FTT - AI Tools to Improve Your Productivity (Or just have a bunch of fun)

 

AI Tools to Improve Your Productivity (Or just have a bunch of fun)

 @LisaBerghoff/@MrKimDHS

Where to begin?

While ChatGPT seems to be getting all of the attention, there are in fact a number of AI-related services on the web that can be utilized to drastically improve your work productivity. Or they can just be plain fun to mess around with as we explore and experiment in the relatively early stage of the consumer-side AI market. Something to consider: good AI is just like good CGI. You see, when CGI is well done, viewers never notice it. It blends in with reality and you would have never guessed that castle wasn't really there. Bad CGI hits you in the face with a metaphorical hammer. Believe it or not, we've been relying on good AI for years and years and things seem to be ramping up. So let's take a quick peak at some of the newest and greatest consumer AI products out there.

Rationale.jina.ai

Rationale.jina is a decision making AI that offers a number of different analysis modes that can help you make a simple, yet rational decision in under 10 seconds. The economics teacher in me immediately weighed the marginal costs and benefits of trusting a random AI to be my personal assistant. 

So imagine you are pondering a decision like: should I become a vegetarian. You can decide between a few analysis modes:

• 3 Pros and Cons
• Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, or Threats (SWOT)
• Multi-Option
• Causal Chain

Now you can also create a "persona" which asks you to add details of your life for context and a backstory to get a more "personalized analysis." Using the SWOT analysis model, the program gave some decent, albeit basic, advice. It might be simple information/data, but sometimes our students just need simple.

Clipdrop.co and Letsenhance.io

The MakerSpace has been using an AI-powered image enhancer for a number of years now when we create our signage and stickers. So essentially if someone sends a low-quality image and wants it turned into a poster, I typically upload it to LetEnhance.io to beef up its resolution. Using AI, it sees where there is a lack of pixel depth and guesses to fill in the blanks. Now it's not a magic bullet like what you'd see on a corny CSI episode where they magically enhance a license plate, but it does its best.

This is a gross oversimplification

Clipdrop.co seems to take this to another level. You ever see those clickbait ads that say something like, "Doctors hate him! This one weird trick...." well this is almost true for the graphic design teachers out there because it automates some of what used to be locked up behind the skill chest of Photoshop or Adobe Illustrator. You can cleanly remove a background from an image, cleanup blemishes on a person's picture, change the lighting, upscale the resolution, and true to its namesake, clip drop multimedia from one image to another. No idea what that means? No worries because neither did I until I watched this quick demo video.

Elevenlabs.io

Elevenlabs is a brilliant, although beta speech synthesis service that can quickly turn text into truly human-like voice recordings. If you were impressed with Alexa or Siri, you'll be amazed at how quickly they can synthesize a random paragraph into an audio clip that seems to nail every type of punctuation you can throw at it. I took a random part of a David Foster Wallace speech, and it actually sounded like a breathing human was reciting the piece. As mentioned it's currently in the beta stage and they are looking to add Spanish, Polish, and German by the end of the month. You can choose between about a dozen different voices between premade "Arnold" and "Bella" or even the cheerful "Sam." Check out their FAQ page here.

So play around with these options. They're all free with options to upgrade for premium features. Remember, these are all mostly in beta stages. We're really living in some extraordinary times and most foresee an exponential explosion of power and usage from AI programs. Might as well get used to it!