AI Dominance Unveiled, ChatGPT-4's Counseling Superiority Stuns, Bing Outsmarts Half of Psychologists in Study

A new study published by Frontiers in Psychology studied similarities between AI and human psychologists and found out that AI is better in understanding human emotions and counseling them. This study was mainly done on ChatGPT-4, Google Bard (also known as Gemini) and Bing and the aim of the study was to assess how well these AI models understand social intelligence. ChatGPT-4 was far better than all the human psychologists that participated in the study, while Bing outperformed half of them. Google Bard was only better than psychologists who were pursuing bachelor's degrees in psychology.

Many Large Language Models (LLMs) are developed in a way that they can easily answer questions, translate languages and even make conversations that are quite similar to humans. This is possible due to structures called neural systems that are responsible for human-like responses from LLMs. Many studies have been done previously that prove that LLMs can help in diagnosing mental health conditions but no study was done about how LLMs can prove to perform with social contexts.

One of the authors of the study, Fahmi Hassan Fadhel, says that since LLMs have proved that they are capable of counseling and psychotherapies, many psychologists can feel threatened as these AI models can easily take away their jobs. The way an AI model can understand human emotions and feelings so well and provide suggestions, it can prove to be more useful than human psychotherapists but it is a very alarming issue.

For this study, 180 male psychologists were included from King Khalid University in Saudi Arabia and were divided according to their educational levels from graduated to doctoral students. The participants and LLMs (ChatGPT, Bard, Bing) were asked to answer 64 scenarios taken from the Social Intelligence Scale. The results were made with two criteria – The soundness of judgment and ability to act wisely in social situations. The results proved that some AI models have advanced in a way that they can even outsmart professional human psychologists.

ChatGPT-4 answered 59 out of 64 questions on the Social Intelligence Scale and surpassed all the human psychologists. The average score of human psychologists was 39.19 for bachelor students and 46.73 for doctoral students. Bing scored 48 out of 64 questions. It outperformed 90% bachelor students and 50% doctoral students. Bing could only answer 40 out of 64 questions. The study shows how quickly AI is developing and excelling in every field. Even though these results by LLMs were impressive, it is also a matter of concern about whether AI should be given authority to talk about sensitive matters such as mental health issues.

Read next: ChatGPT Might Be Kinder and More Cooperative Than Humans, New Study Reveals
by Arooj Ahmed via Digital Information World

WhatsApp Plans New Feature for Web Client

WhatsApp is developing a new feature for its web client that allows users to add notes to contacts. This feature is still being worked on and will be available in an upcoming update, as per WBI. It will let users include personal details for each contact, which is very useful for business accounts.

This helps them remember important details about their customers like past conversations and individual preferences. Recently, WhatsApp tested this feature in an update for the Android beta version. The latest update showed that users could add specific messages directly to notes. This feature will help businesses by allowing them to note important information about customer interactions.

The new feature will have a text field on the chat information screen for users to write notes. This will be part of a future update for WhatsApp Web. For businesses, being able to write down important customer information in WhatsApp will make managing customer details easier. They will not need separate tools or systems, which saves time and resources.

• Related: Report Highlights Costly AI Model Training, Potential Data Shortage Impacting Future Development

Also, this feature will make customer interactions better. Businesses can tailor their communications based on the notes they have, making customers feel more special. These notes will be private, seen only by the business, and customers will not know about them.

WhatsApp plans to share more details about this feature as they continue to work on it. The introduction of the contact note feature is part of WhatsApp's efforts to improve the user experience and expand its business services.

Read next: Sustainability Guilt: 57% Feel Remorse at Home; 28% Fully Embrace Eco-Living, Mainly Millennials
by Mahrukh Shahid via Digital Information World

Sustainability Guilt: 57% Feel Remorse at Home; 28% Fully Embrace Eco-Living, Mainly Millennials

A survey published by Seventh Generation found out that only 14% of Americans think of sustainability as their priority when shopping around. One in six Americans admitted that they are not aware of ingredients in the products they buy, and most of them were Gen-Z with 19% being least informed. The survey was conducted among 2,000 Americans to find out how important they think of sustainability and the results showed that most of them are not aware of it.

57% of the respondents said that they are not quite living in their homes guilt free because of sustainability. 40% of Americans in the survey were somewhat sure that their lifestyle and the products they buy are environmentally friendly. 28% were completely sure of living an environmentally sustainable lifestyle with most of them being millennials (42%). When asked about their definition of sustainable lifestyle, 73% of those surveyed answered that they think of sustainability as knowing the ingredients of things they buy. 79% of the millennials and 65% of the baby boomers strictly want to know the ingredients of their products before buying them.

