LongForm
Thought provoking digests from the top AI minds
The Best Videos From Around The Web On AI Coding Tool Cursor
We have been tracking AI developer tools, and Cursor has been a focus for us. The recent community interest in Cursor has been impressive. We are compiling a list of the top AI developer tools and adding the best Cursor AI coding videos we discover. AI Developer Tools: What They Mean for You Imagine having a super-smart assistant that helps you build amazing things with computers. That's what AI developer tools are like! These tools are changing the way we create software and interact with technology. Here's why they matter to everyone, not just tech experts: What's in it for...
Read Aug 22, 2024Magic Fixup: Adobe Is Revolutionizing Image Editing for Creative Professionals
In a groundbreaking move, Adobe, the industry leader in image and video creation tools, has unveiled Magic Fixup - an AI-powered image editing tool that's set to transform the creative landscape. Even more exciting, Adobe has released the code and examples on GitHub, making this cutting-edge technology accessible to developers and researchers worldwide. This open-source approach underscores Adobe's commitment to advancing the field of AI-assisted creativity and fostering innovation across the industry. Magic Fixup introduces a revolutionary "cut-and-paste" approach to image editing that feels natural and intuitive. Gone are the days of spending hours perfecting complex edits. With this tool,...
Read Aug 11, 2024FlUX.1: The Next Wave in AI Image Generation
In the ever-evolving landscape of artificial intelligence, a new player has emerged that promises to reshape the future of image generation. Flux.1, developed by the innovative team at Black Forest Labs, is making waves in the tech community with its impressive capabilities and open approach to AI development. The Visionaries Behind FlUX.1: Black Forest Labs At the heart of Flux's development is a team of AI pioneers with a proven track record in revolutionizing image generation technology. Black Forest Labs (BFL) was founded by former key developers of Stability.ai, including Robin Rombach, Patrick Esser, and Andreas Blattmann. This team played...
Read Aug 4, 2024New AI Developer Tools To Consider
The Evolution of AI-Assisted Coding Tools In the rapidly evolving world of software development, AI-assisted coding tools have been making waves. We've seen impressive offerings from industry giants and startups alike - Microsoft's Copilot, Tabnine, and Cody, to name a few. These tools have been pushing the boundaries of what's possible in code generation and assistance. Now, a new player has entered the arena: Wordware. The Joy and Pain of Coding Before we dive into the world of AI-assisted coding, let me share a personal note. I've been coding for over two decades now, and I still get a rush...
Read Jul 24, 2024AI and Human Thought Part 3: The Human-AI Relationship
We began this series by examining several ways in which Large Language Models (LLMs) can be leveraged to enhance or diminish human thought processes, highlighting the importance of AI literacy as a mechanism that enables effective and responsible AI use. In our second post, we widened our perspective and explored more unknown territory, envisioning a world where AI is omnipresent, namely in terms of its impacts on human thought and experience—here, we ironed out the distinction between technologies of necessity and convenience and demonstrated the criticality of AI literacy as a skill that allows us to determine to what degree...
Read Jul 24, 2024Investing in Innovation: How AI Literacy Fuels Opportunities in the Future of Work (Part 3)
AI is Just Another Tool In the first essay of this series, we demonstrated the importance of individual AI literacy and presented evidence in favor of three positive trends concerning AI and the future of work: AI will facilitate the creation of new jobs. Businesses are increasingly prioritizing AI skills. AI is more likely to augment rather than automate human labor. In our second essay, we went one step further, emphasizing the role of collective AI literacy in shaping a future that promotes shared economic prosperity. Current trends may indicate a positive outlook for the future of work and AI,...
Read Jul 23, 2024Otto’s Tabular AI: A Promising Approach to AI-Assisted Research
As an AI technology advisor constantly evaluating new AI software, I've just watched a product demo that has me genuinely excited. Otto has unveiled a new product that offers "a new way to interact and work with AI Agents - using tables!" This innovative approach could be a game-changer in how we conduct AI-assisted research and data analysis. A Familiar Interface with Powerful AI Capabilities For years, I've been configuring Google Sheets and more recently using ChatGPT to create AI agent-like workflows within Google Sheets, but Otto seems to be taking this concept to an entirely new level. Their implementation...
Read Jul 20, 2024Building the Future with AI: How AI Literacy Empowers Creativity (Part 4)
Creativity: A Skill of the Future Creativity synthesizes humans’ capacities for originality, inventiveness, problem-solving, flexibility and adaptability, knowledge integration, and value creation. The importance of creativity as a universal human capability can't be overstated. Creativity is a highly desirable trait—not only do creative individuals display higher levels of happiness and well-being but also increased abilities for complex problem-solving and adaptability.10,16,17,18 In simple terms, creativity is the ability to come up with original ideas or solutions within novel or existing contexts. Therefore, it's difficult to envision any situation in which creativity would not be instrumentally valuable in some way. Creativity synthesizes...
