by Joe Lonergan
ChatGPT, Open AI's viral AI chatbot, celebrated its 1st anniversary on
November 30th.
Up to recently, the ChatGPT app was really only useful to people who paid
for the premium subscription. But this is changing.
Previously the voice conversation feature was only available for premium
users but now Chat GPT has made the voice-only feature free for all and,
guess what, this is great news for blind and low vision users as once
activated you can use the conversational voice-only feature hands-free.
The voice-only option is only available in the app, on iOS and Android. It
is not available on the website. To try it download the app and log in, tap
voice mode and allow access to the microphone when prompted. There are
several voices to choose from and you can sample each of them to hear what
they sound like. The voices' names are Jennifer, Ember, Cove, Sky, and
Breeze.
Next, you can ask your question to start a conversation. The dialogue begins
smoothly and becomes more challenging as you pose intricate questions, such
as requesting a poem about Ireland. Chat GPT then goes into action, taking
about 30 seconds to craft a beautiful poem, which is subsequently presented
to you in a seamlessly natural voice. During the brief wait for a response,
you receive pleasant haptic feedback as an indicator that the system is
actively processing your request.
When finished chatting to the AI bot you can tap on stop and close. The app
is accessible with VoiceOver. It is a little weird having a chat with
something without having to use a wake word, but I think it is something we
will get used to.
I really liked the experience, and I was really impressed with the quality
of the voices. We asked it many questions about sport and general knowledge
and eye conditions, and it always made a good effort at answering these
questions, Mostly accurate but be aware it is not always accurate and some
of its information is out of date. It did announce some of its knowledge was
from its most recent knowledge base up to January 2022 so it can not be
relied upon.
But saying that it helps compose tricky e-mails, write poems, create
strategies, and have fun for now.
I can foresee this being built into smart speakers and becoming a useful
tool the more it becomes accurate and faster in its responses. With the
speed at which AI is growing, we can not put a timeline on this. What a
turnaround from the sacking and Hiring controversy of Sam Altman from last
week and then to go and announce voice mode for free for all users.
But why offer voice mode for free? Some say it was to maintain balance after
all the controversy, but it is more probable it will use it as a learning
model and grab more data, and learn all new dialects from its new free
users.
Over the last six months, AI has already made massive improvements to the Be
My Eyes app, The Seeing AI app, the Envision Glasses, and many more
products.
We can not wait to see what is next for Open AI.
Vision Ireland Technology News.
