Issue #14: AI for market research, build an app in 5 minutes, and photographic memories

Good morning,

While most people are barely managing to keep up with the latest developments in the world of AI, one person has spent years thinking about how we will co-exist with AI in the future.

In fact, Nick Bostrom published his well-known book on AI, Superintelligence, almost a decade ago.

In an ocean of newly declared ‘AI eXpErTs’, the voice of Oxford University’s Future of Humanity Institute is well worth listening to.

“I think we should have been doing metaphorical CrossFit for the last three decades. But we’ve just been lying on the couch eating popcorn when we needed to be thinking through alignment, ethics and governance of potential superintelligence.”

His frustration is almost palpable in his recent New York Times interview.

Bostrom suggests that sentience—a level of awareness and cognition—is actually on a spectrum:

“If you admit that it’s not an all-or-nothing thing, then it’s not so dramatic to say that some of these [AI] assistants might plausibly be candidates for having some degrees of sentience.”

And with sentience comes moral status, where an AI could develop the right to be treated in a way that does not cause it harm or suffering.

Keep your eye on Bostrom as he continues to tackle the challenges around how we will co-exist with ‘superintelligent’ beings. As he says, “the timelines are shorter than they were in the past”.

Now, let’s put the existential crisis to one side for a minute and focus on how we can dovetail the incredible AI innovations to date with our marketing efforts and produce exemplary work.

It’s how you will stay ahead.

In today’s issue:

• How to create your own app in 5 minutes - without code

• Prompt your way to fully designed content

• Take your creativity from stunted to superb

• The AI-generated news anchor making headlines

• Roses are red, violets are blue, can ChatGPT make poetry for you?

Let’s dive in.

BIONIC JUICE

So how do you nurture your creativity? One way is to experiment with something completely different to your usual daily tasks.

Creativity is one of the most important skills for video game designers. And now—thanks to AI—wrangling C++ memory allocation and rendering graphics is a thing of the past.

You can use generative AI to turn the concepts in your imagination into a playable product today without expert coding knowledge.

In just four steps, Javi Lopez demonstrates how to use ChatGPT to create your very first prototype.

Even better: the code is optimized to add new features - so in time, you could add characters, enemies, weapons or even quests to the game.

Video games are amazing. So, start stretching those creative muscles. With Javi’s tutorial: you’ll be a game dev in no time.

If Javi’s tutorial proves anything - it’s that AI’s real potential is in the prompting.

With the right prompt, you can build entire video games, embark on text-based adventures, or even jailbreak the app.

(If you’ve ever heard of DAN, or Do Anything Now, he’s a great example of what’s possible when you jailbreak ChatGPT.)

Prompt Vibes is a huge resource of original, funny and unique content that gives ChatGPT a personality - although its website is about as visually fun as a sock.

If you get bored or feel the urge to break out of the box and just play, it’s a great resource that may get your juices flowing, or help you connect to different stereotypes - excuse me, I mean avatars.

It also takes you away from the marketing tunnel vision we can get stuck in, which could possibly dislodge the greatest control, funnel, or marketing idea of all time.

With a user-friendly copy-and-paste interface and an ever-growing collection of unique prompts, it's a prime platform for crafting your own prompts.

LATEST DISCOVERIES

Could you be fooled by an AI?

If you've seen the mind-bending The Prestige, the spooky Us, or the classic, The Thing, you might have wondered if your nearest and dearest would be able to distinguish between you and your identical evil twin.

Perhaps you've already established a secret codeword or an in-joke with your spouse just in case a shape-shifting alien steals your identity and tricks your family into a false sense of security.

That might sound a little dramatic. But that’s exactly what happened to a journalist at the Guardian.

In response to a researcher, ChatGPT perfectly emulated an author's tone to make up a completely fabricated article that simply sounded like it had appeared in the publication.

It was only after some deep-digging in the Guardian’s archives that the team discovered that the article in question had never been written at all.

Spooky, right?

That’s just the start of AI’s concerningly good knack for imitating humans. Media outlets worldwide are beginning to see artificial intelligence’s potential in their content creation strategies.

In one of the most experimental examples yet, a Kuwaiti media outlet announced its latest anchor—Fedha.

She talks, moves, breathes and speaks. To the untrained eye and ear, she could pass as a human.

Of course, she’s 100% AI-generated. Fedha, meaning silver in Arabic, will be used by Kuwait News to cover internet-related news and bulletins.

Long term, they plan to give her a Kuwaiti Arabic accent.

If you listen to her voice, however, you’ll notice a distinctive automated quality. Even though synthesized voice generation tech is getting really good, it still has some ways to go—but that trip is happening faster and faster.

Just listen to this viral video of Joe Rogan and Jordan Peterson duking it out over the 2003 Lego flick, Bionicle (yes, really: this is what we’re using AI for).

The rise of voice cloning has led to a whole storm of similarly absurd (and admittedly hilarious) debates between Rogan and various other guests.

Yet, despite the endless hours of podcasts, talk shows, and radio broadcasts featuring Rogan's voice, the clip is still decidedly...artificial.

Unfortunately, that’s not prevented the rise of AI-manufactured scams.

Scammers are now using voice-cloning software to exploit anyone. By posing as loved ones over the phone, the fraudsters can trick the target into revealing sensitive information, like credit card details and social security numbers.

Naturally, the targets for these scams have overwhelmingly been elderly people who may be less aware of AI’s rise to dominance.

