🎶 How to build your own web researcher

AI-HOI AInauts,

Welcome to the latest issue of your favorite newsletter - with an outlook (McKinsey Report), a hands-on topic (Web Researcher) and the most important updates (News). Ready? That's what we have in store for you:

• 🔮 The McKinsey Technology Trend Outlook 2024

• 🚀 How to build your own AI web scraper

• 📰 AI news quickie: The HAIlights from the industry

• 😄 AI-Fun: Everyone, Everything, LLMs

Here we go!

🔮 The McKinsey Technology Trend Outlook 2024

Gen AI has evolved from a fascinating innovation to a core technology and is making deep inroads into numerous industries. 

Of course, we're not telling you anything new 😊 …

But this is all happening in a wider context: in addition to AI, there are other technologies that are becoming increasingly relevant, such as electrification and renewable energies, which also experienced a significant upswing in 2023 (in China, every second new car sold is already electric or hybrid).

Boundaries are becoming increasingly blurred and the boom in AI is driving innovation in areas such as robotics, mobility and biotechnology.

This is creating synergies that extend far beyond the tech sector!

The new McKinsey report also has a few hard-hitting facts we find exciting - you can find the full 100-page PDF report here:

• AI has experienced exponential growth since 2022. Investments in 2023 have increased six-fold, and queries on Google by 700%.

• The competition between open and closed models and the development of multimodal AIs capable of text, image, video and audio marks a significant innovative advance.

• While OpenAI and Google primarily rely on proprietary solutions, the use and importance of open-source models such as Meta's Llama 3 is growing.

• LLMs are increasingly being integrated into business software to optimize processes. The report shows that 65% of the companies surveyed use Gen AI in at least one business area!

• Real-world implementation is producing impressive results across the board, from customer service to the discovery of new medicines.

• Despite the global interest, there are regional differences in AI adoption. Countries such as India and Japan are developing their own LLMs to meet the specific needs of their markets.

These are the most important details - explore more in the report!

🚀 How to build your own AI web researcher

Today we have an idea for a simple web researcher that finds the latest news on any topic. We can program this using Claude and then run it directly in the terminal.

... and even if "Terminal" may sound complicated at first, it's much simpler than we thought - we promise, just give it a try!

1. Visit Claude.ai and enter this prompt
   (replace the X with your desired theme):

Build a research agent in Python that give me the latest news on topic X.

2. Download the generated file and save it on your computer.

3. Open the terminal and ask Claude how to install it. Follow the instructions and install any scripts/libraries that are requested first.

4. Execute the script. We have entered the command "Python3" in the terminal, then dragged the file into the terminal and hit "Enter".

And boom! You've got fresh, customized news updates.

Of course, this is a super simple solution. You can expand it according to your wishes and ideas and play some ping-pong with Claude. We often use the command "Do it 3x better!" to see what creative ideas the chatbot comes up with.

Conclusion: Your ultimate news researcher 💻

As you can see, with a few simple steps, you can create your own customized tool that provides you with the latest news on your desired topic every day.

A web scraper like this not only keeps you up to date, but can also be customized and at the same time encourages you to experiment.

And by the way: we’ve also received some error messages we didn't understand. But this doesn't matter, the chatbot knows what to do - just ask. Thank you, Claude!

📰 AI news quickie: The HAIlights from the industry

A lot has happened lately, including many small news bites about OpenAI - here are the most important updates from the AI universe!

OpenAI

• The ChatGPT desktop app gets a sexy companion window that allows you to interact more easily.

• After ChatGPT has lowered the prices for GPT-4o, the price war with reductions at Google Gemini Flash goes into the next round.

• OpenAI finally introduced Structured Outputs: You can now reliably request structured data via API - super helpful for developers who need precise JSON responses.

• OpenAI provides new insights into GPT-4 (PDF): The "System Card" reveals details about the capabilities and limitations of the AI model and classifies the new GPT-4o model as "medium risk".

• In the tests, ChatGPT briefly imitated the user's voice ... And OpenAI warns: You could fall in love with ChatGPT's new voice, and it carries the risk of emotional dependency. Here are a few glimpses of what you can expect very soon.

• Sam Altman fuels rumors about new OpenAI model "Strawberry". And perhaps we can expect an exciting update soon ...

• ChatGPT now gives you two AI-generated images a day in the free version. And if you need more: just use Copilot...

• DevDay goes global: developers can look forward to events in San Francisco, London and Singapore - with workshops, demos and networking for the AI community, and less media hype.

• OpenAI has brought Zico Kolter, an AI security expert, on board. The Carnegie Mellon professor will help with ethical development.

• OpenAI is working on a tool to recognize ChatGPT texts, but is hesitant to release it.

• Elon Musk sues OpenAI again and demands compensation. Yawn, we've been through this before ...

• A YouTuber is also suing for alleged unauthorized use of video transcripts as training data and is demanding millions in compensation.

Industry News

• Flux + Runway 3 = 😲 - AI-generated images can no longer be distinguished from real ones, and if you add some Runway video generation, this is what you get😀 THAT is cool!

• Mistral has released an alpha for agents, you can test it here.

• Anthropic lures hackers with big rewards: Crack their AI security and collect up to $15’000 dollars! Your mission: Find loopholes in their new protection system before it goes public.

• Soon you'll be able to chat with Gemini to make your home smarter. Google's AI learns your habits - hopefully without getting too nosy.

• Google also says goodbye to Chromecast and welcomes the new Google TV streamer with Gemini integration.

• Google brings back the Character.AI founder and enters into a non-exclusive partnership - a clever move, as Character.ai is one of the strongest AI chat platforms on the web.

• ByteDance, the makers of TikTok, want to shake up the AI video market with the new Jimeng AI app - but the initial results are so-so.

• Automattic, the makers of WordPress, present the new AI tool "Write Brief". It allows you to improve the readability and conciseness of your posts at lightning speed - free of charge during the beta phase.

• Reddit and Audible are testing AI-driven search functions to present you with even more relevant and personalized content.

• The fast-food chain Wendy’s is testing a new AI agent to take orders in 28 drive-thrus - also in Spanish.

• With ClipAnything from Opus, you can generate clips directly with simple prompts ("Create a clip with the goals from the first half-time").

• Jeff Bezos believes in AI and tech and continues to invest heavily.

• Gen-3 Alpha Image to Video now supports using an image as the first or last frame in your videos (in combination with text prompts). Nice!

Research

• The Human AI Pin is still flopping badly - there are currently more returns than sales ...

• NVIDIA uses Apple Vision Pro to control humanoid robots and is launching Project GR00T, the "moonshot" for human-like AI robots. Jensen explains what else NVIDIA is doing in this interview - or simply talk to virtual James.

• Will AI soon be catching doping offenders? A new method makes it possible. Or simply take part in Peter Thiel's "Enhanced Games", where anything goes - perhaps soon also with robots, like the ping-pong pro from Google DeepMind?

😄 AI-Fun: Everyone, Everything, LLMs

True! … tastes good?

That's it for today. We hope you liked it - see you next time!

Reto & Fabian from the AInauts

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