[Lex Computer & Tech Group/LCTG] 13 ways people in the Boston area are using artificial intelligence right now

Tue Jul 11 04:37:02 PDT 2023

Folks,
The more I look into ML/AI the more I think about my friends at MIT in the
early days of AI.   I refer to "AI" this way (ML/AI) in honor of the
predecessors of the current people doing ML/AI because my contemporaries
were trying so hard to model the processes of how humans think.  These are
the so-called pioneers of AI.  These are people at MIT like Marvin Minsky,
John McCarthy, Terry Winograd, and Carl Hewitt.
The MIT pioneers are very different from today's researchers.  The ML/AI
researchers and developers have approached the problem extremely
differently, and have been more successful in showing positive results.
But ML/AI don't address the problem with the intention of representing
intelligence and the processes of creativity as the pioneers who struggled
in the early days did, trying to mimic human intelligence.
The question is, as with the researchers into airplanes who approached the
problem initially by modeling birds by strapping large wings to people
rather than the Wright Bros approach which skipped that part and went to
something that worked, I suspect some day ML/AI will prevail and my friends
on the upper floors of 545 Tech Square will be looked at like the bird wing
guys of AI.
-- Harry

13 ways people in the Boston area are using artificial intelligence right
nowEarly adopters are finding creative ways to make the most out of the
buzzy technology
By Dana Gerber
<https://www.bostonglobe.com/about/staff-list/staff/dana-gerber/?p1=Article_Byline>
Globe Staff,Updated July 10, 2023, 5:38 a.m.
<https://www.facebook.com/sharer/sharer.php?u=https://www.bostonglobe.com/2023/07/10/business/locals-using-ai/?event=event25>
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11
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[image: From an AI-generated beer recipe to meal-planning for Marathon
training, local early adopters are finding creative ways to make the most
out of the buzzy technology.]From an AI-generated beer recipe to
meal-planning for Marathon training, local early adopters are finding
creative ways to make the most out of the buzzy technology.ADOBE, AP, MEGAN
LAM/GLOBE CORRESPONDENT

The chatbots have arrived, and we are already keeping them busy.

There’s no end to the ways that people are using artificial intelligence
systems like ChatGPT, Google’s Bard, and Bing’s new search engine in
everyday life. Yes, this can include more outlandish uses — like
suggesting messages
to send matches on dating apps
<https://mashable.com/article/chatgpt-tinder-tiktok> — but it can also mean
outsourcing tedious tasks that require time but little brainpower.
Following up on that pesky e-mail chain? Meal-planning for a family of
four? Organizing meeting notes? Check, check, check.
RELATED: A technophobe’s guide to AI chatbots
<https://bostonglobe.com/2023/07/10/business/chatbot-how-to-guide/?p1=Article_Inline_Related_Link>

There are risks to using artificial intelligence, of course: In one
high-profile case, two New York lawyers found themselves in hot water
<https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/22/nyregion/lawyers-chatgpt-schwartz-loduca.html>
after
filing a legal brief filled with information that ChatGPT had invented out
of whole cloth — an egregious example of the potential for these systems to
“hallucinate,”
<https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/01/business/ai-chatbots-hallucination.html> or
make up facts. Experts are concerned that AI could even pose a “risk for
extinction,”
<https://www.bostonglobe.com/2023/05/31/business/this-is-civilization-threatening-heres-why-ai-poses-an-existential-risk/?s_campaign=trendlines:newsletter&p1=Article_Inline_Text_Link>
and
tech leaders have called for regulations and guardrails
<https://www.bostonglobe.com/2023/03/29/business/mit-scientists-tech-leaders-call-pause-artificial-intelligence-research/?p1=Article_Inline_Text_Link>
.

