If you wanted to previously find an image that perfectly matched what you saw in your head online, you had to type in a wordy search inquiry. You’d hit send and hope you find the perfect match from the billions of images out there.
Now, that mental snapshot can be crafted in seconds by artificial intelligence and sometimes it’s even better than you could imagine.
“We want to solve a big problem that everyone has, which is roughly half of the searches today are going unanswered,” said Yusuf Mehdi, Microsoft’s consumer chief marketing officer. “But with A.I., we can now start to answer more and more of those questions.”
Microsoft invested $10 billion in Open A.I., the artificial intelligence research laboratory responsible for text-based ChatGPT and image generator DALL-E. It recently combined its powers with its search engine Bing. Not only will it store the searches, it will use third-party apps like Open Table and the breadth of the internet to give you simplified answers. Think of it as the modern version of Ask Jeeves, but it actually works, Mehdi said.
“You can just talk to it like an everyday person, and the A.I. does all the work and comes back with simple answers,” he explained.
When you describe something to Bing through its chat function and ask for an image, it will generate it for you using DALL-E technology in seconds -- even if it’s something that never existed like Baby Yoda sharing a drink with Boba Fett in Mos Eisley.
Or you can ask Bing to come up with reference images to give to a contractor. Mehdi recently queried for pictures of a mid-Century modern-style bar to serve as inspiration for an upcoming house remodeling project.
“It's going to make people in their current jobs that much more productive, that much more effective, than we're seeing that today,” Mehdi said. “Second, it’s going to create a new set of jobs where people can learn how to take advantage of the A.I.”
If what you need can only be described in words, Bing and ChatGPT combine together to give you answers with context. Instead of having to research individual items and draw your own conclusions, it will compile the results for you. It can be especially useful when it comes to travel.
“Travel planning takes multiple weeks, people taking lots of notes, lots of tabs, having to compile it together,” he said. “What you can see here is in one chat session, you can literally just ask multiple questions like we were saying, “Hey, give me a day-by-day itinerary. Tell me about the festivals. What should I wear? What should I know about the customs of coming in?”
At the end of the day, it will save us time.
“We're automating the mundane tasks, the things you don't want us to do so it frees you up to do the really interesting work,” Mehdi said.
The largest tech convention in the world kicks off this week. CES, organized by the Consumer Technology Association, will run from Wednesday Jan. 5 through Friday Jan. 7, featuring more than 2,000 exhibitors showing off their latest tech products in Las Vegas. Ian Sherr, editor at large at CNET, gives a first look at some of the biggest trends expected this year.
Verizon and AT&T have agreed to delay the launch of their 5G networks for two weeks following pressure from the Federal Aviation Administration, airline companies and even Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg. The aviation industry is concerned the 5G rollout could bring technical challenges or safety concerns on top of the current disruptions they're already dealing with from COVID and severe weather. Hugh Odom, founder and president of Vertical Consultants and former AT&T attorney, discusses how the Biden administration was able to come to this agreement with the wireless carriers.
Angelo Zino, Senior Industry Analyst & Vice President at CFRA Research, breaks down the tech giants' valuation milestone and discusses the areas of Apple's business that could see further growth.
General Motors rolled out the newest addition to its EV fleet with the all-electric Silverado pickup truck. Deborah Wahl, chief marketing officer at GM, joined Cheddar to talk about the latest EV offering and how it matches up to its past gas-powered versions. She said she expects demand to soar after the "first-level truck" sold out in just 12 minutes and talked about steps GM plans to take to regain its title as top U.S. auto seller after being dethroned by Toyota in 2021 with emphasis on the EV market. "I think this is an exciting new inflection point for the market overall, for [an] idea of an all-electric future, and certainly shows that we're extremely committed to the idea of everybody in an electric vehicle," said Wahl.
With the annual CES convention underway amid COVID, HP unveiled rolled out a number of new products virtually this year, including new gaming PCs and 4K display monitors. But as industries look toward a greener future, HP is working with the climate crisis in mind. James McCall, chief sustainability officer at HP, joined Cheddar's Kristen Scholer to discuss the company's climate goals, which includes reducing its carbon footprint to net-zero by 2040. He admitted that reaching the ambitious goal will be difficult because much of the company's emissions totals come from third parties. "A large part of our footprint is outside of HP's direct control. A lot of it comes either from our incoming supply chain, the materials, our manufacturing process, or about 30 to 40 percent of it comes from our consumer-use base," McCall told Cheddar.
Martin Fischer, president of technology supplier for cars and commercial vehicles ZF North America, joined Cheddar to discuss the company's solutions for next-generation mobility in autonomous vehicles and its plans to usher in the next phase of electric vehicles. He also talked about the rising demand for self-driving technology on a global scale. "Whereas we are really active also there for passenger cars and commercial vehicles, what we showcase at CES now virtually is our autonomous shuttles," he said. "So, what that means is we bring these vehicles to busy city centers and can take traffic levels down."
Steve Patton, EY Americas Mobility Sector Leader, joins Cheddar News to discuss what can be done to speed up the adoption of EVs, and how infrastructure can be scaled up to support this transition.
