It could be argued that we are still in the early stages of the inevitable proliferation of ChatGPT apps, plugins, and tools to automate mundane tasks.
But beyond plagiarizing essays, sending fancy emails, and asking if God exists, some heads have already found interesting uses for OpenAI’s revolutionary artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot. Some people are good.
For example, consider an app for the blind called Be My Eyes.
Founder Hans-Jorgen Wiberg, himself blind, developed the idea in 2012 as a way to get visual aid when alone and now uses the technology behind ChatGPT. increase.
how does that work?
Launched in 2015, the app works by pairing blind and blind people with sighted volunteers who act as their ‘eyes’ via video call.
The app, which currently has 6.4 million sighted volunteers and 500,000 blind and low-vision users, is piloting “virtual volunteers” using ChatGPT.
This means that users can take a photo with their phone, send it through the app, and instantly the photo is described in impressive detail.
Virtual Aid can even suggest recipes to prepare based on images of the contents of the user’s refrigerator.
“I use it fairly regularly, maybe once or twice a week,” says Jesper Holten, a blind Be My Eyes user.
“It’s common in everyday situations, like when you want to look at a can of food while it’s being cooked, especially when it’s very difficult to see what’s in the can or can of food. there is.”
Using ChatGPT for Live Video Streaming
Wiberg said OpenAI approached him in early February to help launch its new image-to-text generator.
“I’ve had a really hard time sleeping since this because I think there’s a very high chance that this could happen,” he said.
One of the intriguing possibilities keeping him up at night is the possibility of integrating ChatGPT into live video streaming.
Holten, in particular, is excited about the prospect of being able to explore new locations independently.
“We want to have a level of confidence that we don’t necessarily have in unfamiliar spaces. If AI technology can help us gain or regain that level of confidence, that’s really cool,” he said. I was.
As of now, Virtual Volunteering is still in closed beta testing and is not widely available.
Wiberg also affirms that he will not abandon sighted volunteers anytime soon.
But developers are already excited about the possibilities.
Be My Eyes CTO Jesper Hvirring Henriksen said:
“Maybe I shouldn’t be taking volunteer time for silly little things because there are so many important use cases. Or maybe I == t just Monday morning, early morning. You talk to humans right now I don’t feel like it, in all these cases now we’re just using AI, we’re talking to a computer,” he added.
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