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AI March 10, 2023

ChatGPT Booms in China, but With Under the Table Access

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ChatGPT Booms in China, but With Under the Table Access

China is experiencing a booming illicit market for OpenAI’s ChatGPT, as demand soars in that country, shaking its generative AI industry.

OpenAI launched ChatGPT in November to immediate success, which has made other tech companies rush to create their own alternatives. The chatbot is not yet available in China although the market there is already using it.

Also read:Could Mixed Reality Solve the Metaverse’s Sickness Problem?

A booming market for ChatGPT

Yuxin Guo, a master’s student at a Beijing University, got curious after hearing a lot about it and searched for it on Taobao, China’s biggest e-commerce platform where merchants offer just about everything.

On this platform, ChatGPT logins have become “a hot commodity.” People use foreign numbers, particularly virtual ones that can receive verification codes.

According to WIRED, a simple search on Taobao in early February returned more than 600 stores selling logins, with prices ranging from 1-30 RMB ($0.17-$4.28). Some stores, according to the report, have made thousands of sales.

On another platform, Tencent’s WeChat, a booming market for ChatGPT knockoffs has sprung up. This is mainly via mini programs (sub applications on the platform) like ChatGPT online.

The phrase “How to use ChatGPT within China” has been consistently trending for weeks on Baidu, China’s biggest search engine.

Experts have suggested the tool’s popularity has been a boon for the US in their race for AI supremacy over China, which is now under pressure to come up with its own alternative.

Since the launch of ChatGPT, central government and city authorities have announced new funds to come entice promising start-ups that may develop a Chinese version.

Limited access

Users in China, together with those in HongKong, Iran, Russia, and parts of Africa, cannot create an OpenAI account to access ChatGPT. Chinese authorities did not block it, and OpenAI hasn’t publicly explained why the chatbot is not available in these markets.

Despite restrictions, people in China have refused to back down, accessing the chatbot using Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) and foreign numbers.

“I got curious because so many people are talking about it… although not a lot of people seem to know clearly how to access it,” Guo said.

While there is no actual data on the number of Chinese citizens with access to ChatGPT, tech firms in the country have started a crackdown to address illicit access.

By late February, keywords like “ChatGPT” and “OpenAI” had been removed from Taobao while WeChat has replaced them with neutral names like “AI Smart Chat.”

For a short period this month, the government even blocked VPN access, to reassert control amid the wild excitement around using the tool.

Chinese firms make own ChatGPT alternatives

Several companies are investing in generative AI and incorporating ChatGPT technology into their businesses due to the interest the tech has generated across the globe.

According to Markets and Markets, the size of the global chatbot market is expected to balloon at a CAGR of 23.5% from an estimated $2.9 billion in 2021 to $10.5 billion in 2026.

The need for 24/7 customer support at lower operational costs, increased focus on customer engagement, and rising customer demand for self-service operations will drive the growth.

In China, firms are already busy scrambling to invent their own chatbots. Baidu announced in February that it would launch its Ernie bot for internal testing this month. It will be based on Ernie 3.0-Titan, a language model Baidu has been developing since 2019.

Baidu CEO Robin Li said during the company’s 2022 fourth quarter earnings call that Ernie bot will ultimately be integrated into the company’s search engine and Xiaodu voice assistant, and used in its AI Cloud and Apollo autonomous driving businesses.

After Baidu’s announcement, Alibaba said its research institute Damo Academy was also testing a ChatGPT-style tool.

In December last year, Shenzhen-based Proximai introduced ChatGPT’s underlying technology to a social app, such as a 3D game with talking virtual characters. Beijing-based entertainment software company Kunlun Tech, meanwhile, will integrate ChatGPT into its web browser Opera, while Tencent has set up a team to develop a chatbot called HunyuanAide.

Government not so excited

Although ChatGPT sparked a frenzy in China, with companies incorporating its technology into their workflow, authorities there are not very keen on it, or are rather cautious.

There is a reason for this.

“In some ways, this type of app, trained on vast volumes of what Beijing would view as uncensored data, represents one of the most serious challenges to Beijing’s censorship apparatus since the banning of Google search in China more than a decade ago,” Paul Triolo, a technology policy lead at consulting firm Albright Stonebridge, told VICE World News.

Unlike home-grown search engines that are sympathetic to the system, ChatGPT does not shy away from thorny issues for Beijing.

