Paul Stenhouse: The AI wars are heating up, AI safety, and Oprah's ABC special

The AI wars are heating up 

Reports are out today that Amazon has selected Anthropic to be its AI partner for the new Alexa devices.  

Reuters notes that initial versions Amazon's own AI proved insufficient, often struggling with words and responding to user prompts. It's thought that this enhanced AI assistant will be a subscription service costing $5 to $10 a month. Amazon already has a minority stake in the company. 

Open AI is seeking investment too, and both Apple and Nvidia are interested, valuing the company at $100 billion. Apple is already planning to integrate ChatGPT into iOS and Siri, and Nvidia is a key supplier for Open AI. 

AI Safety is in the government spotlight 

Both OpenAI and Anthropic will share their models with the US Government's Safety Institute. Together with the UK they will evaluate safety risks and mitigate potential issues. There's a bill waiting for California's Governor's signature which will force AI companies in the state to take specific safety measures before training advanced models - that's the first in the country specifically targeting AI. That law would force companies to be able to quickly and fully shut the model down, prevent unsafe post-training modifications, and prevent critical harm.

Oprah is going to educate America about AI 

She's doing a special for the ABC Network here called ‘AI and the Future of Us’, where she'll interview Bill Gates and Sam Altman among others to explain how AI works, as well as the possibilities and risks ahead. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:07):
You're listening to the Saturday Morning with Jack Team podcast
from Newstalk SEDB.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
Twenty one to eleven on Newstalk said, b Oprah of
all people, is going to educate America about AI, about
artificial intelligence. Our text Bert Paul Steinhouse is doing the
same thing for us and as well as now, hey Paul,
why is Oprah getting involved?

Speaker 3 (00:27):
Well, she's been doing a lot of these TV shows
over here. She did one recently about ozepic and the
weight loss drops yep to sort of educate America about
those And so Oprah's news special is called AI and
the Future of Us and she has some heavy hitters
on the shoes, going to have Bill Gates, who was
the founder SEE of Microsoft, and Sam Altman, who is

(00:49):
the CEO of open Ai, which is the company that
created chat GPT. So she's going to basically explain in
everyday terms sort of how AI works, because I think
there's a little bit of a myth sometimes about how
it works and maybe how magical it is and how
you know, human like it actually is. Right, And then

(01:11):
they're also going to talk about the possibilities, So in
the good I guess, the pros, but also the risks
that are ahead, as in, you know, what changes could
we see in society and what could we see in
the workforce. I'm really looking forward to it because, well,
I think it's going to be I mean, look, I
hope I know most of the answers to this stuff

(01:32):
having followed it very closely, and you know, I have
my own thoughts on it, but I'm really interested to
see how it's positioned and then also how what response
is like to it.

Speaker 2 (01:40):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:41):
Yeah, And does it start a conversation where people are
saying to their government, the US government, that they want
some changes or they want something different. It could be
a real it could start a little flame.

Speaker 2 (01:53):
Yeah, it could be a bit of a game changer. A.
It's going to be fascinating, Yeah, especially especially with those
kind of interviews. It'll be very interesting. And speaking of AI,
the AI wars are kind of heating up. A.

Speaker 3 (02:03):
Yes, it's to kind of like pick your player at
the moment. Big established companies because they they're doing the
AI stuff, but they can certainly see that there are
startups around who are doing quite well. Right. Startups Nimble
a work in long hours to try to make this
a reality. And Amazon actually has a new Alexa coming

(02:24):
out that is supposed to be an enhanced Alexa, but
according to Router's reporting this week, Jack the initial versions
of Amazon's own AI tool said that the assistant was
struggling with words and struggling to respond to the user prompts.
So they have now partnered with a startup called Anthropic
to be their new AI partner. But how are they

(02:45):
going to make money out of this? Always the question,
and it's there is some reporting that they could look
to put this enhanced assistant behind a paywalf, so you
could have to pay like five or ten dollars a
month to talk to your Alexa to get the enhanced service.
But I talk about the AI wars heating up right.
Amazon actually already has a minority stake in that company
called Anthropic, the maker of chat gpt. They are looking

(03:08):
for investment round two at a cool one hundred billion
US scholars It didn't exist a few years ago, Yeah,
and they Apple was interested in them. Apple interestingly is
also planning to integrate chat gpt into its Suri service,
and in Vidia is also interested. And in Video is
the big supplier of chips AI. So we really are

(03:30):
kind of like We're getting some little circles going on
in places if you can start to do the mental
map right.

Speaker 2 (03:35):
Yeah, it's a fascinating time. Thank you, Paul. That is
our textpert, Paul Stenhouse. Yeah, really intriguing. It'll be it'll
be fascinating to see what that what impact Oprah's special
on AI actually has, because i mean, you know, Oprah's
power might have waned a little bit compared to the
absolute healthy in days of her TV show. That being said,
she's still an incredibly influential character in the US.

Speaker 1 (03:58):
For more from Saturday Morning with Jack Tame, listen live
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