Today, you can ask Siri to tell you the temperature in your bedroom or Alexa to turn on the lights, and sometimes they'll get it right. You might also hear something like, "You have 15 lights; which one would you like to control?" or "Kathmandu's current temperature is 53 degrees." What if your voice assistant could provide "intelligent" responses to vague questions like "I've had a tough day; what's a good way to unwind?" in addition to being consistently accurate? For instance, by drawing the shades, turning down the lights, lowering the thermostat, and setting some Netflix treats on hold?




Alex Capecelatro, co-founder of the Josh.ai home automation system, claims that is the potential of voice assistants powered by new AI language models. Josh.ai has already begun developing a prototype integration using ChatGPT from OpenAI. In this proof-of-concept clip, Capecelatro requests that Josh's assistant open the blinds, turn off the music, and provide the current weather (controlling three things at once is a capability Josh already has). When he says, "I'm filming a video; it's kind of dark in here," the voice assistant responds — somewhat awkwardly — by turning up the lights in the room. He then uses more natural voice commands for the smart home.







Josh can parse when it hears "satellites" instead of "turn on the lights" and respond appropriately thanks to extensive knowledge graph models. It might sound like "Open the drapes" means "Get some grapes," but Josh is savvy enough to realize you don't live near a vineyard. Capecelatro explains that even when you say, "Turn on the goddam lights," we understand what you mean because we spend a lot of time working behind the scenes to correct mishearing, understand different accents, and do other things of the sort.





Only custom smart home installations powered by Crestron, Control4, or Josh's own standalone smart home control system can currently use Josh as a voice control layer. Josh has established a reputation for being a more dependable, more private voice assistant in that more secure setting, where the system is set up and largely controlled by a professional installer and using Josh.ai's proprietary hardware, despite having a higher barrier to entry. (While Josh has a cloud component, the majority of requests are processed locally on the Josh Core or the Josh Micro, and when using cloud-based APIs, personally identifiable information is stripped out, according to Capecelatro.)




Would you let ChatGPT control your smart home?

 Microsoft Corp. (MSFT.O) sought to reassure investors that its significant investment in artificial intelligence (AI) is paying off, despite the fact that Microsoft customers are scrutinizing their cloud spending due to the current economic climate.

The use of GitHub Copilot, a little-discussed tool that can write computer code for programmers, provides some preliminary evidence.






The tool attracted 400,000 subscribers in a month after it was made available to the public in June of last year. According to Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, more than a million people have used Copilot till date.

Microsoft this week said it would embark on a multibillion-dollar investment including supercomputer development and cloud support to power a startup it first backed in 2019, known as OpenAI, which is at the forefront of generative AI.

Copilot itself, as well as ChatGPT, a well-liked chatbot that Open AI released last year, rely on OpenAI's technology. Microsoft claims that ChatGPT, which can write both code and prose or poetry, will be available via its cloud.





In the event that it is updated, ChatGPT could potentially respond to any user query, giving Microsoft's Bing search engine a chance to challenge the market leader, Google, owned by Alphabet Inc. (GOOGL.O). According to a previous Reuters report, Google is developing a significant AI launch of its own.


According to Nadella, the Azure OpenAI Service, which makes startup technology available via Microsoft's cloud, has already drawn 200 clients, including KPMG and Al Jazeera.





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Microsoft is attracting users to its generative AI software.