Read Jul 18, 2024Redefining the Nature of Work: What Leaders Can Do to Motivate Collective AI Literacy (Part 2)
Shifting the Focus: Balancing Risks and Benefits In the first essay of this series, we demonstrated the importance of cultivating AI literacy at the individual level. However, at the population level, collective AI literacy will play a crucial role in ensuring a prosperous future of work. A world where only a minority of the workforce is AI literate could increase inequality, reduce opportunity, and stifle innovation and productivity. An AI literate workforce would be more adaptable and resilient, continually generating value even as AI becomes progressively more sophisticated, capable, and widespread. As Connor Wright, Partnerships Manager at the Montreal AI...
Read Jul 18, 2024AI and Human Thought Part 2: Omnipresent AI
In our previous post on this topic, we examined a relatively narrow yet related sub-domain: how humans can leverage large language models (LLMs) to enhance (or diminish) the way we think. We chose to focus on LLMs because of their popularity, versatility, accessibility, and ease of use, not because we believe that other forms of AI are somehow less useful or inferior, especially in consideration of ongoing generative AI (genAI) advancements, and the increasing notoriety of Mixture-of-Experts (MoE) architectures. In other words, the vast majority of people can find some value in leveraging LLMs in their daily lives, regardless of...
Read Jul 12, 2024Why the Future of Democracy As We Know It Depends on AI Literacy
A Story of the Future Let’s begin with a story of the future. It’s the year 2050. Over the last two decades, widespread automation has replaced much of the working class, especially in the agricultural, transportation, and manufacturing sectors, leading to a dramatic increase in global poverty and unemployment rates. Natural resources, particularly those used to power modern digital technologies and infrastructures, have reached unprecedented scarcity levels. Disinformation has become virtually indistinguishable from truthful information, inspiring numerous orchestrated and successful attempts at mass manipulation, indoctrination, and coercion. Criminal syndicates have become fully digitalized, executing frequent, advanced, and virtually undetectable cyber...
Read Jul 12, 2024AI and Human Thought Part 1: LLMs and the Nature of Thought
What is AI thinking? What is thinking? For centuries, humanity’s brightest minds have attempted to provide a concrete answer to this question, and in doing so, have revealed—sometimes inadvertently—the deeply complex, interconnected, multifaceted, and mysterious nature of human cognition. Despite this mystery and the ongoing questions of what constitutes human consciousness, perception, and creativity, humanity has maintained a fascination with building machines that can think as humans do. Current state-of-the-art AI systems like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude, though they would easily pass a Turing test—an admittedly poor measure of whether machines can think like humans—and display capabilities surpassing those of...
Read Jul 9, 2024Unlocking Opportunity: AI Literacy and the Evolution of Work (Part 1)
Uncertainty and Opportunity At every stage of major technological advancement in human history, from the agricultural to the industrial revolution, humans have had to re-imagine what their future will look like. Novel technologies can redefine the socio-economic fabric of our world, creating new sources of value, meaning, and opportunity alongside unprecedented risks and widespread uncertainty. According to Connor Wright, Partnerships Manager at the Montreal AI Ethics Institute, “Technology is born in a certain time, out of a certain context, by a certain person for a certain purpose.” However, most technologies are neither good nor bad—it's how they're used that defines...
Read Jun 10, 2024Kling: The Impressive New AI Video Model Giving Sora a Run for Its Money
Anyone involved in content creation should seriously consider AI video. AI video is advancing quickly, and Kling, the latest AI video model developed by Chinese company Kuaishou, is making a significant impact. With capabilities that rival those of OpenAI's highly anticipated Sora model, Kling is a game-changer in the industry. So, what makes Kling so special? For starters, this powerhouse reportedly generates up to 2 minutes of stunning 1080p video from a single text prompt. That's right, you read that correctly - 2 whole minutes! But that's not all; Kling takes things to the next level by accurately simulating real-world...
Read Jun 2, 2024The Top 5 Reasons We Always Recommend Perplexity for Getting Answers
Our community of business professionals and students ask what to use all the time. We always recommend Perplexity. Our top five reasons we recommend Perplexity to everyone. Concise, Curated AnswersPerplexity provides direct, summarized answers to queries, saving our time compared to sifting through multiple Google search results[1][3]. It curates the most relevant, up-to-date information and presents it in a conversational format, making it easier to find exactly what you're looking for[3]. Improved User ExperienceIt's the interface stupid. We find Perplexity's UX way better than Google on every measure. Perplexity's the search interface, so we don't have to navigate different website...
Read May 31, 2024AI Agents in the Workplace: Disruption, Opportunity, and the Need for Strategic Adaptation
Artificial intelligence (AI) agents are no longer a futuristic concept – they're actively reshaping the business landscape. From streamlining customer service with chatbots to analyzing vast datasets for strategic decision-making, AI agents are becoming indispensable tools. However, their integration into daily work presents both exciting possibilities and significant challenges for businesses and employees alike. The Rise of the AI Agent AI agents, sometimes called "virtual assistants" or "bots," are software programs that automate tasks and engage with people in various ways. While simple task automation traces back to early UNIX scripts, today's AI agents leverage sophisticated technologies like machine learning,...
