Will artificial intelligence take your job?

Will it change the world? 

New tech companies like OpenAI are planning to find out. The company has launched several AI tools in the past few years, including ChatGPT (which answers questions) and DALL-E (which makes pictures). 

Text and image generators like these are new to the scene. And if you’ve been paying attention to the news lately, you’ve probably heard a lot of anxiety about them. 

But as the public grapples with the ethics, companies are getting excited. 

Mining companies are exploring AI tools to make their exploration better. Materials scientists are using AI to experiment with new metals. 

Right now, this technology is in its infancy. Our investing strategy – targeting sustainable companies for long-term investment – hasn’t been changed by these ideas just yet. 

But Mike Nichols, our resident early adopter, did a deep dive on some of the popular apps. You can read his journey below. 

Have you had any experience with these new tools? Let us know at WeCare@MangroveInvestor.com.

– Annie Stevenson

I paint like the greatest painters.

Vincent Van Gogh, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo –none of them have anything on me.

I am not classically trained (nothing more than a high school art class under my belt). Yet, within a few minutes, I created art that was worthy of the Louvre.

Check out this masterpiece, it’s a beautiful rendition called “Monkey Rides Camel on the Moon.”

The truth is I am getting a little help from some AI. Specifically, DALL-E (which comes from the combination of “Dali” and “Wall-E”), which is a product of OpenAI.

For years, AI has been working its way into everyday life – from smart assistants like Alexa, to controversial face recognition for law enforcement, to autonomous vehicles. Now, AI has infiltrated the art world. 

My father, who is a classically trained artist and creates beautiful works of art for a living, feels that DALL-E is blasphemy. And as much as I think DALL-E is cool, I get where my father is coming from. The line drawn between the true artist and the hack has clearly been shortened with this technology.

But this story is deeper than the fact that anyone can now go online and create art. 

To understand this impact, you must understand a little bit about how DALL-E works. 

At the heart of the tool is the short text prompt. For instance, I entered the text, “In the style of Van Gogh a monkey riding a camel on the moon” and I got an output of several images that represent the text. But to create these images, there was a lot of technical stuff going on.

At a high level, DALL-E is mapping text to images and running it through a lot of machine learning to generate new images. To give a non-technical explanation of how this works let’s think of it this way.

Think of it this way: If I gave you the same prompt, “monkey rides a camel on the moon,” you’d probably have an immediate idea of what a monkey, a camel, and the moon look like.

Then, if I told you I wanted it in a “Van Gogh style,” you might think of certain brush strokes and combinations of colors. Maybe you’d think of a couple different Van Gogh paintings and imagine how they’d look with different subjects.

In this exercise, you were asked to draw a picture. Your mind leveraged its past experiences with monkeys, camels, and Van Gogh to come up with what you thought your picture would look like. 

DALL-E does the same thing. It leverages a vast array of images and artwork. But OpenAI did not stop with the canvas, it took on the written word as well. The company also created ChatGPT. But instead of me trying to describe what this tool is, why don’t we just ask ChatGPT

OK that was a question I expect the app to know. Let’s try something a little different.

It seems like language processing like HAL 9000’s in the 2001: A Space Odyssey is not far from becoming a reality.

For the creative writing worlds, ChatGPT brings up many of the same concerns as DALL-E.

Heck, ChatGPT has even been cited as the author on several works. At least credit is being given where credit is due.

Aside from AI’s potential evolution into an all-knowing super entity that will control the universe, we think AI will be a transformative technology that will make our lives better in many ways.

We have already found big opportunities in shipping where autonomous vehicles will drive the future. A small startup that is using AI and machine learning to revolutionize the energy management industry. Even a company using AI smart sensors to help solve many issues plaguing our aging water infrastructure.

But don’t take our word for it. Let’s ask ChatGPT.

There you go, straight from the robot’s mouth!

For The Good

Michael Nichols

Numbers to Know

1956

The year the first artificial intelligence program was created. The Logic Theorist is a computer program written by Allen Newell, Herbert A. Simon, and Cliff Shaw. This was the first program deliberately engineered to perform automated reasoning. (Carnegie Mellon Library)

422 Billion

The estimated market value of artificial intelligence in 2028. (Bloomberg)

5

The number of days it took ChatGPT to gain one million users. (Yahoo)

What’s New in Sustainable Investing

NFT Sales Of Digital Collectables Crashed in 2022

2022 was not kind to non-fungible token (NFT) holders. Like most crypto projects, the interest in and value of NFTs felt the pain. Sales plummeted up to 80%. (Bitcoin)

The Rise of Algorithms

In a world where sustainability is a key factor in investment decision-making, AI can provide deeper, more dependable clarity and scrutiny. (Financial Times)

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