AI complicates centuries-old language puzzle

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Move over, calendar apps. ChatGPT is stepping into the personal assistant game with a new feature that lets you schedule tasks or set reminders for upcoming deadlines. And: Find out how AI could help us solve a long-standing linguistics mystery.

Today’s Insights

• Today in AI: ChatGPT’s new Tasks tool and Microsoft’s agent upgrade

• Tutorial: How to turn ChatGPT into your legal assistant

• Why AI could be the key to a centuries-old linguistic puzzle

• Everything else you should know today

• 5 new AI tools to boost your productivity

TODAY IN AI

1. OpenAI rolls out its first agentic tool: Subscribers can now ask ChatGPT to deliver daily reminders or schedule tasks at certain times — our first real taste of the platform’s rumored agentic capabilities. The beta feature, known as Tasks, lets ChatGPT do things like send you a news roundup at 7am each morning — or deliver a reminder that you should renew your passport six months from now.

• Tasks turns ChatGPT into a productivity powerhouse: It’s the first time ChatGPT can make future arrangements and plans

• It can even tackle multi-step prompts like delivering a list of fun events each weekend while taking your location and the weather into account

• The platform will also suggest custom tasks based on your interactions with it

• Tasks is available on the web starting today, but only for Plus, Team, and Pro users for now

2. Microsoft update lets developers build new types of AI agents: If OpenAI’s Tasks tool isn’t cutting it, you could always just build your own team of AI agents from scratch. Microsoft says its AutoGen platform is getting a handful of powerful updates. Here’s what’s new with v4:

• Asynchronous messaging helps each bot stay on the same page, letting them communicate across different coding languages

• Coders will now have better insight into how different agents think through decisions, making it easier to spot bugs and roll out updates

• Bots can now seamlessly complete tasks across your entire workspace, and a memory boost helps them plan further into the future

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THE AI ACADEMY

How to turn ChatGPT into your legal assistant

ChatGPT can be used as your legal assistant to summarize legal documents and identify potential concerns. Here’s how:

• Go to ChatGPT and make sure you select GPT-4o as your model.

• Upload your legal document and ask it to summarize the terms and conditions for you. (Make sure you don’t upload any sensitive information to ChatGPT)

• You can also ask ChatGPT to identify potential concerns in the document.

• Ask it to give you clarification If the initial results are not satisfactory.

• Responses should not be used as a substitute for professional legal advice.

FROM THE FRONTIER

How AI could help us solve one of linguistics’ biggest mysteries

How do we learn new languages? It’s a conundrum that has puzzled linguists for centuries, but AI could help us get closer to a definitive answer.

Quanta Magazine explored this problem by looking at a recent study involving “impossible” languages — ones that break all the usual rules around grammar and word structure. In theory, LLMs should be able to pick up on imagined languages just as easily as human-made ones.

But intriguingly, the study found that wasn’t the case: AI struggled to master the artificial languages, especially ones that were furthest away from how humans communicate. The reason: Because AI is modeled after us, it might prefer natural languages like English and Mandarin because they have certain characteristics that are more familiar and intuitive to us.

Probing AI’s language-learning process could help us figure out how we’re able to learn new languages, especially as children. And in turn, we might also be able to design LLMs that are better at handling complex language tasks.

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AI & TECH NEWS

Everything else you need to know today

💬 Tube Talks: Coders uncovered a new YouTube feature that will let you chat with Gemini Live about videos. The same tool could soon be available for PDFs, too.

👓 Smart Specs: Chinese tech company DreamSmart announced it’s working on a new pair of AI smart glasses powered by Alphabet’s Gemini. Weighing just 44 grams, they’re expected to be available by the end of March.

💾 Data Empire: OpenAI appointed billionaire BlackRock executive Adebayo Ogunlesi to its board of directors. Ogunlesi will be key in helping the startup expand globally with new data centers.

🤖 Device Dilemma: An interview with Amazon’s head of AGI revealed that an AI-powered Alexa assistant is still facing delays — partly because the company has to make it compatible with the 100 million Alexa devices that users already own.

🎞️ Movie Magic: AI photo and video editing tool Freepik will now let users add sound to their video generations.

📱Feed Frenzy: With the TikTok ban (and shutdown) fast approaching, users are fleeing to a Chinese rival called RedNote, which shot up to the No. 1 slot on the App Store’s free leaderboard this week. Meanwhile, some lawmakers are floating a new bill that would delay the ban by nine months.

📈 Market: Meta closed Tuesday down 2.31% after Bloomberg reported the tech giant plans to cut about 5% of its workforce. Meanwhile, quantum firms Rigetti and D-Wave jumped 48% and 23% respectively after taking a big hit earlier this week when Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg warned that quantum computing is still a “decade-plus out.”

💰 Funding: Orchid Security emerged from stealth with $36M in seed funding to build AI-powered identity management systems for businesses. French startup Bioptimus raised $41M to develop a chatbot for biological applications. Software company Databricks finalized a $5B financing deal as it develops new AI products. And AI infrastructure company Applied Digital brought in as much as $5B from Australian investing giant Macquarie to construct a new data center in North Dakota.

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PROMPT OF THE DAY

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