🟠 News Club - Updating your chatbot chat

The Squiz is real people (I mean, I know I’m definitely a person…) curating the news for you. But with AI moving at warp speed, it’s something we’re watching closely. So for this week’s Club Picks, I’ve pulled together a few pieces that show just how fast things are changing.

Updating your chatbot chat…

I’ve been at this for a while now, this Squiz caper. Our Squiz Today podcast turns 7 this week, for goodness' sake… 

In the time we’ve been around, our approach has changed very little. That’s probably down to the clarity of our mission to provide you with an engaging/agenda-free way of keeping on top of the news. We’ve also not changed much about the way we do it - we are real people who know what you’ve come to The Squiz for, and so we handcraft your experience. 

That’s not to say we haven’t kept in touch with developments in the tech world. Given that artificial intelligence is already reshaping how we gather and consume information, as a company in the news curation business, it would be irresponsible not to. 

That means my antenna is always up to monitor developments in the space, and what I’ve noticed this year is the pickup in the pace of change. It feels like following the successful launch of OpenAI’s ChatGPT at the end of 2022, there was a period of recalibration, and now the pedal is to the metal… 

For our Club Picks, I’m pulling together some articles I’ve seen in just the last couple of weeks that highlight the scale of change that’s happening before our eyes.  

1. If you use the default web browser on your iPhone/iPad (my hand is up…), this is for you. On 7 May, Apple announced plans to add AI-powered search options to Safari. Why? Searches on Safari fell for the first time ever last month, with users increasingly turning to AI apps, like ChatGPT. Google is the default search engine in Apple's Safari browser, and the announcement wiped off about US$150 billion from the search giant’s market value…

2. Google isn’t letting that trend go unanswered… This month, plans were announced to roll out its Gemini AI chatbot to kids under 13yo who have parent-managed Google accounts. Suffice to say, Google and other chatbot developers are locked in a fierce competition to get young people (aka future native users…) onboard. 

3. Unbeknownst to listeners to major Aussie broadcaster ARN’s digital station CADA - “Australia's home of Hip Hop and R&B” - it was recently revealed that their presenter ‘Thy’ was actually AI-generated. Thy has been hosting a 4-hour weekday show since late last year, and the chapter created international headlines and debate about informing audiences about how AI is being used. 

4. Speaking of the tech taking a dark turn, an issue with Elon Musk’s chatbot Grok last week showed again how vulnerable these programs can be. The bot fixated on the deaths of white farmers in South Africa to the point where it brought it up in every enquiry, as this New York Times op-ed entitled ‘For One Hilarious, Terrifying Day, Elon Musk’s Chatbot Lost Its Mind’ goes through.

No matter which side of the fence you stand on, these changes are seismic and the forward march of AI is undeniable. My approach is to be engaged and a bit literate in it, so at the very least I’m not left behind, and at most I’m positioned to reap some of the benefits.