The Great AI Hiring Pause, SlackGPT, and Voice Cloning

IBM's hiring pause, Salesforce's Slack GPT, and Play.ht's multilingual voice cloning technology

Author

Jordan Wade
May 08, 2023

Welcome to this week's edition of The Breakdown! It's been a week of highs and lows in the world of AI, with some big announcements and exciting new developments. If you're enjoying the newsletter, don't forget to share it with your friends.

IBM's CEO recently announced that the company plans to pause hiring for certain roles - around 7,800 jobs in total. These jobs are mostly back-office roles, such as HR positions or other non-customer-facing roles. This doesn't mean that IBM is firing anyone; rather, they're transitioning to using AI more extensively over the next five years.

Salesforce is developing a business suite that will allow users to securely access customer data insights and automate workflows using AI. One use case is that customer support issues can be resolved more efficiently and effectively, without having to talk to a real person. Even though I would rather speak to a real person in the current world of customer support.

With Play.ht's new multilingual voice cloning technology, you no longer need to learn a secondary language. You can record yourself speaking in your native language, upload it, and change your voice to speak in any other language. The demo on their site is pretty impressive, you should definitely check it out!

🌎 Around the Web

Here are some interesting stories from around the web that caught our attention this week:

  • Researchers at the University of Texas have developed a brain activity decoder that can reveal the stories in people's minds. Article

  • NVIDIA has made advances in generative AI that could have a big impact on graphics research. Article

🛠️ The Best Open Source Tools

OpenAI's latest open source project is a text-to-3D image generator. This technology has the potential to revolutionize video games, cartoons, and movies. Keep an eye on this one!

GitHub - openai/shap-e: Generate 3D objects conditioned on text or images

Generate 3D objects conditioned on text or images. Contribute to openai/shap-e development by creating an account on GitHub.

github.com/openai/shap-e

🎧 Listen Up!

If you're looking for a podcast that's both informative and entertaining, check out Last Week in AI. The hosts really know their stuff when it comes to AI.

‎Last Week in AI on Apple Podcasts

‎Technology · 2023

podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/last-week-in-ai/id1502782720

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Until next time, take it easy đź‘‹
— Jordan Wade