Omni Potent 💪🗣️

👀 TLDR:

In this week’s What’s Appening, we cover the reveal of GPT-4o by OpenAI. The new engine for ChatGPT is all about multi-tasking - the extra “o” is for “omni” - across text, voice, and video. It’s become more conversational, even flirtatious, but perhaps more importantly, GPT-4o is faster and cheaper than previous models. Oh, and OpenAI is making it free to everyone. Google I/O 2024 has also been happening today, and we got a raft of big announcements focusing on AI, including Project Astra, Gemini Live, and VEO. We also have takes on Apple trying to get an OpenAI partnership over the line, Microsoft’s plans for its gaming store, and Stack Overflow users staging a protest. Our Stat looks at the huge power demands of Big Tech companies. What’s dAppening marvels at the power of the meme in crypto and stock trading. And Our GPT of the Week is a must-have for anyone looking to integrate OpenAI’s API into their applications.

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Our Top Take 🎬

GPT-4o – OpenAI Unveils New “Omni” Model to Power ChatGPT

OpenAI’s big reveal on Monday was GPT-4o, which will underpin ChatGPT for both paid and unpaid (😲) users. The “o” stands for Omni, meaning it can handle text, speech, and video seamlessly. The early consensus was that GPT-4o has transformed ChatGPT into a virtual AI companion, able to understand tone and nuance in the questioner’s voice, reason, deliver real-time multi-lingual responses, and be funny and flirtatious; it can even sing. There have also been big improvements in ChatGPT’s vision capabilities; seeing it read and effortlessly translate a food menu in real-time was one of the highlights of the showcase, but OpenAI says that this will evolve to such an extent that ChatGPT could watch a sports game and tell you what is happening play by play. OpenAI was also keen to point out that GPT-4o is two times as fast and 50% cheaper than GPT-4 Turbo. GPT-4o wasn’t the only OpenAI announcement yesterday, either: It will open up the GPT Store to free-tier users, as well as giving non-paying users access to some stuff that was formerly paywalled, such as remembering your preferences. And it is upgrading the ChatGPT UI with a more “conversational” home screen and messaging feature, and launching a new desktop application for Mac (Windows users will get one later in the year). #OmniPotent Read more here.

🦾 GPT of the Week: API Docs

This week’s Custom GPT is API Docs by gpts.webpilot.ai. Ever considered integrating OpenAI’s features into your existing application? API Docs is your guide – or cookbook – to understanding and navigating OpenAI’s API. In effect, it is an interactive mentor on hand 24/7 that provides easy-to-understand documentation, ‘recipes’, and advice on how OpenAI’s AI features can be embedded into your application.

Other Stories 🗞️

🗣️📱 Google I/O – Gemini Is Front and Center of Flagship Event

Google I/O 2024 is live at the time of writing, so we thought we would mention some of the highlights from CEO Sundar Pichai’s keynote speech. AI, of course, was front and center, and Pichai seems to have an answer to the multimodal capabilities of GPT-4o – Project Astra. This is going to be Google’s AI Assistant. There was a showcase of Gemini Live, which allows users to have in-depth conversations with Gemini on a smartphone. The revamp of Search was high on the agenda, although it did feel somewhat underwhelming that the highlight was AI summaries of search results. VEO, a direct rival to OpenAI’s Sora (text-to-video generator), was announced, and we got the first glimpses of the Pixel 8a and the newly-named tablet, Slate. The event is still going on, so we will let the dust settle and perhaps elaborate on the important bits next week. #GoogleI/O Read more here.

🍏 Apple Reportedly Nears Deal to Put ChatGPT Features on iPhone. All eyes on WWDC in June as Bloomberg reports Apple and OpenAI are close to an agreement to put the latter’s AI technology into the iPhone. Oh, by the way, in all OpenAI’s GPT-4o demo vids, all the hardware in use was Apple’s. Coincidence? Details here.

🎮 Microsoft to Launch Gaming App Store in July. There’s so much focus on Microsoft’s OpenAI partnership that one tends to forget it made a $70 billion bet on gaming with the Activision purchase. Step one in recouping some of that moolah is the launch of the Microsoft Games App Store, now confirmed for July. Info on that here.

💣Stack Overflow Community Sabotage Posts in AI Protest. Contributors to Stack Overflow, the influential Q&A platform for developers, have destroyed some of their posts after news of a tie-up deal with OpenAI. Like artists, they don’t want their work to be used to train AI models. More on that here.

🧐 Stat of the Week: 90twh

⚡🪫 Big Tech - Electricity Consumption Now Exceeds that of Colombia

The Economist has been asking questions about powering the AI revolution. It noted that AWS, Meta, Microsoft, Apple, and Alphabet consumed 90 terawatt hours of electricity in 2022 – on a level with a mid-sized country like Colombia. However, the report pointed out that this was before the roll-out of ChatGPT later in that year, which turbocharged the demand for processing power. This is a huge challenge for the sector, and Big Tech companies are throwing tens of billions of dollars at the problem in search of a solution. Money may not be enough. #PowerHungry Read more here.

🕸️ What’s dAppening?

🐱📈 Memes – Roaring Kitty Returns to Social Media with Cryptic Posts

GameStop stock surged by over 110% on Monday. The reason? Seemingly, it was the return of “Roaring Kitty” to Twitter/X. Roaring Kitty, real name Keith Gill, was the architect of the original GME Short Squeeze in 2021, and his return to socials caused equal parts havoc and excitement in crypto and meme stock trading. One Solana meme coin with a GME ticker surged almost 2,000% in a matter of hours. The thing is, Gill, who was the subject of the 2023 documentary Dumb Money, didn’t even post anything about GME or crypto: his return was enough to send the market into a frenzy. Traditional Wall Street traders lost an estimated $1 billion on GME on Monday. The power of the meme is alive and well. #RoaringKitty Read more here.

Meanwhile at 3Advance...

Great news has been abundant here at 3A, and today we have the best news of all to share! 👰💒 Kate, our Ops Manager, and all round superstar at 3Advance, just got married!! 🎉 🥳 We are so thrilled and overjoyed for Kate and LJ who tied the knot in Atlanta, where they moved to almost two years ago from DC. Paul and Jingdi made the trip down to celebrate, and it was truly a wonderful occasion. We finally got to meet Perry too 👋 - the proud Father of the Bride. 🎉

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