🤝 AidfulAI Newsletter #21: Writing Tool Lex Leads Where Google Docs Will Follow
Dear curious minds,
Welcome to the ultimate newsletter for those interested in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Personal Knowledge Management (PKM). In this week's issue, I bring to you the following topics:
Claude Pro: The New Paid Subscription Alternative to ChatGPT Plus
Hugging Chat Adds Web-Search to Privacy-Friendly LLMs
Stability AI Announces Stable Audio for AI-Generated Music
AI Assisted Writing: Lex Is Already Today What Google Docs Will Be in the Future
Peter Schiff Talks About Big Money Problems Coming Soon
If nothing sparks your interest, don't waste time and move on, otherwise, let dive in!
Major AI News
🤖💰 Claude Pro: The New Paid Subscription Alternative to ChatGPT Plus
Anthropic launched the Pro plan for their ChatGPT competitor Claude.
As ChatGPT Plus, Claude Pro costs $20 per month.
Subscribing will give you priority access during high-traffic periods and early access to new features.
There is still a free version which you can use, and also the Pro subscription has usage limits. These are explained here.
The pop-up box in the upper right states that you have to wait before you are allowed to use Claude again. To maximize your usage of Claude: Start new conversations on new topics, ask multiple questions at once, and don't re-upload files.
My take: There is contradictory information about the usage limits in the official information. On top is stated that you might get even more than stated based on the current capacity. So far, I did not run in the free usage limit, but I expect that with the release of the Pro plan this will happen more often.
Privacy-Friendly AI
🦙 🦅 Hugging Chat Adds Web-Search to Privacy-Friendly LLMs
Besides Llama 2 70B, the recently launched Falcon 180B was added to the free ChatGPT alternative HuggingChat.
HuggingChat user interface with new Search web functionality. You can disable sharing your chat data with the respective model author in the settings, as stated in the privacy statement.
HuggingChat can now use web-search to find information which helps to answer your question. A feature which was already part of the ChatGPT Plus subscription in the past, but was meanwhile deactivated by OpenAI.
A response generated with the web-search. The pages used as input are cited below the response. My take: Access to the web-search often leads to superior results and instead of Bing Chat you can turn the privacy mode on. It is stated that after activation, no messages are shared with a third party. However, you still have to trust that this is true, but better than nothing.
🎵🎶 Stability AI Announces Stable Audio for AI-Generated Music
Stability AI launched Stable Audio, a new product for AI-generated music and sound effects.
Stable Audio is available in a free version that can be used to generate 45-second tracks, and a pro version that allows you to generate 90-second tracks for commercial use.
Overview of the pricing options and license differences. Users provide text prompts and length to generate custom tracks.
It is based on a technique called latent diffusion, which is a type of generative AI that can create realistic and diverse outputs.
The audio tracks are generated in response to descriptive text prompts, so you can specify the genre, instruments, mood, and other details of the music you want to create.
It is also a privacy-friendly AI tool, as your data is not stored or used for any other purpose.
You can try it for free on their website.
My take: Music generation is the obvious next step. Stable Audio is not the first tool, but the high-quality output and ease of use are outstanding.
PKM and AI
📝🚀 AI Assisted Writing: Lex Is Already Today What Google Docs Will Be in the Future
The AI writing app Lex raised a $2.75M seed round and ended its limited beta access. For now, everyone can sign up and use Lex for free.
Lex user interface with the command window open where the available AI and other commands are listed. You can choose if the AI is using GPT-3, ChatGPT or GPT-4 and set the temperature (corresponds to the creativity)
If you are stuck, you enter +++ and the AI takes over.
More, also non AI, features from Lex. You can ask the AI to generate a first draft, create an outline, or just generate a list of topics that are worth considering as you write.
The latest added AI feature are new inbuilt prompts with which you can now ask Lex to:
Get feedback on your draft
Get feedback on your article idea
Sharpen your introduction
Identify weak arguments
Overcome writer's block
My take: I got access quite early and the app was getting many new features in the past couple of months. Great tool and big congrats to the founder, Nathan Baschez.
Podcasts
🎙️🔍 Peter Schiff Talks About Big Money Problems Coming Soon
Peter Schiff is a financial expert who has accurately predicted the 2008 financial collapse and the stock market performance.
In this Impact Theory podcast episode, he discusses the mind-games the government uses with data to ease the pain of inflation and how the Fed's inflation strategies are destroying the American economy.
He also talks about how anti-discrimination laws create more prejudice and what the 2008 subprime market reveals about opportunities today.
Schiff believes that a depression greater than the Great Depression is on the horizon for the US, and shares his insights on how to survive and thrive in the next economic crisis.
The future of the economy is expected to be challenging. Technology, such as AI, may help increase productivity, but should not be relied upon as a miracle solution.
My take: In general, I do not belong to the doomsayers, but I find myself in agreement with the points Peter Schiff raised in this podcast. While the outlook he provides is dark, it is important to understand what might happen and decide if a course correction of the own financial situation is needed.
Disclaimer: This newsletter is written with the aid of AI. I use AI as an assistant to generate and optimize the text. However, the amount of AI used varies depending on the topic and the content. I always curate and edit the text myself to ensure quality and accuracy. The opinions and views expressed in this newsletter are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of the sources or the AI models.