Welcome back to Spatial Beats. where we round up all the top news and happenings from around the spatial computing spectrum, including its escalating infusions with AI and other letters. Let’s dive in…

The Lede

ChatGPT is getting a much-needed memory upgrade. Say goodbye to amnesia-like symptoms as the AI chatbot gains the ability to remember personal details, preferences, and context across conversations. It’s like having a digital assistant that evolves with you over time. OpenAI’s latest feature allows ChatGPT to store information in two ways: explicitly telling it to remember certain facts or letting it pick up relevant details from your chats. This persistent memory is a game-changer. It will also be a huge boost to the creation of GPTs, which are particularly hindered by the problem.

The AI Desk

OpenAI unveils Sora, which will generate videos up to a minute long from a text prompt. Honestly, this could be just as big as the memory upgrade. If you click the link in the headline you’ll see even more demos of this amazing new tool, which is a big upgrade of Dall-E 3. It is hard to overstate how this could affect not just the media business, not just social media, but how we express ourselves and communicate on a personal level.

NVIDIA introduces a free demo of a locally run AI chatbot, Chat with RTX, that accesses and analyzes users’ files for query responses. Unlike most chatbots, it doesn’t send data to the cloud, making it safer and preserving context. By feeding it personal data, users can obtain customized summaries. The chatbot supports various file formats and integrates YouTube content for contextual queries, making it useful for data analysis and research. However, it requires Windows PCs with NVIDIA GPUs and has limitations and bugs common to a demo product. NVIDIA’s recent AI advancements, including its next-generation AI chips and record profits, have elevated its position to the world’s third-largest company.

A US district judge in California largely sided with OpenAI, dismissing most claims brought by authors. Authors, including comedian Sarah Silverman and author Michael Chabon, alleged ChatGPT’s training on their copyrighted works constituted a high-tech form of piracy. They cited potential violations of copyright law and state laws on business practices. The judge ruled the authors failed to sufficiently prove most of their claims, save for the possibility of direct copyright infringement. Meanwhile, the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has issued a new ruling impacting AI inventorship. In the Thaler v. Vidal case, the ruling clarifies that only a natural person can be recognized as an inventor on a patent. This decision means that while AI can be a powerful tool, it cannot independently hold intellectual property rights.

Hits and Misses

Zuck’s “review” of Apple’s Vision Pro Widely Mocked. Mark Zuckerberg is a genius, but like most people, he does not see himself as others do. His lack of self-awareness leads him to do dumb stuff. Someone, probably someone who doesn’t work for him, isn’t related to him and isn’t a billionaire, should level with him. His genius does not extend to acting (remember this?) or even making videos for his own social media. Zuck is prone to oversharing, impulsivity, and vanity. He didn’t need to chime in. It comes off as petulant. Let Apple have its moment. The Instagram reel drew lots of fawning comments. I guess that’s who follows Zuck. Or maybe the account suppresses negative comments. Sophomoric moves aside, Zuck is once again rescued by his genius: Meta’s new Ray-Ban audio smart glasses have become a sleeper hit.

https://youtu.be/bc6MuVVWTA0

Are people returning Apple’s new Vision Pro headsets? ZDNet and the Verge pointed to the closing 14-day return window. The number one complaint about the Apple Vision Pro is weight. There have been reports of motion sickness, too. Some have said it’s not great for productivity, but some stories say the opposite. There’s not a lot of software yet. Inside the business, everyone understands the AVP is primarily a developer unit, but it’s also made available to wealthy Apple fans willing to shell out $5,000 (with case, tax, etc.) and marketed heavily by the company. Though it’s possible, I’ll be shocked if returns are a thing.

Low utilization of Quest headsets continues to be a problem. Because of the performance of “Assassin’s Creed Creed Nexus” VR last year, Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot expressed disappointment on the company’s earnings call, and said they will not invest much in VR until the market matures. It sucks when your hit game tanks.

The Spatial Beats Book Shelf

Making A Metaverse, by James Wagner Au. Reviewed by Tony Vittillo on The Skarred Ghost Blog.

Our Next Reality, by Alvin Graylin and Louis Rosenberg. I laughed when Alvin predicted the Metaverse will be talked into existence with AI.

Spatial Computing: An AI-Driven Business Revolution by Cathy Hackl and Irena Cronin, two of the industry’s most prolific and deeply knowledgeable authors and thought leaders.

Spatial Design: Breaking the 2D Paradigm by Dominique Wu, foreword by Inga Petryaevskaya

Weekend Reading

Mastering the Art of Prompt Engineering, Shelly Palmer

AI companies including Google, Microsoft, and Meta, are planning to sign an agreement committing to developing technology that controls AI-generated content ahead of elections. But the statement does not require them to ban deceptive political content. (Gerrit De Vynck / Washington Post)

For more spatial commentary & insights, check out This Week in XR, hosted by the author of this column, along with Paramount’s Futurist Ted Schilowitz, and Magic Leap founder Rony Abovitz. This week, our guest is Suzanne Haspinger, co-founder and Chief Operating Officer of HoloLight. You can find it on podcasting platforms Spotify, iTunes, and YouTube.

Charlie Fink is an author and futurist focused on spatial computing. See his books here. Spatial Beats contains insights and inputs from Fink’s collaborators including Paramount Pictures futurist Ted Shilowitz.

More from AR Insider…