Hello There:

Who inspired your last major venture?⚡️ Was it a friend 😉 co-worker 🤓 family member 😎 blog or newsletter 🚀 or something else? Please answer a one-question poll:

What will you do about generative AI? What inspires you? Don’t just sit there, get involved. Join our Toolhacker community.

🤔 Think about this:

😻 CHIPLETS 😻

Adobe Generative Expand 😍

There is clearly an AI gold rush these days. The apps are streaming in, like the audience at a Taylor Swift concert. Many are of the incremental innovation kind, like Adobe’s announcement last week that it would offer generative expansion in Photoshop or the opposite of cropping. In September 2022, DALL-E introduced a similar feature called “outpainting” — allowing users to extend an image beyond its original borders using a natural language description. This is a powerful feature, and most Photoshop users will welcome that. Content creators, in particular, will be ecstatic about it because many product and people photos are cropped too tightly to fit in a certain space.

Anthropic Claude 2 🥳

We have been testing Anthropic’s Claude 2. What sets it apart from ChatGPT is its ability to summarize PDF files. While ChatGPT can summarize, it only accepts pasted text and is limited to approximately 2,000 characters. Claude was able to handle a PDF containing 18,233 characters, although it frequently failed to provide summaries at a specified word length.

Google Genesis 🤯

Google Genesis is a much-rumored AI tool for journalists that ingests facts and generates news copy. Demonstrated to media executives from The New York Times, Washington Post, and News Corp., Genesis was described as capable of producing accurate and artful news stories. Some of the executives in attendance said it discounted the effort that goes into producing such stories. Others saw it more as a personal assistant or helper. It’s important to note that these details are based on anonymous sources, and there is no word yet on when and if Google will release Genesis. (In fact, the Google Genesis page is down right now.)

Live Long and Flounder

A Salon article by Mary Beth Williams with the provocative headline above argues America is facing a major crisis with its rapidly aging population but is unprepared culturally and systematically:

• Life expectancy has increased by 30 years over the past century, but our systems are not equipped to handle an aging population.

• By 2030, 1 in 5 Americans will be over 65, more than people aged 18 and under. The 85+ population is growing rapidly.

• Most elderly have disabilities and need care, putting strain on families. The nation’s 41 million caregivers spend 24 hours per week caring for aging loved ones.

• Medicare does not cover long-term care. Most private insurance doesn’t either. Elders want to age at home but often lack support.

• Ageism leads to a lack of cultural and policy preparation. Broken systems exacerbate abuse and neglect of the elderly. Better support is needed for caregivers.

We must confront ageism, build better systems, have important conversations about aging earlier, and focus on meaning, connection and creativity in late life.

😂 

We’re happy to introduce another newsletter contributor who will add a different dimension to the tech industry. Due to the very infectious role of extracting the inside poop, our intrepid reporter has to don PPE gear and remain anonymous, except when dining at The French Laundry. — Ed.

🤬 Prompt has to confess. If there’s one thing your munificent one hates, it’s industry jargon that has devolved into a hopeless cliché. Let me tell you something: clichés date you. There was a time not too long ago when “paradigm shift” ruled the day. Today, every think-they-look-smart startup drivels on about “at scale.” Look at the Journey website, and you’ll see what I mean:

Prompt will not bag on Journey for the grammatically incorrect use of “recipient’s,” but do you think the average exec who doesn’t live off Sand Hill Road in Menlo Park, Calif. has the vaguest clue what this means? Do you mean users can include 17,000 logos per second on the fly? Now that’s a paradigm shift!

😜 This stupid term is everywhere. Prompt was surfing to see what happened to that hot virtual events unicorn from 2020, Hopin, which suffered such a large débâcle it had to sell its crown jewels to RingCentral for pennies on the dollar, and there it was again on their Session website: “High quality at scale.” WTF does that mean? Postal scale? Maybe a kitchen scale? 😵‍💫

😼 Speaking of the virtual events business. One reason Hopin may have collapsed is an article in FT that points out that the number of virtual events in the company’s “Explore” tab went from more than 15,000 in November 2020 to fewer than 500 by April 2022. Stop using that cat filter when doing sales forecasts! 🙀

😹 The same fate befell Run The World, which had to gift its flagship events platform to Canadian firm EventMobi for a song and a dance. Talk about egg on the face for A16Z, which was a major backer of Run The World. Former Meta colleagues Xiaoyin Qu and Xuan Jiang, who co-founded the company in 2019, clearly ran into Kung Flu headwinds. Sorry girls, you may not be running the world, but Canada is a heck of a big country!

🥶 This is the second issue in a row that Prompt mentioned Canada. Is this a trend? 🤓

❌ And speaking of trends. Do you know what the hottest thing to do is among iPhone users? Changing back to the old Twitter app icon! Now why do you think tweeple would want to bother going through an eight-step process to hide a measly icon? Could it be that they’re so totally fed up with X-rated Muskrat?

😴 Say it ain’t so! The story of the week belongs to erstwhile Twitter Blue Chief Esther Crawford. You know her as the woman who slept on the job while tweeting the hashtag #SleepWhereYouWork. In a lengthy post on Twitter, er X, Esther expounds on her stint at Twitter and her lunatic ex-boss. But Prompt was struck by one sentence:

Prompt realized immediately that Esther was showing early symptoms of Stockholm Syndrome. It’s either that or she lit up a joint with the Twit-in-Chief. You be the judge. Esther has graciously added a vid to her post, so why read the book when you can see the movie? 😂

🚬 Speaking of smoking, Prompt is happy to report that peeps can now listen to Snoop Dogg reciting the news, thanks to Artifact’s new Speechify tech, which uses AI to synthesize voices. That way, you can listen to Snoop while riding your Peloton as fast as 4.5x for all you Time Compression sufferers. Then again, a 0.1x speed is also available to hear what Snoop Dogg sounds like under the influence of his very own Death Row Cannabis. 🤣

Stop phubbing and send Prompt a juicy tidbit at: [email protected]. As you know, all contributions will remain anonymous.

Events Calendar

• AI4 (Ai4 LLC, Brooklyn, NY) – MGM Grand Las Vegas, Aug. 7-9. Standard Pass: $2,195.

• VOICE & AI Conference (ModevNetwork LLC, Arlington, VA) – Washington Hilton Hotel, Sept. 5-7. All Access Pass: $1,195.

• Efficient Generative AI Summit (Kisaco Research, U.K.) – Santa Clara Marriott, Sept. 11, 2023. Delegate: $1,199.

• The AI Conference (The AI Conference, Chandler, AZ) – William J. Rutter Center, San Francisco, Sept. 26-27, 2023. Two-day pass: $899.

• Generative AI Week (IQPC Ltd., U.K.) – Loews Atlanta Hotel, Oct. 17-18. Bronze Pass: $999.

• AI for Marketers Summit (Global Strategic Management Institute, San Diego, CA) – Virtual event, Nov. 15-16. Earliest Bird: $449.

• The AI Summit New York (Informa, U.K.) – Javits Center, Dec. 6-7. Delegate: $1,399.