But for tasks with relatively low stakes — picking out a new car, writing
real estate listings, or crafting a class syllabus — users are finding
chatbots to be diligent assistants. The Globe talked with more than a dozen
Massachusetts residents about how they’re using this technology in their
day-to-day lives. Here’s what we found. (If you want to try any of these
out for yourself but need some help getting started, check out our AI guide
<https://bostonglobe.com/2023/07/10/business/chatbot-how-to-guide/?p1=Article_Inline_Text_Link>
.)
[image: Night Shift Brewery in Everett enlisted ChatGPT's help to concoct a
new IPA recipe, which the AI gave the name "AI-P-A."]Night Shift Brewery in
Everett enlisted ChatGPT's help to concoct a new IPA recipe, which the AI
gave the name "AI-P-A."COURTESY OF NIGHT SHIFT BREWING
*Beer brewing*

AI might not be able to malt the barley or mill the grain — at least not
yet — but Night Shift Brewery in Everett used ChatGPT to handle other parts
of the beer-making process. Enlisted by cofounder Michael Oxton to create
the “perfect beer,” ChatGPT concocted a recipe for a 7.5 percent hazy IPA
with notes of mango, orange, and pine. Oxton then sent the recipe to Night
Shift’s head brewer. “He was just like, ‘Damn, that’s a good recipe,’” said
Oxton.

Night Shift’s team didn’t stop there: They asked ChatGPT to come up with a
name for the brew (it offered up “AI-P-A”). They also used Midjourney, an
AI service that generates images from text descriptions, to design the
beer’s label — a graffiti-like illustration of a robot handling a pint.
Night Shift released a limited supply of the beer in February
<https://www.instagram.com/p/Co8EAPbPM8-/>, and plans to revive it at some
point down the line.

In the meantime, they’re launching a new ad campaign: Midjourney-generated
images depicting owls taking over Boston landmarks have been plastered on
billboards along Interstate 93, Route 1, and Route 16, to ring in the
release of a new “Owls in Boston” IPA.
RELATED: We asked AI to plan the perfect Boston day. Here’s where it took
us.
<https://www.bostonglobe.com/2023/05/26/business/we-asked-ai-plan-perfect-boston-day-heres-where-it-took-us/?p1=Article_Inline_Related_Link>
*Someone to talk to*

When Chris Zombik was trying to kill some time, he typed a request into
ChatGPT: *I am dying of boredom and need someone to talk to.*

“And it came up with a bunch of ideas of topics we could discuss,” said
Zombik, an author who lives in Somerville. Soon, they were talking about a
book he had recently read — “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas” by Hunter S.
Thompson — and it became “quite a philosophical conversation,” he said,
about generational dismay.

“The bot is a very careful listener, so to speak, and really engaged with
what I was saying,” he said. “When your other friends aren’t responding to
you and you’re looking for a distraction in the middle of the day, that’s
pretty powerful.”

Zombik returned to this conversation multiple times, and within weeks he
had crashed the “context window,”
<https://techcrunch.com/2023/03/14/openai-is-testing-a-version-of-gpt-4-that-can-remember-long-conversations/>
or
the extent to which the chatbot is designed to “remember” previous
interactions. “That was actually kind of despairing when that happened,
because it was like my friend had kind of died,” he said.
*Marathon meal-planning*

As she was gearing up to run the Boston Marathon for the first time,
Middleton resident Audrey Ellis enlisted a running coach — but it was
ChatGPT that she tasked with building some pre-race meal plans. She input
her allergies and her calorie intake goal, specifying that she is mostly
vegetarian, and ChatGPT spit out recipes for quinoa salad, veggie burgers,
and yogurt bowls. She then asked it to generate a grocery list.

Though she didn’t end up using all the robot-suggested recipes — and she
had to prod it to exclude almond butter even after saying she was allergic
— she did complete the Marathon, with a finishing time of 4:47:43.
[image: Union Realty Group in Newton has begun using an AI chatbot to
generate real estate listings for Facebook.]Union Realty Group in Newton
has begun using an AI chatbot to generate real estate listings for
Facebook.COURTESY
OF UNION REALTY GROUP
*Real estate listings*

Arman Khachatryan, a data analyst, saw the labor involved in producing real
estate listings from his friend, Shant Davidian, who is a co-owner and
agent at Union Realty Group in Newton. So Khachatryan used ChatGPT’s API
<https://techcrunch.com/2023/03/01/openai-launches-an-api-for-chatgpt-plus-dedicated-capacity-for-enterprise-customers/>
—
which allows businesses to customize the model for specific purposes — to
create a chatbot to scan Union’s database, generate short descriptions for
properties, and post listings to Facebook, all in one fell swoop.

Davidian said that Union can now post over 100 Facebook listings in about
an hour, leading to anywhere from 10 to 50-plus inquiries a day.
Khachatryan is working on fleshing out the tool to interact with interested
renters directly, show them other properties that may be a good fit, and
schedule showings.

