Turn QR codes into art with Hugging Face

🗞️ The Latest in AI: Mercedes-Benz upgrades in-car voice control with ChatGPT

Mercedes-Benz is leveling up its MBUX voice-controlled assistant with AI. By integrating ChatGPT into voice control, the Hey Mercedes feature will become even more intuitive.

Customers are able to join an optional beta program that started yesterday. Drivers whose vehicles are equipped with the MBUX infotainment system can participate via the Mercedes me app or by using the voice command “Hey Mercedes, I want to join the beta program.” Over 900,000 Mercedes-Benz vehicles in the U.S. are fit to join the beta.

ChatGPT leverages a large language model to improve the Hey Mercedes voice assistant’s natural language understanding and expand the topics to which it can respond. The voice assistant will now be able to conduct conversations, such as sharing details about a destination, in addition to accepting natural voice commands.

Mercedes-Benz is integrating ChatGPT through Azure OpenAI Service, leveraging enterprise-grade capabilities of Microsoft’s cloud and AI platform.

Click here to learn more.

🤖 AI Tool of the Day: Turn QR codes into art with Hugging Face

The Hugging Face hub now features the first QR Code AI Art Generator. All you need to create your own QR code-based artwork is a destination URL and a text-to-image prompt idea. The resulting QR codes are sure to turn heads.

Key Feature: Have a specific image in mind? Upload it to Hugging Face and it will integrate your image into a QR code.

📸 Business Spotlight: Meta plans to make AI models free for commercial use

As Meta prepares to release its next large language model (LLM), the company is encouraging other companies to develop and profit from its open-source AI software. By making its AI models free for commercial purposes, Meta is departing from the closed-source approach of Google’s Bard and OpenAI’s ChatGPT.

The move could spark widespread adoption of the platform by companies that are on the lookout for more affordable AI options. A gravitation of developers to Meta’s open-source models could also contribute improvements to the company’s core models.

In February, Meta launched its first open-source LLM, LLaMA, for research use and distributed it to a select group of users. LLaMA’s code has since been leaked into the broader tech landscape, and an array of more sophisticated models have derived from Meta’s original LLM. Now, the company is encouraging such behavior by third parties.

To this point, Meta has been subtle in its approach to AI. This move doubles down on Meta’s commitment to an open-source strategy that releases code and research to the public, while other major players such as Google and OpenAI wall off much of their research.

Click here to learn more.