's leading AI researchers left Google to raise awareness about AI's dangers, MidJourney released a new AI model, top AI CEOs visited the White House to discuss regulation, Microsoft unveiled a bunch of updates for their Bing Chat, and a leaked document showed Google's concern about losing control and not being a leader in AI much longer. It's been a hectic week, signaling the start of another season filled with exciting new advancements.

Thank you so much for picking me as one of your sources to stay in the loop with it all. I live and breathe everything AI and future tech and immerse myself in it constantly, so I can bring you this TLDR every week. I really appreciate the support here, over on YouTube and over on Twitter. It means the world to me that you put your trust in me to keep you in the loop!

Now, let’s dig into what I think you should know about from this week…

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🛠️ 5 Amazing Future Tools

1. Pi: When a founder of LinkedIn and a founder of DeepMind team up to create a chatbot, it's definitely one we should pay attention to. This bot is designed to be more of a personal assistant, and it's available on pretty much every device. Plus, it always knows it's an AI. To be honest, the bot itself still has room for improvement, but given the creators, it's worth keeping an eye on.
(Free)

2. Jam: This Chrome extension, called Jam, is a real lifesaver when you're trying to debug code for something that runs in the browser. It pulls in the code and any bug reports that pop up, helps you debug the issue, and even offers suggestions on how to fix it. No more wasting time Googling or scouring Stack Overflow for a solution to that pesky bug!
(Free & Paid Plans)

3. Twifts: There's been a flood of tools suggesting gifts for friends and loved ones lately. Honestly, I've stopped adding them to Future Tools because they're too easy to make, and I get about 10 submissions every day. But this one brings a fresh twist. It recommends gifts based on someone's Twitter feed. Just enter their Twitter handle, and it'll comb through their tweets to learn their interests, then suggest gifts based on their Twitter history. It's nice to see a new spin on something that's been done a million times.
(Free)

4. 3Dpresso: 3Dpresso works similarly to Luma Labs AI. Just take a video of anything in the real world, turn on your camera, and walk around the object to capture all angles. Upload the video to 3Dpresso, and in about 30 minutes, it'll transform into a 3D object. The cool part is you can add new textures to the item using AI. Enter a prompt and watch the AI generate new textures for your 3D object. Then, export it and use it in your favorite 3D modeling software or game engine.
(Free)

5. Chat With Data: With "Chat With Data," you can upload various file types like PDFs, Excel files, CSVs, docs, and even SQL database files to have conversations with them. Just ask questions about the data, such as "who's my most valuable customer?" or "what's the warranty on this product?" The app will then use the file you uploaded to provide the answer.
(Free & Paid Plans)

🗞️ 3 Fascinating Articles / News

1. ‘Godfather of AI’ quits Google with regrets and fears about his life’s work - Geoffrey Hinton, often credited as one of the lead researchers behind many AI models in use today, has stepped away from his role at Google after over a decade. Google, OpenAI, and others rely on technology stemming from Hinton's work. While he believes that Google is handling AI ethically and responsibly, the recent race to develop bigger and better tech has raised his concerns that the technology might be released to the public prematurely in an effort to be first to market. When the creator of a technology starts questioning, "what have we done," it's probably time to take these concerns seriously.

2. Midjourney 5.1 Arrives - And It’s Another Leap Forward For AI Art - It's hard to believe that AI image generation models can keep getting better, but somehow, MidJourney keeps finding ways to improve. This week, they released version 5.1 of their best-in-class image generation model, which is easier to use and generates even clearer images. During this week's office hours, David Holz mentioned that we're not even close to the level of realism we'll be able to achieve soon, saying we have about two more jumps to go. However, David himself is starting to raise concerns about the potential for ultra-realistic uses to be exploited for nefarious reasons and the spread of misinformation.

3. Announcing the next wave of AI innovation with Microsoft Bing and Edge - This week, Microsoft made a bunch of announcements about their Bing Chatbot, including that it's now available for everyone worldwide. Other updates include the ability to save and return to chats, persistent chat in the Edge browser's sidebar, third-party plugin support for Bing Chat, image generation tool support for over 100 languages, and more. With the powerhouse team of OpenAI and Microsoft, it seems like the race to be the top AI company is theirs to lose. Their steady stream of announcements and consistent shipping haven't slowed down at all.

4. Google "We Have No Moat, And Neither Does OpenAI" - Wrapping up the week, a leaked internal document from an anonymous researcher at Google surfaced. The document explains that although OpenAI and Google might be leading the generative AI game right now, they have no moat and will likely be surpassed by open-source models. The document states that while open-source models aren't as good as what Google and OpenAI have, it's only a matter of time before the community's resources build something even better. The document also suggests collaborating with the open-source community instead of competing against them. While we don't know the true source of the document, the ideas it presents seem to be the general consensus among the AI community.

You can also stay up to date with the latest AI news here.

📺️ Must-Watch Videos

💰️ A Money Idea To Try

Dub People’s Content In Other Languages:

ElevenLabs just launched a new feature that lets you create voiceovers with anyone's voice in various languages. There's an opportunity to turn this into a service. Reach out to successful YouTubers or podcasters and offer to create versions of their content in other languages. Use a tool like Descript to transcribe the entire piece of content, employ DeepL Translator to convert the transcript into another language, and then have ElevenLabs create the audio in the creator's original voice. This streamlines the process for content creators and helps them tap into new markets with more languages. Charge for this service and build an agency around it.

Find more AI income ideas at the AI-Income Database here.

Announcements:

• I’m changing up my content schedule a little bit. I was trying to post a new video every day on YouTube, but it's gotten tougher, especially during slower news weeks. The new plan involves posting 3 videos per week on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, with Friday's video typically covering the AI news for the week. However, I might do more if there's another crazy news week (which there probably will be).

• Over the next few months, I'll be attending some events in person. I'm pretty introverted, but feel free to say "hi" if you spot me. I'll be at "AI on the Lot" in Hollywood, CA on May 16th, Augmented World Expo from May 31st to June 2nd in Santa Clara, CA, and SIGGRAPH in August in Los Angeles, CA. There might be more events on the horizon, but these are the ones I can confirm for now.

• If you haven’t joined the Discord community yet, there’s always amazing conversations and fun competitions happening in there. We just passed 6,800 members! Join up right here.

• Interested in sponsoring this newsletter? We just crossed 89,000 subscribers and people are opening and clicking! Details about sponsorships are available here. Slots are filling quick as I only have one sponsor per week. Rates will be going up later this month.

Thanks for checking out this week's FutureTools newsletter!

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And don't forget to check out all of the newest tools we've just added on FutureTools!

Finally, if you have any feedback for me or ideas for this newsletter, get in touch! Replying to these emails will get to me and I will read all replies. I want to improve this and continue to make it something that you're super excited about each week. So all ideas are welcome!

You rock! See ya next week. :)

Matt Wolfe (FutureTools.io)

P.S. This email was 95% written by a human. GPT checked my grammar for me. :)