“All agents are now spending more time going and showing the apartments to
their clients than just sitting in front of a computer,” said Khachatryan.
RELATED: How a couple of Olin College students helped spark the AI chatbot
revolution
<https://www.bostonglobe.com/2023/06/10/business/how-couple-olin-college-students-helped-spark-ai-chatbot-revolution/?p1=Article_Inline_Related_Link>
*Car shopping*

Scott Johnson, an Allston/Brighton resident, turned to Bing’s AI-powered
search engine to help him decide on a car to buy for a drive to
Bakersville, California. He asked Bing — which, unlike ChatGPT, can surf
the web
<https://blogs.microsoft.com/blog/2023/02/07/reinventing-search-with-a-new-ai-powered-microsoft-bing-and-edge-your-copilot-for-the-web/>
in
real time for updates — to provide information on vehicle mileage, the
amount of space in the back of various cars, and the differences between
model years. Using Bing’s insights, he decided on a Subaru, and now has
plans to purchase a 2023 Forester.

He noticed some discrepancies between the mileage figures listed on Bing
and on Subaru’s website, but Bing was a good place to start research,
Johnson said. “Instead of having, like, 10 [search] windows open, I have
this device that can do all that for me,” he said.
*Poetry writing*

When a friend was recovering from a trip to the hospital, Lexington
resident Bill Rosenfeld charged ChatGPT with composing a poem as a get-well
note. He typed in some of his friend’s personality traits, the reason he
was in the hospital, and the get-better-soon sentiment. It spat out a
seven-stanza poem, which Rosenfeld made some small edits to before sending
it off to his friend, “who absolutely loved it,” he said.

He had never attempted being a rhymester before, but Rosenfeld has now used
ChatGPT to write about 10 more poems for occasions like retirements and
birthdays.

“My first thought was, Hallmark’s in big trouble,” he said. “It’s
personalized, and it looks like much more work than it is, even if you
completely attribute it to ChatGPT.”
RELATED: Tech Lab: ‘This is civilization-threatening’: Here’s why AI poses
an existential risk
<https://www.bostonglobe.com/2023/05/31/business/this-is-civilization-threatening-heres-why-ai-poses-an-existential-risk/?p1=Article_Inline_Related_Link>
*Job hunting*

After Caitlin Gillooly, a Brighton resident, was laid off from her job as a
manager of merchandising compliance at Wayfair, she turned to ChatGPT to
help craft cover letters for job applications. She plugged in details about
her background and the sort of strategy consultancy and e-commerce
operations jobs she was interested in, and ChatGPT spit out drafts for her
to spice up — a cure for her self-described “blank page syndrome.”

“I think a personal touch in a job search is still super critical,” she
said. AI, she added, “isn’t going to eliminate the importance of things
like networking, personal connections, and letting a little of your own
personality shine through.”

Gillooly got a few interviews from these AI-assisted applications, but she
is now forgoing the job search to launch an AI consultancy
<https://www.looly.co/>to help others increase their productivity.
[image: ChatGPT helped Allston resident Taryn L’Hussier find the Disney
World parks that would best accommodate her Celiac disease. Pictured here
are the gluten free chicken tenders and fries that she ate in Animal
Kingdom.]ChatGPT helped Allston resident Taryn L’Hussier find the Disney
World parks that would best accommodate her Celiac disease. Pictured here
are the gluten free chicken tenders and fries that she ate in Animal
Kingdom.COURTESY OF TARYN L'HUSSIER
*Meal-planning at Disney*

As she was preparing for a trip to Disney World in March, Allston resident
Taryn L’Hussier wanted to find the parks that would best accommodate her
celiac disease. ChatGPT told her where in each park she could find
gluten-free grub, and she asked it to devise a walking path to hit all of
the eateries.

She ended up chowing down on everything from churros at Animal Kingdom to
onion rings at Disney Springs to a macaron ice cream sandwich at Epcot. “I
ate so good in Disney World,” she said.
*Accent training*

Jennifer Abramson runs The Accent Helper, a small business that works with
people who want to adopt an American intonation. Recently, the Somerville
resident has asked ChatGPT to write practice material tailored to each
client’s interests and needs.

