This week I was going to talk about a big development for chatbots, but I am delaying the post until I can speak with more authority.

OpenAI just came out with Dots, which are cute little cartoons that I’m pretty sure are the spoonfuls of sugar to help the AI agents go down easier, meaning they made agents non-threatening and easier to use so more people give them a try.

I don’t have access yet, but I expect OpenAI will expand to other levels. Right now Dots are for people who pay $100+ a month for ChatGPT. I’ll do a post on that when they do.

So instead, I want to share some of the important stories I’ve been reading about AI so you can make more informed decisions about the technology’s meteoric rise, mind-blowing advancements and alarming disclosures.

Bill Gates doesn’t think we’re worried enough about AI

Bill Gates’s Blunt Warning on A.I. (New York Times)

Some of the best quotes:

• “This is the most dangerous thing that humans have ever gone near.”
• “You can’t rely on the industry to self-regulate here. I mean, it’s just insane.”
• “The size of the brain is limited by the birth canal — it’s why humans, at first, are very limited…. But the silicon intelligence doesn’t have these limitations.”
• “…we’re just in a period of extreme vulnerability to cyberattack.”

AI is proving itself in cancer research and care

The Evolution of Artificial Intelligence in Oncology: Impact on Trials, Workflows, and Outcomes

Great quotes:

• “The National Cancer Institute (NCI) regards AI as an ‘unprecedented opportunity’ to further understand cancer and improve care for patients with this disease.”
• “We’ve already seen data that AI does as good or better a job at reading breast imaging studies.”
• “We are seeing discovery cycles being compressed from years to sometimes months and, in a few cases, weeks.”
• “Did my team and [I] spend more time practicing medicine and less time fighting systems?
  If AI helped us do those things, [it has earned its] place in oncology.”

New safety switch might control rogue agents

Nvidia releases software to prevent AI security incidents (ABC News)

Best quotes:

• “Nvidia said on Monday the newly unveiled software platform would have stopped the hack into Hugging Face….”
• “Recent security incidents have underscored the need to equip organizations with open, customizable tools that enforce more control over long-running agents.”
• “[AI’s] full promise can only be realized when people have confidence that AI is being built to be safe and deployed with wisdom and responsibility.”

A third of people now doubt their own words because of AI

Writing Isn’t Done Until AI Checks It (There’s An AI For That)

Best quotes:

• “For 1 in 3, confidence in their own writing has dropped since AI came along.”
• “The youngest take the biggest hit, though. 42% of Gen Z feel less confident writing on their own.”
• “They aren’t hunting for typos. 79% changed something after AI checked it, even when they thought it was fine the way it was.”

Hershey used AI to sell us more s’mores

Hershey is using AI to strategize for s’mores season (Modern Retail)

Best quotes:

• “This year, the company started using a new proprietary AI tool developed in-house that uses computer vision and augmented reality to identify where to place s’mores displays in stores and determine how they perform based on consumer data…”
• “The platform uses augmented reality to visualize digital 3D product displays in real-world retail environments, and image recognition to provide insights on merchandising execution, location effectiveness and sales performance.”
• “Sales teams take pictures of the s’mores displays in stores, and, in conjunction with point-of-sale data, the AI tool will determine where in the store the displays work best.”
• “The company said this turns what once took five months of manual spreadsheet work into an overnight process.”