AI Hardware Fails, OpenAI & FT, Anthropic Mobile App, and AI by Yelp

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May 03, 2024

Welcome to our weekly news roundup!

Perhaps this is our first post, a significant part of which is dedicated to a sad topic: the results of AI gadgets. I propose to discuss how Rabbit R1 (following AI Pin) failed to live up to our expectations, why it happened, and what the future holds.

Of course, we'll also tell you about the main news of the week and provide with tons of useful content, from guides to bonus materials and new AI tools. Let's get started!

And if you want to digress a bit and read about a really nice story, check out our previous newsletter. There we talk about David Bressler, a family man & data analyst, who built a $1M AI app with no code!
9-5 Dad Built A $1M AI App With No Code
Anvar Abrarov
·
Apr 30
Read full story

This Creators’ AI Edition:

Featured Materials 🎟️
News of the week 🌍
Useful tools ⚒️
Weekly Guides 📕
AI Meme of the Week 🤡
AI Tweet of the Week 🐦
(Bonus) Materials 🎁

Featured Material 🎟️

AI Devices vs. Reality: Rabbit R1 Lost Round Two

The Rabbit R1 is an AI-powered gadget that can use your apps for you - The Verge

Another week, another AI device release, another failure. Two weeks ago, I wrote about how startup Humane failed to win the hearts of journalists, bloggers, and users with its AI Pin gadget. It turned out to be a completely useless gimmick: AI Pin was annoyingly slow, frequently made mistakes, and quickly ran out of battery.

And most importantly, some of the functionality was simply missing.

If you want to learn more about what's wrong with the AI Pin, I recommend The Verge and Marques Brownlee's reviews. They described the device's main problems very accurately.

And now the same fate has befallen the R1 by Rabbit. I'll say it bluntly: the most anticipated AI devices suck. To explain what the problem is, I should briefly describe what Rabbit R1 is. Before the launch, the developer (like Humane) promised us a pocket companion with native AI support. And it sounded pretty cool: you could already (at least I did) draw your own analog of Iron Man's Jarvis or Friday. The AI is always by your side, ready to come to your aid and answer tough questions!

I'm not going to spell out the specs the Rabbit R1 or AI Pin. If you want to know a bit more about these devices, we have a proper newsletter:
Rabbit R1, AI Pin, and Apple Vision Pro vs Your Smartphone
Creators' AI
·
Feb 13
Read full story

But in reality, things turned out to be different. Essentially, the Rabbit R1 is a bad Android smartphone with very old hardware that can't make calls and only supports one app. Oh, and the startup sells the AI app as a standalone gadget for $200 (but no subscription!).

In addition, the R1 lags, runs out of battery before evening, and doesn't always understand what you want it to do. The first users quickly figured out the deception.

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The Verge has already called Rabbit R1 “an unfinished, unhelpful AI gadget”, and Android Authority columnist Mishaal Rahman found out a funny thing: you can actually install the Rabbit app on your smartphone and get full functionality without a separate device. By the way, the R1 processes all of its data in the cloud. This means that without a connection to the company's servers, the gadget is simply useless.

This is how the Rabbit app looks on the Pixel 6a.

Against this background, the obvious question arises: do we need AI devices?

AI Devices Will Never be Useful?

I'm sad to admit it, but the facts answer in the negative: AI devices are useless and unnecessary. At least not right now. I love unusual gadgets, actively follow what's happening in the AR and VR world, and love testing new form factors. But the problem with AI devices is that our smartphones are very good, and it's too hard to compete with them for a place in our pockets.

I see it this way: developers should think about how to create a gadget that goes beyond the devices we're familiar with. Something similar is being done by Apple with the Vision Pro, as well as companies developing AR glasses and lenses. With these devices, we (well, sometimes) see clear advantages over smartphones and understand why we should buy them.

By the way, Humane and Rabbit are now promising to fix all the problems with regular updates. And I'm willing to believe that the developers will try harder and maybe their devices will get better. But the fundamental problems, namely the lack of advantage over smartphones, will not be solved anymore.

Let's wait a bit. Sooner or later, we'll surely see someone who will change the way we think about AI devices. Again, I just hope so.

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News Of The Week 🌍

Financial Times Signs Content Over to OpenAI

A major deal between a media and IT company. OpenAI has entered into a mutually beneficial content agreement with Financial Times. The amount of the deal has not been disclosed, but we do know that the FT will soon start sharing its content to train GPT models. In addition, ChatGPT users will now receive summaries, quotes, and extended links to FT articles in response to their prompts.

Financial Times partners with OpenAI to enhance ChatGPT, improve model and create AI products for readers

OpenAI will also work with FT to develop models for its readers. This is similar to what you may have seen with the beta of Ask FT, based on Anthropic's Claude model.

Now that's just great news. Let's be honest, today's chatbots have a big problem processing relevant information. And OpenAI's partnership with a media giant like the FT could (perhaps partially) solve that problem.

Microsoft Bans US Police from Using Enterprise AI Tool

No “big brother” or police state, Microsoft says. The company has confirmed its ban for the U.S. police department to use generative AI for facial recognition using Azure OpenAI Service. Previously, police were expected to use models to process data from body-worn and surveillance cameras.

Microsoft's decision is understandable. Of course, we would like the police to do a better job and fight crime more effectively. However, the use of AI could lead to unpredictable consequences. Microsoft realizes this, and that's good to see.

Anthropic Launches iPhone App and New Business Tier

Anthropic is gradually becoming a serious competitor for OpenAI. A couple of days ago, the Amazon-backed startup announced its first-ever enterprise offering and its first iOS app. The new subscription option, called Team, has been in development for several months and has been tested with 50 customers in a wide range of industries.

According to Anthropic CEO Daniela Amodei, many enterprise businesses already use Claude in their offices on a regular basis. And now this chatbot will be even more useful for such an audience.

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Apple Intensifies Talks With OpenAI for iPhone Generative AI Features

Another batch of rumors about how Apple is implementing AI in iOS 18. According to Bloomberg, the company has reopened talks with OpenAI for generative AI features in the iPhone. Meanwhile, the company is also continuing its collaboration with Google. Apparently, Apple is gathering all the best LLM developers around it. But the details are still unknown.

We'll find out what Apple has in store for us very soon: this summer at WWDC 2024.

Yelp Launches New AI Assistant for Consumers

Yelp has announced a new AI-powered chatbot for consumers that helps them connect with the appropriate companies to get their tasks done. Yelp said the assistant uses OpenAI's large language models along with its own data to ask users about their problems and connect them with the appropriate professionals to get the job done.

Yelp is now rolling out the assistant in its iOS app and plans to expand it to Android later this year.

Useful Tools ⚒️

AI Assistant and Bot Builder – Build a custom AI assistant with no-code

Monterey AI 2.0 – Copilot for product insights

QueryPal – Get AI-powered answers from your company's knowledge

Noodle4 – Review your UGC & Influencer content at scale with AI

Dashworks AI – Instant AI answers in Slack from all your apps.

It's a private and personalized chatbot that answers users' questions with companies' internal databases. If you've recently launched a startup but already feel like your information is sprawling, Dashworks will help your colleagues not get lost. The platform supports integration with dozens of third-party services and, most importantly, automates your interaction with Slack.