The survey also asked the respondents about the necessities they need to care about their homes. 70% answered with trash bags, 67% answered dish wash and 65% said laundry detergent. But a quarter of Americans didn’t think of these products as something that is harmful to the environment. Respondents also weren’t aware that many common items could produce fossil fuels like toothpaste (39%), plastic dishes (35%), candles (32%), and laundry detergent (26%).

CEO of Seventh Generation, Alison Whritenour, said that many Americans aren’t aware that most of their household items are petroleum based. It is easily possible to make plant based products that are not able to harm the environment and people can use these products without any guilt. 48% of the Americans surveyed have said that consumers shouldn’t be responsible for the safety of products they buy. 45% held brands responsible for product safety. 42% of the respondents suggested that consumers shouldn’t be worried about a product's safety and do extensive research before purchasing them.

45% aren’t sure if they can completely get rid of products with fossil fuels from their homes, while 55% said that they will completely switch their products to live a complete environmentally friendly lifestyle. Some are willing to pay more for sustainable products (45%), some said that they would only watch streaming platforms on TV (23%), others promised to drink only water (18%). The top product that is hard to give up for Americans is laundry detergent (18%). They don’t want to give up on it for a sustainable lifestyle.

Read next: These Are the Top 15 Carbon Emitters in the World
by Arooj Ahmed via Digital Information World

Report Highlights Costly AI Model Training, Potential Data Shortage Impacting Future Development

Stanford University's latest AI Index Report talks about many AI trends, as it shows that it is very costly to train AI models and AI development can get affected with lack of data in the future. Many AI companies do not mention how much cost it takes to train and develop an AI model but one thing is sure that their cost can be in millions of dollars. The Artificial Intelligence Index Report highlights the estimations about how much money it takes to train an AI model. For instance, the Transformer Model [the foundational block to most modern large language models (LLMs)] only costs $930 to train.

RoBERTa Large which was released in 2019 is trained after spending $160,000 on it. ChatGPT-4 by OpenAI and Gemini Ultra by Google cost around $78 million and $191 million respectively. These costs of already developed AI models suggest that the AI models that are still under developmental stages probably cost around billions of dollars.

There is also another challenge for many AI developers and that is the lack of data to train their AI models. Many AI models have been developed after giving them data from different books, articles and other sources. But there is a huge dependency on AI models for data and information. There is a chance that many data scientists will not know what data to give these AI models in order to improve them in the upcoming years. Epochai published a report in 2022 that predicted that data scientists will run out of high quality language data by 2024, low quality language data will be all used up in the upcoming two decades and image data will be finished between 2030-2040.

One of the solutions to this problem is to train LLMs by the synthetic data that is produced by themselves. Researchers from Stanford say that this solution can avoid data depletion and can also provide data when the naturally occurring data is scattered everywhere. But there are also some limitations with training AI models with synthetic data. LLMs can forget this kind of data and start producing outputs that are poorly synthesized. Their data will be limited and they will forget the true data distributions.

Read next: These Are the Top 15 Carbon Emitters in the World
by Arooj Ahmed via Digital Information World

WhatsApp To Soon Allow Users To Create Events Through Community Group Chats

WhatsApp is on another mission to create ease for its users who make use of group chats frequently.

The popular texting platform is rolling out a new endeavor for creating events through community group chats as mentioned by WABetaInfo who was the first to announce the discovery.

For now, it’s up for grabs to a limited number of testers online but if things go as planned, there’s no reason why the masses won’t benefit from it too.

This new ‘Event’ option is designed to allow users across the platform’s community group to produce events on the chat. It can be found through the attachment panel where eligible testers can make the most of it for the likes of online meetings, seminars, and more.

As per the screenshots, users can feature details like date, location, as well as time. They would then end up linking this to calls rolled out on WhatsApp after an event gets created through the platform. Users get the chance to select if they would like to have links included for accepting video calls or voice calls across the invite.

Members taking part in this community group accept event invites and also attain alerts regarding changes done by a certain creator in question. Websites like these note how events feature on the app could be attained through older beta variants so that the majority of users can benefit from it online in the next few weeks.

You can always refer to the platform’s Community in case you need a reference as it brings everyone together, no matter what the topic of discussion would be or which groups are relevantly involved.

Similarly, users can get the chance to give rise to communities that go up to 100 groups featuring close to 2000 members as a whole as revealed by the latest support document.

The platform creates things through automated means as a part of the Announcement group for every community where admin members could make use of this for sending messages to every single community member.

Other than this, the platform is making efforts toward exploring various features to improve user engagement on the platform.

We’re also seeing the famous texting platform work on a host of different features like Favorites, third-party app support, default for uploading media in original quality, and also picture in picture mode.