It's a troubling trend, to say the least.

The sad reality? Grandma could get a call from an AI scammer pretending to be you, begging for some cash.

But let's be real. Scams exactly like these have been happening since the dawn of the internet. With a little bit of discernment, awareness, and intelligence, you can protect yourself and those around you.

When someone who sounds exactly like your Great Aunt Myrtle phones you from an unknown number and asks for a speedy cash injection, just remember: AI isn’t human, and it never will be.

That’s exactly why AI won’t be penning sonnets this National Poetry Month.

Vice recently had a chat with a group of professional poets and professors to test if ChatGPT could replicate a particular style and produce quality poetry.

Between ignoring instructions and misinterpreting each poet’s given tone, GPT struggled with the task.

If you’re wondering why, Matthew Zapruder, another featured poet in the piece, offers this:

“What does it even mean for a chatbot to write a poem, given poetry’s subject matter is often inseparable from the human condition? If you teach computers how to write poems, you're going to have much bigger problems like computers crying in cafes, smoking clove cigarettes, and falling in love with old Macintosh computers that don't exist anymore.”

Now there’s a funny mental image…

As an AI-powered marketer, it can get sticky trying to maintain a moral high ground amidst all the existential negativity surrounding digital skinwalkers and depressed computers.

And, remember: for every doomsday article, there are countless more about parents using ChatGPT to bond with their adult children through a good old-fashioned game of D&D.

So, keep your chin up! It's a beautiful world out there - and there's much more to be excited about in the realm of AI.

Funding:

$30M: Fivecast secures funding to monitor potential threats for businesses and government agencies by analyzing publicly available data from sources like the dark web, chat rooms, and forums.

$17M: In one of the largest funding rounds in South African history, Insurance Tech firm Naked offers fully digital, AI-powered car, home, and valuables insurance.

$10M: CryptoGPT is staging an NFT comeback with their data-to-AI engine, which collects, encrypts and transfers data for commercial applications. Recently, they released the AI assistant "Alex", a Crypto-inspired ChatBot.

BIONIC TOOLKIT

🤖 Looking to turn your passion into passive income? Look no further than Imagica - the perfect tool to create your own app in just five minutes.

With Imagica's intuitive and lightning-fast platform, you can combine text, images, video, and even 3D models to bring your dream app to life - all without code.

That means you can finally bid adieu to waiting on developers to deploy bug fixes - an integrated AI algorithm automatically tackles issues and optimizes each app.

If you’re keen to give it a whirl but are stumped for ideas - Imagica also generates tailored app ideas for various industries.

Whether you’re a finance marketer with a unique risk management strategy, or a cat lover wanting to create a GIF generator for funny feline memes, don’t wait around for someone else to steal that golden idea - start building your very own app today.

🤖 Chatbots are all the rage these days.

With Bard, YouChat, GPT, and Jasper all vying for their space in the market, new initiatives can be easily overlooked.

But have you met Poe? This AI-powered chatbot is taking the tech world by storm, and it's easy to see why.

Developed by the team behind Quora, Poe is a unique solution to the AI land grab. This innovative messaging app does it all - from copy editing to answering questions and refining code - all through a simple chat interface.

But wait, there's more!

With Poe, you can even create your own bots. Design a pirate poetry generator, or create a recipe generator for your gluten-intolerant nephew.

So, what are you waiting for?

🤖 Finally, if you're tired of spending countless hours formatting and designing your content, Gamma could be just what you need.

This innovative tool uses AI to help you create beautiful, engaging content with just your words. No need to worry about formatting, layout or design - just start writing and let Gamma AI do the rest.

And to top it off, it was recently awarded Product Hunt’s Product of the Month, so you can be sure you're getting a high-quality product.

Transform your presentations, revolutionize your communication and do your amazing ideas justice.

THE LAST BYTE

There are some times when having a photographic memory seems like a really good idea. Or even just to be able to remember the website where you found the ideal gift for your awkward-to-buy-for cousin when you were distracted by a phone call would be nice.

Rewind.ai is a remarkable addition to the productivity landscape. Not only does it record everything you've looked at on your Mac including video calls, websites and emails (all stored locally, not uploaded to central servers), but you can then ask it questions to help you find what you’re looking for as well as scroll through the recording.

And you can even click on the URLs of websites shared in Zoom meetings by other people.

It blows my mind what is being achieved by developers working with AI.

While the concerns around ethics and governance of AI cannot and should not be dismissed, the benefits of continued progress are undeniable.

Market research can be laborious, time-consuming and expensive. But researchers have discovered ChatGPT can generate data that can give results as good as traditional human market research.

According to a new study by Harvard Business School and Microsoft, when GPT-3 is prompted as if it were a randomly selected customer, it “exhibits a number of behaviors that are consistent with economic theory” and “estimates derived from GPT’s responses are realistic and consistent with values obtained from existing research”.

Do you realize what this means for marketers? How this can improve your processes and workload? Are you seeing it?

“Trust and verify” is still a good policy when using AI, but just take a beat to imagine how this could fit in for you.

Take a look at the paper for yourself and you’ll find the added bonus of prompting tips for market research from the authors.

But don’t just read about how other people are using it. Roll up your sleeves and dig in.

Time is running out for you to be a part of the revolution and I don’t want you to get left behind.

Let’s make AI work for you.

See you next week,
Sam Woods
Editor