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🤖 Upgraded Bing AI and Microsoft Edge

🤖 Upgraded Bing AI and Microsoft Edge

AI Innovations, Tools, and Strategies for RM Planners

Daniel Kinnoch
May 07, 2023

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Welcome to Week 3!

Another bumper week of AI, including news of Microsoft’s Bing AI now being accessible to all.

This week’s email includes:

👁️‍🗨️ ChatGPT Prompt of the Week: Assessing an Expert Report
🤖 Upgraded Bing AI and Microsoft Edge
📰 In the News: IBM to Pause Hiring for Jobs That AI Could Do
🍗 AI Roast of the Week - Planning Jargon

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 training sessions for you and your teams. 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!

Midjourney Prompt: High quality 3D computer render of a mixed-use development, in Auckland New Zealand, showing walkability, modern design, active street frontage along a road, vegetation, use of heavy colour tones

👨‍🏫 ChatGPT Prompt of the Week: Preparing Guidance for Evaluating Expert Assessments

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

This week's prompt can help planners use ChatGPT to prepare a methodology for assessing an expert report on any given topic.

It is relevant as expert assessments and evidence are a crucial element in the resource management planning process, and using AI to prepare a framework for evaluating documents can save time and ensure more accurate assessments.

Having a methodology in place could also serve as useful training material for less-experienced planners.

Example prompt:

You're an expert in evaluating [describe expert report type here, e.g., flood hazard assessments]. 

Your task is to provide a step-by-step guide for reviewing flood hazard assessments for various projects, such as infrastructure, housing, or commercial development.

The audience of the guide would be planners, decision-makers, and other stakeholders involved in the RMA resource management planning process in New Zealand.

Set out the guide in a way that is easy to understand and apply in real-life situations.

Here is part of an example review methodology created from this prompt:

The steps produced for this scenario go on and on, but hopefully provide a good representative example of how you could rapidly produce the basics of evaluative learning material for a range of expert discipline areas.

Remember, not everything it gives you will be useful, or appropriate to a New Zealand context. However, it does get you from a blank page to what appears to be a solid evaluative framework.

🤖 Bing AI and Microsoft Edge

Everyone is talking about ChatGPT, but did you know that GPT-4 powers Bing Chat?

Its superpower is having live access to the internet, and the ability to interact with documents that are open in your browser.

Here’s the latest on Bing from the past week:

Bing in Open Preview: The new AI-powered Bing and Edge are now in Open Preview and no longer have a waitlist. Anyone can sign into Bing with their Microsoft Account and try the new features.

Bing chat more visual: Bing chat now provides richer, more visual answers including charts, graphs and images. It also supports visual search and multimodal capabilities. You can generate images in the chat just by describing what you’re after, though it’s not anywhere near as good as Midjourney (yet).

Bing chat soon to be more productive: Bing chat will soon allow users to access their chat history, export and share their conversations, and use third-party plug-ins to complete tasks. Edge actions and compose features also help users take actions and create content.

The tool I have started using more is the Bing sidebar feature in Microsoft Edge.

The sidebar lets you quickly interact with web pages and documents without leaving your browser.

You can use it to chat with Bing in natural language, ask questions related to the page or document you’re viewing, get summarised answers, create images, find and play movies, tailor drafts based on feedback, and more.

The Bing sidebar is different from ChatGPT in that it leverages both Bing’s search index and GPT-4’s language model to provide more relevant, accurate, and comprehensive responses. ChatGPT only uses GPT-4’s language model, which may not have access to the latest or most reliable information.

This is great for planners who quickly need to pull up relevant parts of legislation, district plans, or other online information.

Look for the Bing logo in the top-right corner of Microsoft Edge, and then get started with its “Chat” and “Compose” features:

📰 In the News: IBM to Pause Hiring for Jobs That AI Could Do

IBM's CEO, Arvind Krishna, announced that the company will pause hiring for roles that could potentially be replaced by artificial intelligence (AI) and automation in the coming years. This affects roughly 7,800 non-customer-facing positions, such as those in human resources, with about 30% of these roles expected to be replaced by AI and automation over a five-year period. The company will continue hiring for software development and customer-facing roles, and some HR functions are expected to remain unaffected.

I think this news is relevant to our profession for several reasons:

Labor market disruption: As AI and automation technologies advance, they have the potential to significantly impact the labour market. We need to ensure that land use planning in New Zealand is responsive to what could be a significant change to how our cities operate, including single-use office or business zoning potentially becoming superfluous.
Economic implications: The potential loss of thousands of jobs in New Zealand and elsewhere will affect local economies. We should start to consider these economic shifts when planning infrastructure, housing, and other community resources. Will the NBE and Strategic Planning Act provide for a resource management system that enables rapid change, or will it hinder?
Future workforce needs: As AI and automation replace certain job roles, the demand for skilled workers in these areas will grow. We need to ensure that land use planning is responsive to and enabling of an environment that fosters education and training in these emerging fields, ensuring a skilled workforce is available for future technological advancements. This will include acknowledging the new ways in which people will work and study.

🍗 AI Roast of the Week - Planning Jargon

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!

Ladies and gentlemen, esteemed resource management planners, thank you for having me here today. I must say, it's quite an honour to be in a room full of people who can literally plan the growth of a nation, but still struggle to find their way out of a revolving door.

I mean, look at us! We're gathered here to discuss planning jargon in New Zealand, a topic so dry, it makes the Canterbury plains look like a tropical rainforest. But hey, let's give it a shot!

Planning jargon, or as I like to call it, the secret language of the overcomplicated. Seriously, though, why use simple words when you can baffle everyone around you with terms like "sustainable urban development" and "integrated catchment management"?

Ah, "sustainable development" – one of my favourites. It's like trying to lose weight by eating an entire pizza, but making sure it's got a few vegetables on it. I mean, who doesn't love a little bit of greenwash to go with their urban sprawl?

And then there's "brownfield" and "greenfield" sites. It's like the planning world's version of The Matrix – do you take the brown pill and redevelop a previously used site, or the green pill and build on untouched land? Decisions, decisions...

And don't get me started on "mixed-use development." It's like a party where everyone's invited – residential, commercial, retail, and industrial. Talk about not being able to decide! It's like a Swiss Army knife, but instead of blades and tools, you get apartment buildings and supermarkets.

Ah, and how could I forget the "NIMBYs" – you know, the "Not in My Backyard" folks. They're like the neighbours who complain about your barbecue smoke while their dog barks incessantly at 6 am. They want all the benefits of development, but heaven forbid it happens anywhere near them!

And finally, we have "urban intensification." Sounds like a workout regime, doesn't it? I can already see the infomercials: "Get ripped with urban intensification – densify your way to a better city in just 30 days!" But really, it's just a fancy way of saying, "Let's squeeze more people into this tiny space."

Well, folks, it's been a pleasure roasting the jargon that makes your jobs seem way more complex than they already are. Just remember, as planners, you have the power to shape our communities – so let's cut through the jargon and make our cities and towns more efficient, sustainable, and liveable. And hey, maybe throw in a few jokes while you're at it!

The End (for now)

Thank you for reading our third 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 us know.

Midjourney Prompt: Very high-quality 3D computer render of light rail along Queen Street in Auckland New Zealand, in blue and white livery, showing walkability, modern design, active street frontages, use of heavy colour tones

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