OpenAI vs the EU AI Act

PLUS: Microsoft Build 2023

Good morning, human brains. Welcome back to your daily munch of AI news.

Here’s what’s on the menu today:

  • Microsoft introduces Windows Copilot 🤖

    Plus, other announcements from Microsoft Build 2023.

  • OpenAI: we’re very pro-regulation… just not right now 💭

    Sam Altman warns OpenAI may pull out of the EU over regulation concerns.

APPETIZER

Microsoft announces Copilot for Windows 11 🧑‍✈️

Last week’s Microsoft Build 2023 was huge.

We watched the whole thing so you don’t have to. Here are the 5 most interesting things they announced:

1/ Bing is set to become the default search engine for ChatGPT.

ChatGPT will be able to browse Bing to answer queries. That means fresh content (right now, it doesn’t have access to data after September 2021) and citations on answers — but it’ll be limited to ChatGPT+.

2/ Microsoft’s AI Copilot is coming to the Windows 11 taskbar. Microsoft claims it can summarize, rewrite, and explain text within any app.

It’s also coming to the Edge browser, where it reads open webpages to assist with tasks and integrates with existing Microsoft 365 tools.

3/ Microsoft Copilot now supports plugins. This includes new plugins for Teams, messaging, and Microsoft 365.

It'll be possible to use the same plugins seamlessly across ChatGPT, Bing Chat, and Windows Copilot.

4/ Microsoft is building an AI-powered Windows Terminal. This one’s for the developers. Windows Terminal is about to have GitHub Copilot directly built in.

Code recommendations and error explanations, straight from the command line.

5/ A new way to analyze data: Microsoft Fabric. Fabric is an AI-powered data analytics platform that lets engineers build and manage their data systems all in one place.

Microsoft Fabric crunching customer data

Take: Microsoft has grabbed the proverbial AI hammer, and boy howdy, are there plenty of nails. They’re positioned to integrate AI across the entire digital experience — Windows (operating system), Bing (search), Edge (browser), Microsoft 365 (office tools), and Windows Terminal + GitHub (developer tools).

Vote: Who's faster, Microsoft or Google?

Login or Subscribe to participate in polls.

FROM OUR PARTNERS

A community for bootstrapped startup founders 🌐

Indie Worldwide is a social group and virtual incubator for bootstrapped startups. Get access to an actively moderated Slack group, members-only events, and 1-1 intros to other founders making similar money.

What you'll find at Indie Worldwide:

  • Passionate founders and indie hackers to bounce ideas off of.

  • Business partners, clients, and beta testers.

  • Motivation and support from people going through the same journey.

  • An unmatched global network.

BUZZWORD OF THE DAY

Foundation Model

A foundation model is a type of large machine learning model that can be fine-tuned for various applications. It’s what we think of when we talk about LLMs and image generation models.

The terminology is gaining traction in regulatory contexts.

Examples: GPT-3 and Stable Diffusion.

MAIN COURSE

OpenAI vs the EU AI Act ⚔️

Just a few weeks ago, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman asked US lawmakers to regulate AI in his testimony to Congress.

Credit: Win McNamee/Getty Images

But Sammy isn’t so peachy about the EU AI Act.

Recent updates have expanded regulations for creators of ‘foundation models’ — which includes OpenAI.

Additionally, models labeled as ‘high-risk’ would require creators to disclose details like computing power required and training time. The label would almost certainly apply to OpenAI’s GPT and DALL-E. In other words — OpenAI would be forced to share its secret sauce.

“If we can comply, we will, and if we can’t, we’ll cease operating… We will try. But there are technical limits to what’s possible.”

It gets even more prickly.

OpenAI would also need to disclose any copyrighted materials used for training data. And we’ve already gotten a glimpse of how that might go — Getty Images filed a suit against Stability AI in February for intellectual property infringement.

Since ChatGPT and DALL-E were both trained on large amounts of data scraped from the web without permission, it would expose OpenAI to a ton of lawsuits.

Ouch.

Altman later extended an olive branch to smooth things over:

Oh, but wait — there’s more.

Alphabet is voluntarily collaborating with EU lawmakers on their own AI pact ahead of the EU AI Act.

Take: OpenAI is no different from other corporate giants. Pushing for regulation was a way of pulling the ladder behind them... until the EU started drafting up their own regulations. Also: Altman apparently has zero equity in OpenAI. Shouldn’t he be more ok with immediate regulation if he’s not after profit?

Counter-take: Altman proposed that regulation should apply to future, more powerful AI systems. By contrast, the EU AI Act is focused on regulating AI as it stands today.

One more thing: the ChatGPT app just crossed 500k downloads and is now available in 12 countries.

MEMES FOR DESSERT

YOUR DAILY MUNCH

Think Pieces

Where Memory Ends and Generative AI Begins: How photo editing and image-generation tools are blurring the line between real and AI.

Here’s how AI bots like ChatGPT got so good, so quick.

Startup News

Crunchbase: Is the AI hype for real? $20B of recorded investments say yes.

TikTok is testing Tako, its own in-app chatbot.

Research

Using AI for educational assessments: clickbait or game changer?

AI and Information Processing: a systematic literature review.

Tools

Scribe: the first AI tool for documenting processes, so you don't have to. [Sponsored]

PixieBrix: LinkedIn Message Templates. Pre-fill a LinkedIn text input with templates stored in Google Sheets. [Sponsored]

tl;dv: A meeting recorder that transcribes & summarizes your calls with customers, prospects, and your team.

Monica: a GPT-4 assistant for all websites that can chat, process, and compose text.

Keyword Search: boost your ad conversions and ROI with advanced audience targeting.

TWEET OF THE DAY

Farmers are using Microsoft’s AI to maximize crop yield.

AI ART-SHOW

Until next time 🤖😋🧠