Microsoft lets ChatGPT control real robots, Spotify jumps on the AI bandwagon
In a push to get the best out of their partnership with OpenAI, Microsoft decided it's a good idea to let ChatGPT to control small robots.
Well, little did we know, that while we freaked out on how good ChatGPT is at answering questions, or how unhinged Bing Chatbot (Sydney) has been before it was lobotomized by his engineers, Microsoft was testing what happens if we allow AI to control robots. (it sounds insane as I write it, but I guess this is our life now)
I have to admit it, setting aside the “robots taking the world hostage” theory, it is a pretty good research idea. One of the main functions of GPT 3 is to translate natural language into code, so it makes sense to test if we could interact with robots by letting ChatGPT control them based on human prompts.
"Our goal with this research is to see if ChatGPT can think beyond text, and reason about the physical world to help with robotics tasks," the Microsoft researchers explained.
So they tried it, with their main challenge being teaching ChatGPT how to solve problems taking into account the laws of physics, the environment, and how the robot’s physical actions can alter the state of the world he was interacting with.
From what I read in the article describing the research, it kinda worked and they were able to use certain prompts to allow ChatGPT to take control of various small robots and even a drone. Instructions were written in the ChatGPT chatbox.
The fun alliance consisting of AI and motion-enabled hardware managed to identify certain objects in a room, exactly as prompted.
The researchers are excited about the findings and the prospect of interacting naturally with robots in the future gives them plenty of ideas and give me a bump of AI anxiety.
Is AI Anxiety a thing yet? If not, you heard it here first 💡
Now for some entertaining AI news…
Spotify jumped on the Generative AI bandwagon with a bang announcing today their new DJ Feature powered by AI.
I haven’t actually played with the new feature yet because I don’t have an eagle on my passport, but it does look like a really cool and brilliantly put-together product. It’s the kind of project I would have loved to be part of.
What they did is they took their already stellar personalization technology and supercharged it with the help of Generative AI. (they used OpenAI for this, like literally everybody else).
So this new DJ feature is set to give you the best music recommendations and playlists and also deliver “insightful facts about the music, artists, or genres you’re listening to.”
And the DJ has a cool DJ voice, backed by AI technology as well. It’s powered by Sonantic, an AI Voice Platform that Spotify bought last year. It sounds great.