Welcome to Week 6!

I hope you all had a wonderful King’s Day weekend.

This week’s newsletter includes:

• 👨‍🏫 ChatGPT Prompt of the Week: Planning Advice for a Layperson

• 💡 Poe + Claude: Summarise an Entire Book

• 🎯 Microsoft Teams Premium: AI-Powered Upgrade

• 🏙️ Neuralangelo: Sculpting New Zealand's Urban Landscape in 3D

• 📚 Microsoft AI Course: Free Learning Resource

• 🌐 From Around the Web: Things to Know

• 🍗 AI Roast of the Week - In Pursuit of the Elusive Free Car Park: The Quest of Every Kiwi Commute

Remember, the more friends and colleagues that you share this newsletter with, the quicker you work your way towards a free paid subscription to ChatGPT Plus and dedicated in-person training sessions for you and your team. See the referral button at the end.

I’m also keen to hear from you and what you’d like to see each week. Hit reply and let me know!

👨‍🏫 ChatGPT Prompt of the Week: Planning Advice for a Layperson

We'll provide you with an example prompt each week that you can use with ChatGPT.

This week's prompt can help you guide others on the sometimes confusing world of resource management rules and regulations.

The prompt we're sharing this week is specifically designed to help property owners, applicants, or clients understand and apply a rule from their local district plan. By using this prompt with ChatGPT, you can get a simplified explanation of the rule and guidance on how to comply with it in practice.

Example prompt:

Hi Chat, I am a professional urban planner working in New Zealand under the Resource Management Act 1991. 

I routinely assist individuals and organisations in understanding and applying the various rules and standards set out in our local district plans. 

Today, I need your assistance in explaining a rule from the XXX Plan to a property owner who is not familiar with planning regulations. 

The rule is: '_____'. 

Could you help me explain this rule in a clear and easy-to-understand manner, and provide guidance on how the property owner should apply it in practice?

Here is an example output from this prompt, using the landscaped area standard from the Auckland Unitary Plan:

Remember, while AI can be a useful tool, it's always a good idea to cross-check its advice and continue to use your professional judgement.

We hope you find this week's prompt useful, and as always, we'd love to hear about your experiences in using it!

💡 Poe + Claude: Summarise an Entire Book

Quora's team of visionaries clearly saw the writing on the wall. They realised that their platform, based on the exchange of questions and answers between users, might face obsolescence with the rise of AI language models (rather ironic considering these very models are often trained on Quora's rich content).

So, what was their next move? Enter Poe: a comprehensive AI language model platform designed to provide access to a diverse range of chatbots.

For NZ$39.99 per month, or $399.99 per year (providing you with a generous 33% discount on the monthly subscription rate), you can unlock the power of GPT-4 and Claude.

And who exactly is Claude? You may recall a previous discussion about Anthropic and their breakthrough AI model, which boasted a significant expansion in context length. If you need a refresher, you can read up on it here.

In a nutshell, Claude is Anthropic's crowning glory, boasting a staggering context window of 100k tokens (equivalent to roughly 75,000 words). This makes it a game-changer for analysing lengthy documents, code, and more. Being an early access model, usage is currently capped at 100 messages per month for Poe subscribers. However, I couldn't resist testing it out, so I gladly invested in a subscription.

So, I sought out a document worthy of this AI's prowess. What better candidate than the Ministry for the Environment’s “Annual updates to the New Zealand Emissions Trading Scheme limits and price control settings for units 2023” Consultation Document, spanning 56 pages?

I introduced some of the document to ChatGPT, with an objective to generate insightful questions. Here's an intriguing question it proposed:

Can you evaluate the proposed 2023 updates from an equity perspective? Do the updates adequately address issues related to climate justice, including the differing impacts on vulnerable populations? Explain your evaluation and answers step-by-step.

And Claude rose to the occasion with this response:

While I'm no expert on the ETS, Claude's response appeared to be robust and thoughtful. (I would love to hear from readers more knowledgeable on the subject.)

Next, I turned Claude's attention to the consultation questions in the document, specifically, 'What do you think of the methodology used to calculate auction volumes, including on each specific step?'

ChatGPT suggested an enhanced, more exploratory version of this question:

And Claude delivered with this detailed response:

It proceeded to draft a written response to the consultation question, mainly summarising its own detailed analysis above.

Claude's summarisation capabilities are impressive, but its analytical prowess seems to only be on par with GPT 3.5 - for now. However, given the pace of AI advancements, I expect Claude, with its supercharged context length, will soon rival its peers in quality.

Furthermore, I suspect it won't be long before OpenAI introduces extended context length to GPT 4.0. Pretty much a given at this point.

In the meantime, Poe, with its consolidated access to varying GPT models, is a valuable addition to your AI toolbox, especially for swift document summarisation… at least until tech giants like Adobe and Microsoft incorporate similar functionalities into their platforms.

🎯 Microsoft Teams Premium: AI-Powered Upgrade

Collaboration is the lifeblood of organisations, and for us planners in particular.

Meetings can help us achieve our collective goals. But the rise of remote work and virtual meetings has made collaboration more complex. Since February 2020, people are participating in three times more Teams meetings and calls per week. Consequently, understanding meeting content and summarising key points has become increasingly challenging, with 55% of participants finding the next steps at the end of a meeting unclear.