In the past couple of months, Whatsapp has included a few features such as video forward or rewind as well as 16 different channel admin members. This would also entail a new option for filtering out group chats. Users can search for chats with ease via several filters that are found at the chat list’s top.

Read next: Influencer Earnings Set to Rise in 2024
by Dr. Hura Anwar via Digital Information World

Influencer Earnings Set to Rise in 2024

eMarketer - a market-research firm, has released data about influencer earnings. The report says that influencer earnings from social media are expected to grow by 16.5% in 2024, reaching $13.7 billion.
Affiliate marketing, where influencers earn commissions through trackable links or specific codes used by their followers to make purchases, is becoming more popular. It's projected to bring in over $1 billion for creators in 2024, marking a 22.6% increase from the previous year.

Platforms like LTK and Amazon have traditionally been used by influencers to host their affiliate links, but TikTok Shop, launched in the US last year, is pushing this growth further. TikTok, along with Instagram and YouTube, is heavily promoting affiliate marketing.

Instagram and YouTube are also improving their affiliate marketing programs. Affiliate marketing is seen as an inclusive way for creators, including those of color who may face challenges in securing brand deals, to earn money.

YouTube continues to be a dominant platform for influencer earnings, with direct platform payouts to creators predicted to rise by 10% to $3.2 billion this year. The platform's investment in influencer marketing has surged, especially for its shorts format, which saw a 700% increase in spending in 2023.

The demand for longer videos is one reason why YouTube is expected to be the most lucrative platform for creators in 2024. Platforms like TikTok are also supporting creators with initiatives that compensate them for creating longer content.

Despite this, direct monetization efforts like platform payouts are still challenging for many creators, especially with the prevalence of ads in short-form videos, which are less directly tied to creator income.

In addition to brand deals and affiliate marketing, influencers have other revenue streams such as launching courses, merchandise, and creator subscriptions. These alternative sources are particularly beneficial for creators with smaller audiences, helping them earn a living even without large-scale fame. The market for influencers has become saturated, reducing the likelihood of becoming an overnight sensation on platforms like TikTok. Instead, many are finding ways to monetize their content effectively over time.

Tipping, merchandise, and paid subscriptions, though still small parts of the overall earnings pie for social media creators, are growing gradually. TikTok has particularly embraced tipping, introducing features that allow followers to send money to creators either through their profiles or during live streams.

Overall, the ways influencers make money are diversifying. While brand partnerships remain crucial, the rise of affiliate marketing and the expansion of other income avenues are helping creators adapt to a changing digital landscape.

US consumers are spending more despite economic challenges like high inflation and rising interest rates, which in turn supports the growth in creator earnings. As the influencer market evolves, those who diversify their income streams and adapt to new opportunities are likely to see the most success.

Read next: Cybersecurity Crisis: 17 Billion Personal Accounts Compromised Since 2004
by Mahrukh Shahid via Digital Information World

CounterPoint Data Shows Global PC Shipments are Growing, With Lenovo Taking the Lead

According to the latest data from CounterPoint Research, Global PC shipments have grown 3% YoY in Q1 of 2024. The PC global shipment was seeing a huge decline for the past 8 quarters due to low demand and inventory correction. The rest of quarters in 2024 are also going to see a growth in YoY shipments by 3%. The biggest reason for this growth will be AI PC momentum. There will also be different sectors seeing shipment recoveries and overall a fresh hand new replacement cycle.

The biggest PC shipments in Q1 of 2024 were by Lenovo. Lenovo shipments were up by 8% which is a lot compared to its shipments in Q1 of 2023. HP and Dell, which have the huge market shares, 21% and 16% respectively, didn’t see much growth in their shipments in Q1 of 2023. Their shipments are expected to increase in the coming quarters, driven by their shipments in North America. Apple’s shipment growth also increased by 2% and that was because of its M3 Base Models.

• Also read: Revealed: Glassdoor's Top 25 Internship Opportunities of 2024

45% of the PCs being shipped this year are going to be powered by AI so we can say that 2024 is going to be an AI driven year for PC shipments. William Li, who is a Senior Analyst at CounterPoint, thinks that AI capable laptops and PCs are going to see a huge increase in their shipments in 2025-2026. Many more generative AI functions will be incorporated in them by then. AI laptops are going to be a huge catalyst in driving out more shipments of PCs. Many manufacturers are ready to promote their AI PCs as their main products in the second half of 2024. Overall, 2024 is going to be a lucky year for PC vendors.

Read next: New Report Highlights Ongoing WordPress Vulnerabilities, With 20% Critical And 67% Medium Threats Identified
by Arooj Ahmed via Digital Information World