OpenAI flips the script on prompting

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Welcome back, Superhuman

Forget everything you know about the art of prompt engineering. OpenAI’s new reasoning-focused model likes its prompts short and sweet. Find out why prompting for o1 requires a completely different set of skills than what you’re used to.

Today’s Insights

• A computer scientist’s quest for spatial AI

• Frontier: Prompting with OpenAI o1

• Tutorial: How to analyze a budget with AI

• Everything else you should know today

• 5 new AI tools to boost your productivity

• AI-Generated Images: Step by step

NEXT IN AI

The ‘Godmother of AI’ aims to give models spatial intelligence

Most LLMs are masters of text, but plop them inside a 3D space and they struggle to understand how things fit together. It's like they've spent their entire existence immersed in books and websites, without ever experiencing the physical world outside.

If you could design a model that thinks more like an architect — seeing the world not just as a collection of words but as real-life objects — it could unlock new capabilities, such as designing buildings, optimizing supply chains, or even assisting in medical diagnoses. 

That’s the idea behind World Labs, a new startup from “Godmother of AI” Fe-Fei Li that just brought in $230M in a new funding round. The legendary Stanford computer scientist’s interest in “spatial intelligence” goes back to 2009, when she developed ImageNet — an image database that was used to train some of the first visual-based neural networks. 

We’ve come a long way since then: But spatial models — like the ones used in humanoid robots and autonomous vehicles — still have trouble “understanding the physical structure, the physical dynamics of the physical world,” Li told Wired.

The plan: In the same way that OpenAI just gave its LLM the ability to “reason” through complex problems, World Labs wants to help visual models become critical thinkers in the spheres of time and space.

The startup’s first projects will likely involve immersive VR worlds. With backing from a16z, Nvidia, and other major VCs, the 2023-founded company could then move on to more complicated projects, like robots that can learn how to do different tasks on their own.

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FROM THE FRONTIER

How to get the most out of OpenAI o1

The typical blueprint for prompt engineering: Make your request as detailed as possible. Ask the model to break things down step-by-step, so it doesn’t get confused. And instill confidence by emphasizing its expertise in the subject matter.

But with its new reasoning-focused model, OpenAI is asking us to turn that conventional wisdom on its head. The reason: o1 does most of the heavy lifting on its own, so cluttering it with complicated prompts can lead to lower-quality outputs.

Here are some tips, adapted from OpenAI’s API Documentation:

• Keep prompts simple and direct

• Avoid “chain-of-thought” prompts (i.e. “explain your reasoning”), since the model does most of its thinking internally

• Don’t clutter your prompts with too much information; only include what’s most important

An example related to STEM research:

Prompt: What are three compounds we should consider investigating to advance research into new antibiotics? Why should we consider them?

Source: OpenAI

THE AI ACADEMY

How to do budget analysis with ChatGPT

ChatGPT’s data analysis feature can be used to analyze budget or financial statements. Here’s how:

1. Upload your budget or financial statement to ChatGPT.

2. Give ChatGPT a prompt, such as "Analyze this financial statement and summarize the key information."

3. ChatGPT will analyze the document and provide you with a summary of the key information, as well as an explanation of the key metrics and trends.

4. If you are not sure what any of the terms in the summary mean, you can ask ChatGPT to explain them to you.

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AI & TECH NEWS

Everything else you need to know today

• Making Waves: Oprah interviewed Sam Altman, Bill Gates, and other experts about the state of AI in a wide-ranging prime-time special last week. Her conclusion: “We are in for the ride of our lives.”

• Cash Cow: OpenAI’s COO revealed that ChatGPT now has more than 11 million paying subscribers. At that rate, The Information estimates it brings in about $2.7B per year.

• New Era: Salesforce released a platform called Agentforce that lets businesses program AI agents to act as customer service agents, sales coaches, or personal shoppers.

• Two is Better Than One: DeepMind showed off tech demos of its experimental robots performing complicated, two-handed tasks, like tying shoes and putting a shirt on a hanger.

🎹 One Fun Thing: The text-to-music AI platform Suno has released a new feature called “covers” that lets subscribers turn their voice memos into full-fledged songs. Users can then fine-tune their creations by switching up the genre, lyrics, or instrumentation.

🧠 Brain Food: While AI models get a bad rap for spreading false hallucinations, a new study shows they may actually have a positive impact when it comes to correcting the record on conspiracy theories. Participants who engaged in an eight-minute chat with GPT-4 Turbo showed a 20% drop in false beliefs. The reason: LLMs can tailor unique responses for each participant, presenting evidence that perfectly counters volunteers’ misinformed assumptions.

PRODUCTIVITY

5 AI Tools to Supercharge Your Productivity

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AI-GENERATED IMAGES

Step by Step

Midjourney Prompt: I am climbing hand over hand along a rope ladder that stretches all the way up to the moon. The scene is minimalistic, featuring an astronaut scaling the vertical ladder in a clean, simplistic design. The focus is on the vertical ascent, with a sense of vast space between the climber and the moon, evoking a feeling of determination and awe. The rope ladder is the only connection between Earth and the moon, and the design emphasizes its sleek, uncluttered aesthetic. The format is vertical
--ar 9:16 --v 6.1

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Thanks for reading.

Until next time!

Zain & the Superhuman AI team