Pretty wild to watch some of the videos that customers have shared, being charged for 200 orders of chicken McNuggets and things like that, when the AI order bot was struggling especially with accents or customers ordering Pepsi Co drinks when they only serve Coca Cola made beverages. I am quite surprised that this was so bad, on the other hand with the number of order going through these drive-throughs I suspect that by-and-large it was working "okay", just the errors when they happened were so egregious that they had to pull the whole thing. The other thing that surprises me is that how it could have been so bad actually. The domain is very narrow and when you contrast with the incredible quality of voice transcriptions from online meetings its somewhat unlikely. Of course the environment is different, with traffic and other background noise. At the same time: my partner and I have been recording conversations that we have while going on city walks in Hong Kong and those transcribe amazingly well with OpenAI's Whisper. Ok, IBM is not OpenAI, but that the gap could be that big is a surprise to me. https://www.cnbc.com/2024/06/17/mcdonalds-to-end-ibm-ai-drive-thru-test.html

This article I stumbled upon, titled "How A.I. Is Revolutionizing Drug Development" from The New York Times explores how companies like Terray Therapeutics are harnessing the power of generative AI to accelerate the drug development process. These AI-driven startups are building sophisticated labs to generate massive amounts of molecular and biochemical data, which is then used to train AI models to design new drug candidates more efficiently. Read the full article here: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/17/business/ai-drugs-development-terray.html

A recent opinion piece in the New York Times argues that major tech giants like Google, Microsoft, and Amazon are systematically stifling innovation by co-opting promising AI startups before they can become competitive threats. The article suggests these large firms are using tactics like strategic investments, acquisitions, and exploiting data/network access to undermine the ability of new players to truly disrupt the market. This is concerning news for the future of AI development and technological progress. What do you think can be done to restore a more vibrant, competitive landscape in the AI industry? Should policymakers step in with new regulations, or is the answer more complex? Share your thoughts and insights in the comments.

Bloomberg has reported that the retail giant- WALMART -is using a chatbot from Pactum AI to automate vendor negotiations. Walmart feeds its budgetary constraints and information about its goals into the program, and then leaves the chatbot to work out the agreement. Amazon and Walmart Use GenAI to Cut Vendor Costs (pymnts.com)

Ever since the Apple Event, everyone has been talking about the collaboration between Apple and OpenAI. Many welcome this idea with excitement, while others worry about its implications. Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla and X, has threatened to ban Apple devices from being used at his companies, including SpaceX and X, if Apple integrates OpenAI's ChatGPT into its operating systems. Musk believes this would constitute an "unacceptable security violation" and that Apple has no idea what's happening with user data once it's handed over to OpenAI. This comes after Apple announced a new partnership with OpenAI to bring generative AI tools, including ChatGPT, to Apple products through an "Apple Intelligence" system. Musk, who co-founded OpenAI but is now running a rival firm called xAI, has a contentious relationship with his former company and its CEO Sam Altman. The article highlights the ongoing tensions and power dynamics in the rapidly evolving AI landscape, as tech giants navigate the integration of these powerful language models. Musk's threat to ban Apple devices speaks to the high stakes and potential security concerns surrounding the deployment of large language models like ChatGPT.