Windows Copilot Newsletter #10
Microsoft gets small with Phi-2; Mixtral-as-a-Service; and how to buy a new Chevy Tahoe for $1...
Welcome to the tenth and final 2023 edition of the Windows Copilot Newsletter, where we share some of the most interesting stories from the rapidly evolving field of AI chatbots. As we close out the year, events only feel like they’re accelerating. So let’s dive right in.
Top News
Microsoft builds a tiny AI chatbot: Microsoft announced Phi-2, a 2.7 billion parameter language model. In comparison, Phi-2 is perhaps just 1/500th the size of OpenAI’s GPT-4. Yet, Microsoft claims it gives great results. Read their research announcement here.
Mixtral, Mixtral everywhere: Released earlier this month, Mistral’s Mixtral8x7B ‘mix of experts’ has suddenly become a standard that’s on offer from numerous cloud providers - call it ‘Mixtral-as-a-Service’ - at ever-decreasing costs. Is it sustainable? Probably not. But it points to a near future where AI is no longer dominated by OpenAI. Read about that here.
Microsoft to allow removing AI components from Windows 11: For some enterprises, AI on the desktop is just too risky - or too expensive. Microsoft has released a preview build with settings to remove all of its Copilot assistants. Read about that here.
Top Tips
Super Bard: Use Bard (with its new Gemini Pro upgrade) to transform how you use Gmail and Google Docs. Read that here.
Sing along with Copilot: In time for the holidays, Microsoft released a new plugin that allows you to write lyrics and music with its AI chatbot. Read how to do that here.
Safely and Wisely
Not an AI chat cheater: Despite fears that ChatGPT would lead to massive cheating, the New York Times reports this hasn’t really happened. Read that here.
I’d buy that for a dollar: A Chevrolet dealership integrated ChatGPT for customer inquiries - and it promptly sold a $50,000 Chevy Tahoe to a customer for a dollar. Read about that here.
Longreads
Bill Gates writes about all the AI on ‘the road ahead’ and looks forward to 2024. Read it here.
According to MIT Technology Review, these six questions will dictate the future of AI.
The Year in Review
A lot has happened in AI chatbots in 2023, and Ars Electronica selected ten highlights here.
Book News
We still have a handful of autographed copies of my new book Getting Started with ChatGPT and AI Chatbots. Grab one at the button below - and if you order by Wednesday the 27th of December, we’ll do our best have it to you before New Years!
That’s all the news for this year - we’ll pick up again from mid-January with more about AI chatbots - and a report from the 2024 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas!
If you got something useful from this newsletter, please consider forwarding it to someone else who might benefit.
Until then, have a wonderful holiday season!
Mark Pesce
www.markpesce.com // Need help with AI?