This week in ChatGPT saw my ChatGPT-4 Review receive fantastic feedback from Phil Buckley (SEO to the Stars) and Chris Duke (startup entrepreneur). The other big news is OpenAI connecting ChatGPT to the Internet.
As a generative pre-trained transformer, ChatGPT digested the web up to 2021. Asking OpenAI's chatbot anything current such as who won the Masters in 2022, wouldn't produce a result. I just requested ChatGPT-3.5 for that question and received the correct answer.
I had to ask ChatGPT-3.5 because four has been slow, and OpenAI limits the number of questions even my paid account can ask. "Paid account" is a bit of a misnomer since I'm paying $20 monthly for the best marketing, creativity, and technical tool I've ever used. Still, the paywall protected my ability to use the device until this week.
And that's a problem because ChatGPT-4's answers are at least thirty percent better and require less work with Grammarly to clean out the AI bots passive voice and other errors. Nothing moves from ChatGPT to our website, as I explain in my ChatGPT-4 review, but four's greater detail and less grammar correction means efficiency increases, but only when the tool gets too much demand with too little CPU. Imagine giving a child candy only to take it away. How would that go over? Discover more flips and content about ChatGPT in our Sign of the Times Flipboard magazine, and use the links below to read about all our flipping news.
In February, Dish reported a ransomware attack that continues to wreck television service and the potential for data privacy breaches for almost eight million Dish customers. I just flipped several articles about the attack on television to our Sign of the Times Flipboard magazine, but I'm a Dish customer. So I can testify to how difficult it is to speak to anyone at Dish about anything.
Before the attack, Dish's customer service was terrific if pushy. When my Dish bill exceeded $100, I called and asked to cancel my service. The Dish must train their Vegas-like closers on retaining customers because, after about half an hour, I agreed to keep Dish at a monthly price of $95.
And that price lasted for a few months, but when the inevitable creep started again, my last bill was for $140, and I wanted to cancel the service. No problem, I thought; I'll call their helpful customer service and balance. Still, I didn't realize ransomware destroyed Dish's award-winning customer service, pulled service down for some, and continues to wreak havoc months after the attack.
Hacking happens because they have a single job - breaking in, but you and your team have hundreds of jobs, and preventing break-ins is only one of them. Hackers are intelligent, resourceful, and experts at their job; that's why anyone with a website should read WTE founder and CEO Eric's Comprehensive Guide to Air Gap Backups. Air gap backups could have saved Dish a lot of pain.
Wonder why Dish didn't create air gap backups? Most companies don't air-gap their backups because they are ignorant and tripping over big money to pick up small change. Air gapping was a thing back then, but cloud computing knocked it into distant memory. However, high-profile ransomware attacks like Dish will bring it back. Yes, air gapping costs a little extra, but ask Dish if they would have gladly paid not to be experiencing what they are right now, so don't trip big money to pick up nickels and dimes.
JPMorgan Chase's purchase of startup investor platform Aumni tells us something we already knew - there are no flies on JPMC. After the SVB failure, the flight to quality saw JPMC deposits increase. Moreover, since most VC industry still uses Excel, JPMC sees an opportunity to cloudify and platform environmental, social, and governance (ESG) investing. "The moment you want to start performing any type of data science inquiries into your existing investment activity, it becomes an enormous undertaking to track down that information accurately, put it into Excel and perform the work," said Aumni's founder Tony Lewis.
We advise startups to think "platforms," not apps, and to create software, websites, and apps that solve actual pain points, such as using Excel, not to know how your investments are doing. Aumni is the latest fintech investment by JPMC, so the big get bigger, especially in an environment of fear, uncertainty, and doubt.
If you've heard loud snoring on the artificial intelligence (AI) front, it may come from Google, Adobe, or Canva. Unfortunately, Google appears to be sleepwalking Bard into being while Canva and Adobe seem to be waking up. Adobe Summit in Vegas showcased the company's commitment to AI, cloud computing, and innovation on a football field stage with enormous state-of-the-art screens.
Adobe discussed the usual suspects digital-first, end-to-end customer experiences, marketing communications, and how AI and machine learning will be essential to Adobe products. Generative AI for creativity and customer experience will "Require a thoughtful approach so we can amplify and not replace the power of human ingenuity. we believe that generative AI will be a 'copilot," said Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen in a not-so-subtle dig at GitHub's use of ChatGPT in their Copilot X.
Adobe Firefly is a set of generative AI models trained on Adobe Stock with licensed content. It does not cut out the artists and creators of those images the way Dall-e and other text-to-image generators operate, focusing on image generation and text effects via Creative, Document, and Experience Cloud. Firefly is in "public beta," and if you read that to be "waitlist," you would be correct. I just signed up at Firefly.Adobe.com.
Christina Darby's How to use DALL-E 2 to turn your creative visions into AI-generated art shared great tips for OpenAI's text-to-image tools. In rare instances, I didn't use Dall-e to create images for Flipboard Friday, such as the one above. I used a filter called Artisto, but I used Dalle-e to generate the hero image for every Flipboard Friday. Here is the starting image for this week's FF hero.
Here was my prompt.
create a black, white, abstract painting of two egg shapes Sean Scully style
I liked the egg shapes, so I worked in photoshop to create this week's FF hero. Every text to ai image needs work because I'm not a great prompt engineer yet, so much like ChatGPT nothing moves from Dall-e directly to our websites or social media (yet).
I just remembered that I should mention another big announcement this week in ChatGPT - GitHub Copilot X. We use copilot to help code the custom software, websites, and applications WTE creates for customers. Copilot X adopts the more intelligent, better, and tech-geeky GPT-4. Read my ChatGPT-4 Review and Chris Duke's note about how he uses GPT to learn more about how coders use OpenAI's chatbot.
Eric's Guide to Web Accessibility, published yesterday, explains the SEO and "do the right thing" benefits associated with one of the biggest tech trends in 2023 - ensuring your website is accessible. Read Eric's guide and learn why we partner with accessiBe to ensure WTE.net and our customers' sites don't get nasty letters from lawyers and ensure everyone can see and engage with their content. BTW, the hero image for that post features my father, Duncan Smith. Unfortunately, dad passed away a few years ago, but helping him remain active online was a mission Eric, and I gladly embraced. I wish accessiBe were around then.
Vermeer's Girl with a Pearl Earring looks like a Star Wars hero, Vincent Van Gobot, Fridabot 3000, and American Gothic 3.0 made me smile.
Read about my visit to Joeveo's world headquarters in Dean Verhoeven's house in the triangle and discover a portrait of an old-world craftsman making the world's best coffee mugs. Much of Dean's work is done in his basement on machines he created or jury-rigged to help inject his "phase change" material, so his mug cools then warms your coffee. Brilliant guy.