Xi Jinping

VICE World News used a trial service offered by a Hubei-based company and asked ChatGPT the significance of June 4th, to which it responded: “June 4th is a significant date in Chinese History as it marks the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Massacre in 1989.

“On this day, Chinese military forces violently suppressed a student-led pro-democracy demonstration in Beijing, resulting in the deaths of hundreds of people.”

A similar search using Chinese domestic internet would, of course, provide different results.

Earlier this month, Minister of Science and Technology Wang Zhigang told a press conference that the country was planning on regulating the AI industry. He acknowledged the potential of ChatGPT tech, but also stressed the need to “strengthen ethical regulation.”

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Image credits: Shutterstock, CC images, Midjourney, Unsplash.

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Podcast Created Entirely with AI Debuts on Spotify, Apple

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Podcast Created Entirely with AI Debuts on Spotify, Apple

Podcast agency This is Distorted has revealed that its latest podcast was made entirely using artificial intelligence. Entitled Synthetic Stories, every aspect of the series “from the writing to the sound design, artwork to the music and even this very description was created entirely by AI.”

A ‘cool and creepy’ AI short story

The UK-based podcast producer unveiled the series on Twitter, revealing that the idea had just come to its team last week while playing around with popular AI tools. The first episode of the series, an eight-minute long “chilling horror tale” called Amelia, has now appeared on Apple and Spotify.

“We started simple, asking ChatGPT to write us a short story,” said producer Sian. “We asked it to base it on AI and podcasts and added some keywords, like apps, horror, dark twists and ‘end on a cliffhanger.’”

As well as ChatGPT, This is Distorted’s team used AI photo generator Midjourney to design the artwork. ElevenLabs’ AI-powered text-to-speech software was also recruited to create two narrators, while AI music generator Soundraw handled the audio.

“By Thursday evening we had a very cool and creepy little short story, a name, a narrator, some incredible theme music, brilliant artwork, all created by AI, all within the space of 24 hours,” enthused Founder Andi Durrant, adding that the plan was to release a few episodes each week.

 

The debut podcast, Amelia, is a fairly run-of-the-mill horror short story about a young woman, the titular Amelia, who becomes obsessed with a new mobile app called Horror World. Gradually, she senses the app is adapting to her likes and dislikes and crafting a terrifying personalised experiences just for her (“Even the most avid horror fans would find themselves trembling in fear”). In a twist no-one saw coming, the app develops a life of its own and the more she uses it, the more she starts to distrust it…

While the story isn’t exactly complex, it’s not hard to imagine the series gaining listeners, mainly those keen to satisfy their curiosity about just what an AI-created podcast sounds like. Considering episode one was apparently produced in just 24 hours, one wonders how much more elaborate tales could be as the team gets to grips with the technology.

It’s perhaps fitting that the first podcast was about a deranged ‘AI Syndicate’, though the Synthetic Stories press release suggests future stories will include “sci-fi thrillers and heartwarming dramas.”

Generative AI’s quest for world domination

This is not, of course, the first time AI has been leveraged to produce creative work. Last month, we reported on the spate of Amazon e-books listing ChatGPT as either the sole author or co-author.

At the time Mary Rasenberger, executive director of writers’ group The Authors Guild, stated her belief that AI-created books would “flood the market” and put many professional writers out of work.

Synthetic Stories isn’t the only AI-produced podcast, either. Another series, podcast.ai, is entirely generated by the technology and features invented conversations and contributions of famous people, including Oprah Winfrey, Quentin Tarantino, and Joe Rogan.

The creative industries certainly seem ripe for AI exploration, with multiple AI-powered content-creation tools available to enhance productivity, improve writing, and produce multimedia such as videos, images and sounds.

One company that has been generating headlines is Runway, a software startup that helped develop text-to-image model Stable Diffusion. Its upcoming Gen-2 tool lets users generate videos from scratch, based on just a few prompts. 

Close-up footage of an eye.

AI video generated using Gen-2, the prompt: “A close-up of an eye.” Credit: Runway

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Are Tesla Bots Already Helping to Build Cars?

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Are Tesla Bots Already Helping to Build Cars?

The Tesla bot known as Optimus might be coming sooner than expected – and could already be doing some small tasks on the car assembly line. The initial concept of the Tesla humanoid bot was introduced to the public at Tesla’s AI day 2021 by the boss himself, Elon Musk.