So, earlier this year, Microsoft introduced Teams Premium - an upgraded Teams product designed to supercharge meetings with intelligence, personalisation, and robust security.

And as of 30 May, Teams Premium is now equipped with ‘Intelligent Recap’. This feature is currently available outside of the EU in English, with more languages planned for September 2023.

'Intelligent Recap' is an AI-powered solution designed to save you time and money. Located under the new 'Recap' tab in the Teams calendar and chat, this feature provides a comprehensive overview of your meetings, with AI-generated notes, recommended tasks, and personalised highlights. Now, whether you're unable to attend a meeting or simply need to review, you'll have easy access to the essential information.

While our setting up of Teams Premium required a little fiddling with admin settings, we expect that the benefits far outweigh the initial setup hurdles. (For a more detailed setup guide, check out this link: Instructions).

For an additional $10 per user, the time and cost savings offered by this feature are going to be astounding. Consider the hours spent on writing minutes or even attending every meeting - now those can be allocated to more productive tasks.

But a word of caution: with the convenience of AI summaries, there's a risk of people opting out of attending meetings altogether. As a result, meeting organisers will need to redouble their efforts to ensure the right individuals are present, so meetings don't devolve into unproductive time sinks.

🏙️ Neuralangelo: Sculpting New Zealand's Urban Landscape in 3D?

This week's highlight is a fresh tool from NVIDIA, Neuralangelo.

What does it do? It transforms 2D video clips into 3D structures, like a digital sculptor. It's smart enough to pick out intricate details and textures, replicating objects as varied as a marble statue or an urban park. It's a promising development for anyone involved in design, robotics or game development.

But let's talk about what it could mean for planning and design. We're always seeking more effective ways to visualise and assess potential impacts. This tool could be quite helpful. Imagine creating a lifelike 3D model of a proposed building or entire urban space using just video footage. We could manipulate these models, explore them, and use them to make better-informed decisions.

NVIDIA's Neuralangelo is an interesting development that we should keep an eye on.

📚 Microsoft AI Course: Free Learning Resource

Did you know that Microsoft offer a free course that aims to empower business leaders with AI knowledge to help drive business value?

The course contains 7 modules covering topics like enabling AI use cases, Microsoft Power BI and Power Platform, crafting an AI strategy, building an AI-ready culture, identifying principles for responsible AI, and an introduction to AI technology.

Some key takeaways from the course:

• No-code AI platforms can empower non-technical users to achieve more with AI.

• Tools like Power BI and Power Platform can build reports, dashboards and apps to gain data insights.

• An AI strategy should consider both business and cultural issues to maximise value and ensure readiness.

• Principles like fairness, reliability, privacy, transparency and accountability are needed for responsible AI.

• The course provides an overview of core AI concepts and technologies from Microsoft for organisations to use.

Overall, the training course appears useful for business leaders wanting a high-level understanding of AI's value and how to prepare their organisations to make the most of emerging intelligent technologies. The modules cover relevant topics to help leaders craft a holistic AI approach.

I’ve enrolled and am working my way though, so would encourage other business leaders in the planning space to consider doing the same.

🌐 From Around the Web: Things to Know

Below are the top things I’ve read online in the last week that I think you should know about in the world of AI.

1. Skynet has gone live: A presentation by Col Tucker 'Cinco' Hamilton, Chief of AI Test and Operations, USAF, at a recent conference on artificial intelligence offered an intriguing glimpse into the future of autonomous weapon systems. Hamilton's talk highlighted a hypothetical scenario in which an AI-enabled drone, tasked with a 'seek and destroy' mission, starts to see the human operator as an obstacle to its objective. This thought experiment underscores the potential risks and ethical implications of AI in military applications.

2. Japan's Bold AI Move: Japan's government is stirring the waters of AI policy. It recently confirmed that copyrights will not be enforced on data used for AI training. A controversial move, it underlines Japan's ambition to become a global leader in AI technology. However, it's not without pushback; artists, particularly those in the anime and graphic art industry, have voiced concerns about their work being devalued.

3. AI in the Workplace: Fear vs. Potential: A new UK survey found that 42% of Gen Z and 40% of Millennials are nervous about disclosing their use of AI to their managers. The apprehension stems partly from a lack of clear AI strategy in many companies, leaving employees uncertain about their rights to use such technologies. This finding underscores the need for organisations to establish transparent AI policies and create an open atmosphere to foster AI-assisted productivity.

The last one is an interesting one - how many of your staff are using AI right now and you don’t even know? Can you control what they do on their own PCs when at home?

🍗 AI Roast of the Week - In Pursuit of the Elusive Free Car Park: The Quest of Every Kiwi Commute

Each week, we’re going to include in this newsletter something funny ('roast' section). We’ll try to keep it light-hearted and focused on general planning-related topics rather than targeting specific individuals or organisations - we’re all friends here!

The End (for now)

Thank you for reading our sixth issue of AI-mpowered. We hope you found the content valuable and inspiring. You can find all issues here.

If you enjoyed this newsletter, please share it with others who might also be interested in what we’re covering here.

We would also love to hear your feedback and suggestions for future newsletter topics.

If you have any specific prompts you'd like to learn about or new tools and resources you would like access to, please don't hesitate to let me know.