Beginners in AI

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Welcome to this week's edition of Beginners in AI, where we explore the latest trends, tools, and news in the world of AI and the tech that surrounds it.

This week, we discuss OpenAI's new AI agent, Operator, which is set to automate how we tackle everyday tasks. We'll also explore Yale's AI tool that predicts heart failure risk, Google's billion-dollar bet on AI startup Anthropic, and a new executive order shaping AI's future. Plus, we take a closer look at Sam Altman’s plan to link AI agents with digital identities and then Baloo, BYU's “soft robot” made for heavy-lifting.

AI TOP STORY
OpenAI's Operator: Your AI-Powered Personal Assistant

What Happened

OpenAI has introduced Operator, an AI agent designed to perform tasks independently by interacting with web browsers. Currently available to Pro users in the U.S., Operator can handle activities like filling out forms, booking travel, and creating memes, with plans for more abilities in the future.

What It Means

This development signifies a major step toward automating complex, multi-step tasks using AI. However, early reports indicate that Operator faces challenges such as slow performance and occasional confusion, similar to the initial hurdles in autonomous vehicle technology. If successfully overcome, the model should be able to do most human tasks on a computer, and in a similar way, by moving the mouse and logging into accounts as a human would. It utilizes computer vision with screenshots to see what actions need to be taken and what has changed since it performed that action, and then repeating the process. The user can also take control of the screen at any time then hand it back.

What to Take Away

As AI agents like Operator evolve, they hold the potential to streamline daily activities, making tasks (OpenAI's New Tasks Feature Is Stage 3 of Artificial General Intelligence ) like ordering groceries or scheduling appointments more efficient. The success of such tools will depend on their reliability, user trust, and potentially most important factor of all, the cost. At 200 dollars per month, the average user may not have the appetite for the ChatGPT pro account that is required to access Operator.

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LAST WEEK IN AI AND TECH

AI Predicts Heart Health

Yale researchers have created an AI-powered tool that scans electrocardiogram (ECG) images to detect individuals at high risk for heart failure before symptoms arise. This cutting-edge approach could lead to earlier interventions, fewer hospital visits, and significantly improved patient outcomes. The tool uses deep learning algorithms to analyze patterns in heart activity that may go unnoticed by human specialists. This is a continuing trend in medicine, predictive AI tools that can see far beyond traditional tools.

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Google Backs AI Startup Anthropic

Google just poured another $1 billion into Anthropic, the AI powerhouse behind the Claude models. This brings Google's total investment to $3 billion, a clear sign it's betting big on AI's future. This is not including Amazon’s contributions to Anthropic, which is around 4 billion right now. OpenAI is not the first to allow for their AI to interact with a computer. Claude beat them to that, albeit not as simple to operate for non-coders. It’s called “Computer Use” AI's Laptop Takeover with Anthropic

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Executive Order on AI Development

President Trump has signed an executive order aimed at accelerating AI innovation while ensuring it aligns with national interests. In the order, he says “we must develop AI systems that are free from ideological bias or engineered social agendas.” Removing bias from AI systems is necessary to ensure fairness, accuracy, and trustworthiness, as biased algorithms can perpetuate incorrect information and lead to unintended consequences across a wide range of categories such as medicine, law, and national security to name a few. Elon Musk has called for AI that should be maximally truth seeking to benefit everyone and believes that AI trained to lie is an existential threat to humanity.

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DeepSeek's AI Model Challenges the Big Players

Chinese AI startup DeepSeek has released an open-source model, DeepSeek-R1, that may(researchers are vigorously testing this claim as we speak) outperform leading AI models from Western companies like OpenAI on several benchmarks, despite limited resources and reportedly only spending 12 million to train it. The success highlights an alternative approach where, due to US export controls on AI chips sold to China, DeepSeek refined their AI using software-driven resource optimization and innovative model architecture rather than relying on extensive hardware. Being open source, DeepSeek is available to use and test for free with open source tools like LM Studio and Jan.

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Sam Altman's Vision: AI Meets Your Digital Identity

Sam Altman’s latest initiative aims to link AI agents to users' digital identities, creating a more personalized and secure online experience. The project could redefine how we interact with AI in areas such as finance, healthcare, and social media. Supporters argue that this integration could enhance user convenience and security by streamlining digital interactions. However, critics, including privacy advocates and regulatory bodies, warn that it poses significant risks to personal data security and would lead to increased surveillance and data misuse. Atlman was previously involved with the Worldcoin cryptocurrency that traded the crypto for a scan of people’s irises through an orb they could look into. Worldcoin was recently rebranded to World.

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TECH TERMS TO KNOW

Computer Vision is a field of computer science that focuses on enabling computers to identify and understand visual date, such as objects and people. Like other types of AI, computer vision seeks to perform and automate tasks that replicate human capabilities.

Uses:
-Self-driving cars (example: Tesla’s FSD mode)
-Claude’s Computer Use and OpenAI’s Operator(interpreting screen shots)
-Facial Recognition systems
-Interpreting medical images (with higher accuracy than human doctors in some cases)

TOOL SPOTLIGHT (non-sponsored)

Better Dictation is a powerful AI dictation software designed to transform how users write by converting speech to text with exceptional accuracy. You can alternate typing with speaking by holding down several keys(can choose which ones) while dictating. Once you release the keys, your words will appear wherever you placed your cursor. The tool offers several key features:

Core Functionality

• Uses OpenAI's Whisper model running on Apple's M1-Series Neural Engine(so you need an M1 or higher level Apple computer)

• Transcribes speech into text in over 100 languages

• Operates completely offline and locally on your device

• Works across all applications at the operating system level

Key Advantages

• Provides punctuation automatically

• Dramatically increases writing speed (users report being 5x faster than typing)

• Requires only a one-time purchase, not a recurring subscription

• Extremely privacy-focused (no audio clips or dictation content are ever saved)

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ROBOTICS AND AI
Baloo: BYU's Heavy-Lifting Soft Robot

Engineers at Brigham Young University have unveiled Baloo, a humanoid robot designed to assist with heavy lifting in construction and disaster relief. With its soft structure, Baloo blends power with safety. Soft robot structures are designed to be safer to work alongside humans, minimizing the risk of injury if the two come into contact while maintaining flexibility and adaptability in dynamic environments.

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TRY THIS PROMPT (copy and paste into AI ChatGPT, Grok, Claude, Gemini)

Automate Children's Story Time with Pictures

Within Tasks(go to model dropdown and click GPT 4o with scheduled tasks)

"Every day at 7pm create a heartwarming bedtime fantasy story for me 4 year old child featuring a brave young hero by name of[insert child's name], a magical companion, and an exciting adventure in a whimsical world. The story should have a gentle lesson about kindness, bravery, or curiosity. Keep the tone light and engaging with vivid descriptions and friendly dialogue. 

End the story with a comforting resolution. Accompany the story with a colorful, child-friendly illustration that captures the main characters and key moments of the adventure." 

DID YOU KNOW?

Long before today’s AI tools, a computer named “ILLIAC” composed classical music in the 1950s. It was called The Illiac Suite for string quartet, which is considered the first musical composition created with the assistance of a computer. The work was completed in 1957 by Lejaren Hiller and Leonard Isaacson. It followed algorithmic rules to generate melodies that were surprisingly complex and pleasing to human ears.

You can listen to it Here

AI-ASSISTED IMAGE OF THE WEEK

Thank you for reading. We’re all beginners in something. With that in mind, your questions and feedback are always welcome and I read every single email!

-James

By the way, this is the link if you liked the content and want to share with a friend.