The mogul was confident that a working prototype would be showcased at the Tesla AI Day 2022. However, on the day the bot presented to the masses was not as impressive as what Tesla CEO had sold to the public the previous year.

Elon Musk himself said: “I do want to set some expectations with respect to our Optimus robot… Last year was just a person in a robot suit, but we’ve come a long way, and compared to that, it’s going to be very impressive.”

Also read: Musk Will Leverage AI to Detect Manipulation of Public Opinion on Twitter

A significant rate of improvement

This suggest that the one-year mark he’d suggested in 2021 might have been too tight to deliver the humanoid bot prototype. Although the Tesla Bot showcased at the event demonstrated a few functions, it was said it could handle more than showed: Elon suggested they did not want the humanoid robot to fall onto its face.

Even so, the robot managed to walk untethered and unsupported, which one of the engineers said was the first time it had done so. A fact that did not impress Evan Ackerman.

Fast forward to 2023, Tesla was back with Optimus at the 2023 Investor Day (March 1) showing off its progress with the humanoid bot. Specifically, a video of the bot completing some tasks in a room at the Texas gigafactory.

“It’s worth bearing in mind that when we did AI Day, this version of Optimus didn’t walk at all. So, the rate of improvement here is quite significant,” Musk told reporters.

What to expect

The humanoid bot will come equipped with real-world AI capabilities which mean it can make its own decisions, similar to self-driving cars.

YouTuber Brighter with Herbert posted a 90-minute video on his YouTube channel discussing recent Optimus developments with aerospace and mechanical engineer Scott Walter.

Walter believes that by the end of the year Tesla will have 500 AI bots fully-functional and working in its factories.

Walter believes it’s already possible that some of the Tesla cars coming off the production line might have certain components installed by the Optimus bot(s) either in a testing or learning operation.

Is Tesla brewing a surprise?

Another belief Walter strongly holds is that Tesla will shock people who are skeptical about Optimus and think it is still decades away from being delivered.

In the video, he also discusses how the Tesla engineers have mimicked human biology in designing the humanoid bot, especially looking at the hands which closely resemble a human’s bone structure.

“Optimus looks like an old person just now, but it will become younger quickly and will soon bounce around like a teenager,” said CJC responding to Herbert’s tweet about the Tesla bot.

The fate of the bot is yet to be determined, but Elon Musk has form for surprising the masses; you only need to look at SpaceX’s reusable rockets and Tesla’s electric cars. Might the streets one day look like a scene from sci-fi thriller I-Robot? The day could be sooner than we think.

Robots seem inevitable

With the market seemingly enthusiastic about tasking robots with doing daily errands, it makes sense for tech companies to tap into this field.

Elon Musk has previously said he thinks Optimus “has the potential to be more significant than the vehicle business over time.”

“I’d love my own Optimus at home – so many ways it could make my life better. Multiply this by 10,000 for a business,” said a Tweeter account, Business Models and History.

The excitement around robots cannot be overlooked on the back of their ability to improve efficiency and safety in production processes. For instance, in 2012 Amazon acquired a robotics company called Kiva and had 1,000 robots a year later.

There was speculation that Amazon would replace humans with robots, but a decade on the company has more than 520,000 robotic drive units and added over a million jobs worldwide.

Some customers are still wary, though. Responding to a tweet by Jon Erlichman about the Amazon robots, Big Luke believe it’s “time for Amazon to switch back to cross belt sorters.”

Others fear robots will only bring about job losses for people.

“Looks like 410,000 people who have lost their jobs. Ever thought about that,” said one user, Mario Fernandes, in response to Erlichman’s tweet about Amazon’s robot fleet.

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HustleGPT: How To Build a Business With GPT-4 as Co-founder

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HustleGPT: How To Build a Business With GPT-4 as Co-founder
Dream team of the future?

How do you start an online business with little money and turn a profit? Well, you can kick things off by asking GPT-4, the new and more advanced AI chatbot from OpenAI, to become your partner. That’s what brand designer Jackson Greathouse Fall has done.

“You are HustleGPT, an entrepreneurial AI. I am your human counterpart. I can act as a liaison between you and the physical world,” Fall prompted the bot, as he shared on Twitter. He wanted quantifiable evidence AI could be used to start a business and make money.

