05/31/2024

Chatbots are Entering Their Stone Age

AI startups are teaching chatbots tips to make them more useful in the workplace

For all the bluster about generative artificial intelligence upending the world, the technology has yet to meaningfully transform white-collar work. Workers are dabbling with chatbots for tasks such as drafting emails, and companies are launching countless experiments, but office work hasn’t undergone a major AI reboot.

Perhaps that’s only because we haven’t given chatbots like Google’s Gemini and OpenAI’s ChatGPT the right tools for the job yet; they’re generally restricted to taking in and spitting out text via a chat interface. Things might get more interesting in business settings as AI companies start deploying so-called “AI agents,” which can take action by operating other software on a computer or via the internet.

Anthropic, a competitor to OpenAI, announced a major new product today that attempts to prove the thesis that tool use is needed for AI’s next leap in usefulness. The startup is allowing developers to direct its chatbot Claude to access outside services and software in order to perform more useful tasks. Claude can, for instance, use a calculator to solve the kinds of math problems that vex large language models; be required to access a database containing customer information; or be compelled to make use of other programs on a user’s computer when it would help.

Please select this link to read the complete article from WIRED.