McDonald’s has a new employee, and his name is 🥒 Pickles. Pickles is an AI chatbot that can help employees keep that ice cream machine running all summer long.
🤖 Learn to speak AI: Type in “–no [excluded words or phrases]” for anything you want the chatbot to ignore. The double hyphen and “no” tell the bot to leave out those words or phrases. Say you’re hosting a dinner party and need appetizer ideas. Use “–no shrimp” if someone’s allergic.
She 'married' an AI chatbot
We catch up with Rosanna Ramos, the New York mom who married her Replika husband, Eren Kartal. Last year, she told us how Eren, being an AI chatbot, doesn’t judge or bring any baggage. How’s their relationship going now? Stick around to find out!
🎤 AI’s got talent: A software architect posted a delightful duet with OpenAI’s Advanced Voice Mode (AVM). With it, the man and the chatbot performed The Beatles’ “Eleanor Rigby.” Usually, AVM won’t sing due to built-in copyright guidelines, but the guy found a loophole — he turned it into a game, strumming four pop chords and asking if the bot recognized the song. After a few rounds, the bot unexpectedly started singing along. The video is amazing.
AI Bumble dates
If the AI is going to do all the work, what’re you doing while your chatbot is dating for you?
💰 Google paid $2.7 billion to get back an employee: Software engineer Noam Shazeer quit in 2021 after Google refused to release a chatbot he developed (paywall link). He went on to found Character.AI, and now Google’s shelling out to license the tech. How’d you like to explain this to the Board of Directors?
Sponsored results: AI chatbot Perplexity is tapping into the billion-dollar digital ad industry. Brands will bid for a “sponsored” question featuring an AI-generated answer that will include them. Marketers will pay $50 or more for every 1,000 impressions generated by these posts (paywall link). A $50 CPM (cost per thousand) is really high for this.
Use AI to prep for interviews: Open your favorite AI chatbot, then copy and paste the job description. Ask it to break down the key details and responsibilities. Next, have the chatbot act as your interviewer.
🫡 Greetings, colleague: Dreading writing an email for work? Open ChatGPT or your favorite AI chatbot. Give it a headstart by typing who you are, your recipient and what the email needs to communicate. If the first draft is awful, give feedback (e.g., “Make it sound more conversational” or “Be more confident”) until it’s ready for your edits.
💰 $2,000 a month for ChatGPT-5: That’s the rumored cost for the next iteration of OpenAI’s chatbot. A Samsung exec leaked it (accidentally?) at a conference. The real question: What could possibly be worth a 100 times price increase? It’d better wash the floors, cook and be able to do all my work for that much money.
Identity crisis: You can prime ChatGPT or any other chatbot to answer how you want with one simple phrase: “You are a …” and then fill in that blank with anything — “marketing expert,” “lawyer,” “landlord attorney,” “master gardener,” “personal trainer.” Go ahead, try “Digital Goddess.”
⚕️ Don’t give up: Fight Health Insurance is a new, free AI tool that can help you appeal health insurance claim denials. The chatbot scans your denial letter and generates an appeal letter you can edit. Unlike ChatGPT and others, this one is specifically finetuned for health insurance rejections. If you use it, triple-check the text before sending it off to your insurer.
Quiz me: You’re trying to memorize capitals, learn a new language, whatever. Ask your favorite AI chatbot to give you a quiz. For example, “I’m learning Spanish. Please give me a quick quiz appropriate for beginners.”
🔥 Baby, you’re as hot as the bottom of my laptop: An analysis of 200,000 AI chatbot conversations shows close to 10% are adult in nature. Folks love asking for racy role-play sessions or spicy AI-generated images. FYI, most bots limit NSFW content.
He was onto something: In a newly released clip from 1983, Steve Jobs dreamt of a machine that could generate responses based on a person’s “underlying spirit, or underlying set of principles, or any underlying way of looking at the world.” Yeah, that’s an AI chatbot. Btw, Jobs wanted to talk to Aristotle and Plato. I’d like to chat with my parents.
Windows user? Use “God Mode” to access all your Control Panel settings in one place. Just create a new folder anywhere, like on your desktop, and rename it to this exact string: GodMode.{ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C} Hit “Enter,” and the folder icon will change to a Control Panel icon. Opening this new folder will give you a powerful, centralized view of virtually all settings and configuration options in Windows.
Customize your AI output: You can block certain words or phrases an AI chatbot is spitting out. Just type “–no [words]” in your prompt to exclude one or more. Note: Use exactly two hyphens and closing square brackets for it to work properly.
Another AI chatbot goes rogue
A social media star creates an AI clone of herself to chat with fans—for a fee. What went wrong? Find out more in this short podcast.
What would 60-year-old you think? MIT researchers made an AI chatbot that lets you talk to your future self. Powered by OpenAI’s GPT-3.5, this tool uses your info to spin convos that inspire wiser life choices. Early tests show volunteers felt less anxious about their future after using the bot.