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Spotlight: Microsoft pressured over AI lab in China
Jack Shields
January 11, 2024
Welcome back!
It’s a big day in AI as ChatGPT users with no coding experience can now build and share their own chatbots. We’ll also dive into an emerging controversy involving Microsoft and one of its labs overseas.
Let’s go.
In today’s Daily Update:
🗞️ OpenAI launches GPT Store
🤖 Simple Analytics: Streamline your website analytics
📸 Microsoft faces questions over AI lab in China
🚨 AI Roundup: Four quick hits
Read time: 2 minutes
TOP STORY
🗞️ OpenAI launches GPT Store
Source: OpenAI
OpenAI just launched its store for custom GPTs, allowing ChatGPT premium subscribers to build and share their own chatbots with other users.
What you should know:
The GPT Store features GPTs developed by OpenAI partners (Khan Academy, Canva, etc.) and the wider dev community.
Building GPTs doesn’t require any coding experience, and they can be trained on anything from cookbooks to a company’s proprietary software code.
All custom GPTs are currently free, but OpenAI plans to launch a “GPT builder revenue program” later this year.
Why it matters: OpenAI is democratizing generative AI app creation by providing a no-code development platform for ChatGPT users. This will empower small businesses to build their own GPTs at a low cost, but will also kill AI startups that focus on building chatbots for clients.
AI TOOL OF THE DAY
🤖 Simple Analytics: Streamline your website analytics
Screenshot
Simple Analytics is a privacy-focused alternative to Google Analytics that utilizes a user-friendly chatbot interface to provide real-time insights into your website’s visitors and traffic sources.
Chat with your analytics by pasting your website’s URL. Simple Analytics can also visualize your data and turn it into shareable content.
Click here to try a live demo of the platform for free. Plans start at $9 a month.
BUSINESS SPOTLIGHT
📸 Microsoft faces questions over AI lab in China
Source: Thomas Peters/Reuters
Microsoft is facing pressure from U.S. officials to decide whether operating an advanced technologies lab in Beijing is tenable amidst growing tensions with China.
The details:
Microsoft opened an advanced research lab in Beijing in 1998 that eventually became one of the most important AI labs in the world.
Bill Gates says the lab is an opportunity to tap China’s “deep pool of intellectual talent.”
Microsoft has internally debated the lab’s future for several years. It has become a target of national security concerns as the U.S. and China race for AI supremacy.
The company said it would move some researchers to an outpost in Vancouver, British Columbia, but Microsoft’s leaders reportedly remain committed to operations in China.
The response: The Biden administration privately asked Microsoft about the 200-person lab while drafting bans on new U.S. investments in China, citing concerns that Beijing could use the lab’s sensitive technologies to enhance its military. It now has restrictions on work related to quantum computing, facial recognition and synthetic media.
MORE TRENDING NEWS
🚨 AI Roundup: Four quick hits
Generated by Adobe Firefly
Rabbit unveils R1, an AI-powered mobile device that operates without apps.
OpenAI debuts ChatGPT subscription aimed at small teams.
Getty Images launches a commercially safe generative AI tool for stock photos.
George Carlin is “resurrected” by AI in a new hour-long stand-up comedy special.
THAT’S ALL FOR TODAY