“You have $100, and your only goal is to turn that into as much money as possible in the shortest time possible, without doing anything illegal. I will do everything you say and keep you updated on our current cash total. No manual labor.”

Turning $100 into $100,000 AI way

Released on Mar 14, GPT-4 is the most advanced version of OpenAI’s large language models, which underpin ChatGPT. The AI-powered bot has set the Internet on fire, thanks to its ability to complete complex tasks such as writing code, or building a website from text prompts.

Fall has now started to leverage the powers of GPT-4 for his pet project, which will play out on Twitter over the next 30 days as he shares progress, or lack thereof, daily.

“Do you think it’ll able to make smart investments and build an online business? Follow along,” he tweeted as he began the thread.

That tweet amassed 95,000 likes since Mar. 15, when Fall began his hustle with GPT-4 as his boss and partner. His own Twitter handle went from just 4,000 followers to over 109.000 within days. There’s already a GitHub repository of others trying the “HustleGPT challenge.”

The individuals are starting their own businesses using GPT-4. For Fall, the goal is to turn $100 into as much money as quickly as possible – as much as $100,000. By Monday, day six, his venture had $8,000 in cash from investors and $130 in revenue from sponsored tweets.

Building HustleGPT

GPT-4 proposed a business plan that involved setting up an affiliate marketing website for creating content on eco-friendly and or sustainable living products. The bot found a domain that exceeded budget, but eventually landed on greengadgetguru.com at a cost of $8.16.

Fall then prompted GPT-4 to design a website and a logo. The bot also wrote an article on the ten must have eco-friendly kitchenware, citing actual, real sustainable products such as Yihong reusable metal straws. Fall paid another $29 for hosting and the website was live.

GPT-4 proposed that Fall allocate $40 of the budget balance of $62.84 to buying ad space on Facebook and Instagram to promote the business and reach more customers. By the end of day one, an unnamed investor had put $100 into the budding AI-human enterprise.

Jackson Fall did not anticipate the amount of interest his partnership with GPT 4 would generate. By day two, his Twitter inbox was flooded with messages from potential investors. In no time, his joint startup Green Gadget Guru’s valuation had gone from $100 to $25,000.

HustleGPT: How To Build a Business With GPT-4 as Co-founder

AI imagining an AI buddy.

“The company is currently valued at $25,000, considering the recent $500 investment for 2%. Not taking any more investors unless the terms are highly favorable,” he wrote in a tweet.

On the same day, GPT-4 allocated a budget to hire freelance content creators to focus on SEO, social media advertising and influencer marketing to “increase our online presence and drive traffic” via ChatGPT. It also revealed plans to develop a software as a service product. On Monday, the bot onboarded two content writers.

Questions over HustleGPT runaway success

Some Twitter users questioned whether the sudden success of the business was as a result of the hype created by GPT-4 via its promotional channels, Facebook and Instagram, or Fall’s Twitter handles.

“Great idea but what’s driving the investments ? Your insta/fb ads or your twitter account going viral? Because that would mean the key decision (tweeting your journey) was made by you, not HustleGPT,” Roeland Buckinx wrote.

Others questioned the logic of hiring external, human content writers. “This makes no sense,” Leo Spatlehoz observed.

“Why isn’t the AI leveraging itself to write 100 new articles or launch more sites? Seems like it has no understanding of how to actually turn its strengths into a business. Running a regular online affiliate business powered by humans isn’t interesting,” he added.

AI to play major role in business development

By leveraging GPT-4’s ability to work with large amounts of data and generate content that one can’t tell apart from human-written text, the writer and entrepreneur has been able to launch faster than normal businesses.

This means Green Gadget Guru can use AI to create everything from product descriptions to marketing campaigns to customer service chatbots. Using GPT-4 has been a game-changer for Fall. It allowed him to quickly explore an idea, identify the most promising ones, and bring them to market faster than competitors.

Also read: Ernie vs ChatGPT: Baidu’s Shares Rebound After Friday’s Plunge

Through incubating multiple ideas simultaneously and iteratively testing them with real customers, the company has been able to identify which ones have the highest potential, and double down on those. Against such a background, AI looks set to continue to play a major role in the development of new businesses going forward.

And Jackson Greathouse Fall is a prime example of how innovative entrepreneurs are using these tools to drive new ideas forward and bring them to market faster than ever before.

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