Read May 23, 2024A Google AI Agent That Can See
Google Project Astra: A New Frontier for AI-Powered Visual Search https://youtu.be/nXVvvRhiGjI?si=Vp9V5gNvQoT0c1j6 Google Astra video demo We were really impressed with the Google Astra video demo we watched at the 2024 Google I/O event. Google DeepMind introduced us to Project Astra, an innovative AI-powered visual search tool that could revolutionize how businesses interact with the world around them. Here's what you need to know: What is Project Astra? Imagine having a personal AI assistant that can answer questions about anything you see. That's the idea behind Project Astra. It's a visual chatbot that combines Google Lens' capabilities with advanced AI. By...
Read May 9, 2024AI is Changing Work – Big Time!
Guess what? AI is becoming a normal part of how we work! In the past six months, almost twice as many people are using AI tools at their jobs, with most of the world's workers turning to it for help. Workers are feeling stressed by the amount of stuff they have to do, so they're starting to use AI even if their bosses haven't gotten into it yet. While company leaders know AI is important, a lot of them don't have a clear plan for how to make it work for their whole company. They want to see results right...
Read May 2, 2024The Upsides and Potential Drawbacks of GenAI in the Software Market: Examining GitHub’s Strategic Move
Just as GitHub was founded on Git, today we are re-founded on Copilot.Thomas Dohmkehomas \ Chief Executive Officer of GitHub In a significant move that has the potential to reshape the software development landscape, GitHub has integrated GenAI into its code creation process and perhaps making GitHub more than just a dev tool. It may have turned GitHub into your future dev period. This strategic decision has sparked both excitement and concern within the developer community and beyond. As we explore the implications of this shift, it is crucial to examine the upsides and potential drawbacks of GenAI in the...
Read Apr 25, 2024AI could kill call centres, says Tata Consultancy Services head
The rapid advancements in artificial intelligence (AI) are poised to significantly impact the call center industry, as highlighted by K Krithivasan, the chief executive of Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), in a recent Financial Times article. According to Krithivasan, the adoption of generative AI among multinational clients could lead to a drastic reduction in the need for human-operated call centers within the next year. He predicts that chatbots, powered by AI, will soon be capable of analyzing a customer's transaction history and handling a significant portion of the tasks currently performed by call center agents. This shift could result in "minimal...
Read Apr 17, 2024AI and the Future of Expertise: Empowering Workers in the Age of Automation
Reading David Autor's recent essay in NOEMA got me thinking deeply about the future of work in the age of artificial intelligence. While many are understandably anxious about the impact of AI on jobs, Autor makes a compelling case that "AI will change the labor market, but not in the way Musk and Hinton believe. Instead, it will reshape the value and nature of human expertise." This framing resonated with me and I believe it deserves further exploration. Autor's starting point is that despite the fears of tech luminaries like Elon Musk about AI leading to mass unemployment, the demographic...
Read Mar 5, 2024Klarna’s AI Customer Service Agents Signal Potential Disruption in Knowledge Work
Klarna recently revealed that during their first month of deployment, its AI-powered customer service agents, built using OpenAI's technology, handled the equivalent workload of 700 full-time human agents. This accounted for two-thirds of all customer support chats. The AI agents resolved tasks in under 2 minutes, compared to the 11 minutes typically required by human agents, while achieving comparable customer satisfaction scores. Our estimates suggest that Klarna's 700 human agents handled 2.3 million conversations per month at a cost of $3.6 million, or $1.58 per conversation. In contrast, an OpenAI-powered agent addressing the same volume at 2 minutes per chat...
Read Jan 27, 2024The Dawn of AI: How Intelligent Tools Reshape Businesses and Job Markets
The AI Revolution: Separating Hype from Reality In the midst of the bustling Davos 2024, where artificial intelligence has taken center stage, we find ourselves at the intersection of hype and substance. The promenade behind the venue has been transformed into a showcase of AI-first companies, each proclaiming their allegiance to the transformative power of AI. But is this just a peak in the hype cycle, or are we witnessing the dawn of a technological revolution? AI: A Transformational Technology or Market Reckoning? The conversation with the co-founder of AI Research Map and author of “The Coming Wave” begins with...
Read Jan 16, 2024Microsoft is bringing the full power of Copilot to more people and businesses
So the big news Microsoft is announcing is Copilot Pro. They continue to release new AI product features that are targeting both power users and enterprises. The team at CO/AI are barely catching up with all the product Microsoft's AI roadmap, but we thought this was worth sharing. Copilot Pro - A new $20/month premium subscription service for individuals that provides faster AI performance, early access to new models like GPT-4 Turbo, enhanced image creation capabilities, and custom Copilot models tailored to specific topics. Targets creators, researchers, programmers who want the latest Copilot features. Integrating Copilot into Microsoft 365 apps...
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