Weekend AI News Roundup: AI in BPOs, Chinese students accessing ChatGPT, Inker Robotics secures million dollar funding, more

Microsoft’s Visual ChatGPT will let users interact with ChatGPT using Visual Foundation Models

• Microsoft has just introduced a new model named Visual ChatGPT, which combines visual foundation models (VFMs) such as Transformers, ControlNet, and Stable Diffusion with ChatGPT.
• Considering models with many inputs/outputs and models requiring visual feedback, the researchers have created a series of prompts to inject the visual model information into ChatGPT.
• While visual foundation models have come a long way, it is still early days to ask generative AI to create and customise images with a simple voice command.

• The romance of mimicked human interaction with AI for consumer-facing applications is still a work in progress, but the tech is making strides to optimise in-house functions.
• Anyone who has interacted with a telecom company chatbot knows the experience can be quite frustrating. The companies recognise this.
• The ubiquitousness of AI will therefore force a rethink for business process outsourcing companies on their staff composition.

• Kerala-based Inker Robotics, under the Kerala StartUp Mission, which deals with research and delivery in robotics and futuristic technology education, has secured a USD 1.2 million funding.
• The idea behind Robomaker primarily is to kindle a scientific temper in the young minds, making learning immersive, experiential, and application-based.
• The organisation, which has a 4,500 sq ft robotics facility with 80 industry professionals has won the award for Best Robo Lab Setup in India, at STEM SUMMIT 2019 held at IIT Delhi.

• Chinese schoolchildren are turning to AI bot ChatGPT to slash their homework time -- vaulting the country's "Great Firewall" to write book reports and bone up on their language skills.
• In China, where the service is unavailable without a virtual private network (VPN), over a dozen students told AFP they have used it to write essays, solve science and maths problems, and generate computer code.
• While tools to detect whether a text has been written using AI can be accessed in China, schools are also training teachers to ensure academic ethics are upheld.