Recently there's been a lot said around the rise of Generative AI. But what is it and should we be excited or worried?
Generative AI or 'gen AI', uses artificial intelligence to generate text, images, videos, or other data using generative models in response to prompts. It uses large language models and algorithms to create fresh and unique content, code, or images.
Here are some of the more popular examples:
Content generation
ChatGPT
ChatGPT was developed by OpenAI and is designed to understand and respond to what you say or type. You can ask questions, have a conversation, or even get help with things like writing stories, solving maths problems, or finding information using Natural Language Understanding. It generates responses that closely resemble a human response.
The free version of ChatGPT is available to everyone, but you can also upgrade to a paid version - Plus, Team, or Enterprise. With the paid version you get:
- General access to ChatGPT, even during peak times
- Subscribers have a five times greater message limit, with Team and Enterprise users having even higher limits
- Priority access to new features and improvements
Copy.ai
Copy.ai is a generative AI tool designed to help people generate various types of written content quickly and easily. It uses artificial intelligence to assist with tasks such as generating sales copies, marketing collateral, product descriptions, and more. It also includes templates and can be used to create long-form content, blog posts, and more.
Copy AI is free for individual users, but there is a paid version that provides more support. For example, paying for a five-seat licence will give you:
- 2,000 Workflow Credits per month
- 15+ Marketing Workflows
- 15+ Sales Workflows
- Workflow Builder Access
Claude
Claude can generate various forms of text content, such as summaries, creative works, and code, using natural conversational language. It can also analyse webpages and other files, so you can upload images and text-based files to add context to your prompts. It will summarise them or answer questions about specific data points. Claude is trained on the latest real-time data so that it can answer questions about current events and topics.
Claude AI is free, but subscribing to the paid version increases its use and support level offerd. There are two plans (pro and team) that include access to:
- Talk to Claude on the web, iOS, and Android
- Ask about images and docs
- Access to Claude 3.5 Sonnet
- Use Claude 3 Opus and Haiku
- Higher usage limits versus Free
- Create Projects to work with Claude around a set of docs, code, or files
- Priority bandwidth and availability
- Early access to new features
- Higher usage limits versus Pro
- Share and discover chats from teammates
- Central billing and administration
Code generation
GitHub Copilot
GitHub Copilot is designed to help developers write code faster and more efficiently. You can receive suggestions from GitHub Copilot either by starting to write the code you want to use or by writing a natural language comment describing what you want the code to do. As a tool, it enables faster coding, facilitating learning, and supporting various programming languages like JavaScript, TypeScript, Python, and Ruby. GitHub Copilot is able to generate a wide range and quantity of coding suggestions. It offers code snippets, explanations, and context-based guidance, enhancing developer productivity and learning. There are times when it can sometimes suggest incorrect or inefficient code or code that might be copyrighted or need to be licenced.
GitHub Copilot is available for free with a one-time 30-day trial. To continue using Copilot after the trial, you will need a paid subscription unless you are a verified student, teacher, or maintainer of a popular open-source project on GitHub. There are three plans (individual, business, and enterprise) that offer up to:
- Code completion in IDEs
- Copilot Chat in IDEs
- Copilot Chat in GitHub Mobile
- Copilot in the CLI
- Block suggestions matching public code
- Exclude specified files from Copilot
- Organization-wide policy management
- Audit logs
- Copilot Chat in GitHub.com
- Copilot Chat skills in IDEs
- Copilot pull request summaries
- Copilot knowledge bases
- Increased GitHub Models rate limits
AlphaCode
This is a generative AI tool appreciated for its ability to speed up workflows, automate tasks, aid in learning new programming languages, coding, and problem-solving. It can also accelerate the development process by automating repetitive tasks, writing code, fixing bugs, recommending optimal programming solutions, and providing real-time suggestions. Its latest iteration AlphaCode 2 can code in languages like Python, Java, C++, and Go. It can boost efficiency, reduce errors, and enhance coding skills. However, in complex scenarios, it may produce less-than-ideal code due to its dependence on established programming patterns. There is currently no paid version of AlphaCode.
Image & video generation
Dall-E 3
Dall-E 3 is a generative AI model that generates visuals from textual descriptions. Images created with Dall-E 3 can be used for a wide range of applications, including enhancing marketing and advertising campaigns, creating unique art and design projects, adding custom visuals to content like blogs and articles, visualising product concepts and prototypes, and developing educational materials. They are also valuable for storytelling in comics, animations, and graphic novels, generating concept art for films and games, visualising interior and fashion design ideas, and enhancing presentations and reports.
There are some problems with its use, as users have said they experienced difficulty in generating highly detailed images and inconsistency in image generation where there are slight textual variations.
Like other AI tools from Open AI, Dall-E 3 is free to use, but subscribing opens more options and features. You can also build DALL·E directly into your apps to generate and edit novel images and art and pay per image generated.
Klingai.com
Want to create a video of Mona Lisa putting on sunglasses? Or want a gorilla strutting down a catwalk? Well, these and more can be created easily on Klingai.com. It creates images and videos up to two minutes long in 1080p resolution, and excels at depicting movements and interactions between objects.
It has a free tier and three paid subscription tiers (standard, pro, premier) that give (premier tier):
- Free daily credits
- Removal of watermarks
- Generate professional-mode videos
- Videos up to three minutes in length
- Advanced camera control
- Quality enhancement of images
- Priority access to new features
Microsoft Designer
Microsoft Designer is a graphic design and image editing app powered by AI. It comes with a range of templates and customisable elements like fonts, colours, and layouts so you can create images or designs like collages, greeting cards, invitations, colouring books, and wallpapers.
The use of Microsoft Designer is free, giving you a limited number of boosts a day. These 'boosts' supercharge Designer, giving users accelerated AI image creation, editing, and resizing for even more creative flexibility. But if you have a Microsoft Copilot Pro subscription, you get 100 boosts per day. People without a subscription get 15 boosts a day. Boosts are used wherever you use Designer across Microsoft apps, products, and services. A Copilot Pro subscription is also required if you’re using Designer in certain places, like Designer in Copilot in Word and Designer in Copilot in Microsoft Edge.
If the way it works sounds familiar, Microsoft Designer is the new Microsoft Image Creator (also formerly known as Bing Image Creator), which allows more flexible usage needs beyond just personal use.
Fun
Character.ai
Character AI is a web-based AI chatbot that comes with a twist. Rather than a run-of-the-mill chatbot experience, it allows you to chat with fictional, historical, and celebrity figures in a dialogue with appropriate life-like responses. This results in an entertaining conversation with human-like responses.
There is a free tier and a paid c.ai+ tier for US$9.99 a month that gives you:
- Priority access
- Faster response times
- Early access to new features
- c.ai+ community access
- A supporter badge
AI dungeon
AI Dungeon does an excellent job of explaining what it does. In its own words, “AI Dungeon is a text-based, AI-generated fantasy simulation with infinite possibilities. Unlike most games where you experience worlds created by game designers, with AI Dungeon, you can direct the AI to create worlds, characters, and scenarios for your character to interact with. You could lead an army fighting back an alien invasion, or be a mythical detective investigating the attempted assassination of the fairy queen.”
While there is a free-to-play free tier, there are also four paid tiers (Adventurer, Champion, Legend, and Mythic) that you can subscribe to for one, three, six, or 12 months. The Mythic tier gives you:
- Unlimited speed-boosted Premium AI text models
- Unlimited access to Ultra AI text models
- Unlimited Premium image generation
- Up to 32x context (32000 tokens)
- 2750 Credits per month for Ultra image or text generations
- Premium Themes (coming soon)
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