For one soccer-obsessed client from South America, for instance, this meant
supplying sentences about Lionel Messi chock-full of words with the “-TH”
sound, which he was learning to pronounce. The ChatGPT-generated lines
included phrases like “the epitome of breathtaking scale,” “thunderous
brilliance,” and “athleticism in sync.”

“Could I write that? Of course,” she said. “But will it take me an hour to
do what ChatGPT did in literally 20 seconds? Yes.”
RELATED: Innovation Beat: Apple isn’t labeling its AI products ‘AI.’ Here’s
why that’s important.
<https://www.bostonglobe.com/2023/06/06/business/apple-isnt-labeling-its-ai-products-ai-heres-why-thats-important/?p1=Article_Inline_Related_Link>
*Distilling complex concepts*

Chris Feifer, an executive vice president of medical marketing agency
FreshBlood Group, is often tasked with simplifying complex concepts from
biotech and pharmaceutical clients for an audience of laypeople.

“Sometimes it’s a lot of work for a copywriter or for a medical director to
distill that information and to find the key messages,” said Feifer, who is
based in Sharon. So FreshBlood has started using ChatGPT to take a first
pass. One client, Feifer said, asked FreshBlood to prepare a presentation
on validating a specific kind of clinical trial study, and ChatGPT broke
down the process into simple steps.

It’s not a silver bullet, though. “There are cases where something doesn’t
seem quite right,” said Feifer, adding that any and all AI-generated
information is carefully validated by a medical director and edited. “It’s
obviously invaluable as a tool, but it’s not a crutch. You can’t rely on it
completely.”
[image: Beth Bailey, who teaches pottery classes, uses ChatGPT and Bard to
devise class curriculums and syllabi.]Beth Bailey, who teaches pottery
classes, uses ChatGPT and Bard to devise class curriculums and syllabi.ALISON
THOMPSON PHOTOGRAPHY
*Crafting a syllabus*

Beth Bailey runs pottery classes out of her home studio in Whitman
<https://bethbaileypottery.com/>, and also teaches at various art
institutions, including Clay Lounge in the South End and Local Pottery in
Norwell. To pitch to outside studios, she has to write a concise curriculum
outlining what her class will cover, as well as a student syllabus.

She used to gin these up from scratch, but now, she plugs in information
about the class to Bard or ChatGPT, which condenses and formats it to her
specifications. It also simplifies some of the more advanced language —
cutting words like “underglaze” and “sgraffito” — “so that it’s not
insider’s baseball,” said Bailey.

“I’ve even said things like, ‘In this particular sentence, make it less
cringey,’ — and it does,” said Bailey. “It’s a game changer for the little
business I’m trying to build for myself here as an artist and an educator.”
RELATED: Tech Lab: Is AI a job killer? IBM may think so, but it’s all in
how you use it.
<https://www.bostonglobe.com/2023/05/04/business/is-ai-job-killer-ibm-may-think-so-its-all-how-you-use-it/?p1=Article_Inline_Related_Link>
*Study scheduling*

Priya Sharma, who works as a risk consultant for the financial technology
firm Empyrean Solutions in Woburn, has aspirations to become a data
scientist. To that end, ChatGPT built her a five-month study schedule
outlining broad topics she should learn, such as data structures, coding
languages, and machine learning algorithms.

She didn’t end up following the schedule to a tee, because she wanted to
dive deeper into some of the individual topics, like data structures. But
the bot also pointed her to the online course platform Udemy, which offers
a detailed class on the subject.

“Anytime I have a question or something that I think might be difficult to
find on a search engine, ChatGPT is my first source of information,” said
Sharma.
RELATED: Innovation Economy: Boston needs to get smarter about AI
<https://www.bostonglobe.com/2023/04/11/business/boston-needs-get-smarter-about-artificial-intelligence/?p1=Article_Inline_Related_Link>
*Getting class help*

Manind Gera, who recently earned a master’s degree in computer science from
Boston University, used AI to help him understand concepts in a
graduate-level game theory class. One economic model, the Cournot duopoly,
was giving him particular trouble, so he asked ChatGPT to explain it to him
“like I’m five,” he said.

“That really helps sometimes,” he said. “Usually I would just go on office
hours or spend hours on Google trying to find the right resource for it.”

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Lexington Photo Scanning <http://lexingtonphotoscan.com/>
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