Good morning, welcome to AI Joe, the newsletter that’s juicier than a Georgia peach in the middle of July 🍑 

Here’s what’s on today’s agenda 👇️ 

• ChatGPT ➡️ Chat-B-E-N-Z 🚘️ 

• Voicebox: Text to Speach 🔠 🗣️ 

• EU takes the lead on AI regulation🤖

• How AI will save the World 🌍️ 

• Design a logo with AI 🎨 

Mercedes-Benz ChatMobile 🦇 

Mercedes-Benz is bringing KITT to life with voice-activated ChatGPT in new Mercedes vehicles.

Voice assistants have been available in vehicles for the last decade. The earliest voice assistants were nearly unusable. They could only respond to a small amount of preset commands, and almost never understood the driver's instructions.

Eventually, Apple Carplay and Android Auto allowed vehicles to take advantage of the much better (but still primitive) Siri and Google Assistant.

How will ChatGPT be better?

Mercedes is the first, but almost certainly not the last manufacturer to bring ChatGPT into the vehicle’s native experience.

This will allow drivers to ask complex questions that build on each other like 👇️ 

1. What’s a good restaurant for me and my teenage son to eat lunch near our destination?

2. Do they take reservations?

3. Can you find their phone number?

4. Call them

Joe’s Takeaway: This is an amazing first step, but I can’t help but imagine how cool this will be when integrated with fully autonomous self-driving vehicles. Imagine just saying to your car “Hey Mercedes, find a Starbucks along the way to our destination and order my usual drink,” and it actually happens. I can’t wait!

Link to full article here

Meta is back at it again with another AI release called Voicebox 🗣️ 📦️ 

Zuck simply can’t stop making AI headlines, this is the 3rd time they’ve been featured in AI Joe in the last 6 weeks! 🤯 

Voice actors are in trouble…

Voicebox is awesome! It allows creators to do 5 super cool things:

1. Text-to-speech in multiple voices - Example: I could type “Start your day with a cup of AI Joe” and Voicebox would produce 5 AI voices saying that quote.

2. Style Transfer - Example: Upload a clip of Taylor Swift speaking, type a message, and listen to AI that sounds like Taylor Swift saying whatever you typed in the tone of the original recording.

3. Style Transfer (Multilingual) - Example: Upload a clip of Taylor speaking English, type a prompt in French, and generate an AI voice of Taylor Swift speaking French.

4. Remove Noises - Example: You cough in the middle of a long recording and want to remove it. You cut it out using voicebox and it uses AI to sound like there was never anything cut from the original clip

5. In-context text-to-speech - Example: You want to add a word to an existing recording. Simply type the word you want to add and Voicebox can make it sound as if you said it in the original recording

Joe’s Takeaway: This will transform audio recording. Before tools like this, recording audio was very similar to typing with a typewriter. Today, it’s very difficult to “edit” audio without re-recording, just like with a typewriter and retyping. Voicebox makes audio recording more like typing on a computer. It’s easy to go back and edit what’s already been written. This will make audio recording far easier, and likely more popular!

Link to full article here

EU Leads the Way in AI Regulation

The EU has officially passed rules to govern AI in Europe in a bill known as the EU AI Act. The bill passed with flying colors as the final count was 499 in favor, 28 against, and 93 abstentions. The regulation has just begun the lengthy process to become law, it will likely be the first rule of its kind.

What are the rules?

• Generative AI developers will have to submit their work for review before releasing it commercially.

• AI will not be allowed to be used for any kind of “social scoring.”

• Biometric data and facial recognition AI will not be allowed except for very rare cases like finding a missing child or solving a violent crime.

• Predictive policing (ie forecasting crimes that haven’t been committed) will not be allowed.

• Exploitation of vulnerable people and children will not be allowed

The EU will break AI products into 4 categories based on riskiness to users or society. Those with the highest risk will be most closely examined.

Joe’s Takeaway: Regulation will become commonplace, but passing laws and enforcing laws are very different things. It will be extremely difficult to properly audit AI products as they rapidly evolve.

Link to full article here

AI Content Recommendation 📖 

AI Will Save the World - Marc Andreesen

This week’s content recommendation is a long (20-25 minute read) blog post from legendary venture capitalist Marc Andreessen. Marc was an early investor in companies like Facebook, Pinterest, LinkedIn, and Twitter. He is widely considered one of the greatest venture capitalists in Silicon Valley.

In his blog post, Marc lays down a long case for why we shouldn’t fear AI but should embrace it as a tool to make human life better. I encourage you to read the whole thing, but here are the CliffsNotes 👇️ 

• AI is a mathematical tool that produces knowledge in a similar way to how people do

• It is applicable across every field where human knowledge is applicable

• AI is not killer robots here to end the human race

• AI can make everything we care about better

• The panic around AI is common for revolutionary technology

• We should be skeptical of AI regulation demanded by existing AI companies

• AI doomerism is a cult

• Minimizing social restrictions and censorship of AI is very important

• AI will lead to more jobs at higher wages, not less

• AI will empower everyone, not just the rich… if we let it

• Bad people will always do bad things with new technology

• We can use AI to defend against AI-assisted crimes

• The biggest AI risk is the Western World slows down and lets China win

• The West should aggressively pursue AI dominance

• Marc and his firm are backing as many AI innovators as they can

Joe’s Takeaway: Read this post, embrace AI, and let’s make the world the best place we possibly can!

Create a logo using Microsoft Designer

It’s super simple!

1. Go to https://designer.microsoft.com/

2. Sign in to your Microsoft account

3. Click “Generate Image”

4. Enter your prompt

5. Download!

Here’s a taco logo for a taco truck I made with this prompt: