Innovation Profs - 1/28/2025

Early-bird rate for ChatGPT Deep Dive ends Friday

Join the Innovation Profs for a Deep Dive on ChatGPT Workshop Feb. 7 at Drake University (or join us virtually). This workshop will explore all of the features of ChatGPT - from text to images to projects and custom GPTs. Sign up today to get the early bird rate.

In the Classroom with the Innovation Profs

This spring semester at Drake, Professors Porter and Snider are team-teaching a new course, Generative AI: Theory and Practice, to a group of sixty undergraduate students, aiming to introduce them to various generative AI tools for working with text, images, audio, video, and beyond, but also encouraging both creativity and responsibility in the use of these tools.

Over the next fifteen weeks, follow along with us in our new “In the Classroom” section of our newsletter, where we will highlight what we’re covering in class and even provide an opportunity for you to complete assignments of your own!

Latest Gen AI News

Stargate: Trump announces a $500 billion AI infrastructure investment in the US

Last Tuesday, the heads of OpenAI, Softbank, and Oracle appeared with President Trump at a press conference to announce the formation of a new company, the Stargate Project, that aims to build AI infrastructure in the US (i.e., more data centers to help produce bigger and better models). The companies, along with investment firm MGX, have pledged a total of $100 billion to the project, with plans to increase funding to $500 billion by 2029 (although there is some Elon Musk-driven controversy about whether this is feasible). It’s not altogether clear what role the US government will play in this project, except possibly to eliminate any regulatory hurdles that might get in the way; not coincidentally, a few days later Trump revoked Biden’s 2023 “Executive Order on the Safe, Secure, and Trustworthy Development and Use of Artificial Intelligence,” replacing it with his own executive order, “Removing Barriers to American Leadership in Artificial Intelligence,” a move predicted in Wired’s October 2024 article “A Trump Win Could Unleash Dangerous AI.”

Why everyone in AI is freaking out about DeepSeek

A significant driver behind the Stargate Project is to keep the US ahead of China in the AI arms race, but any momentum on this front achieved from Stargate has been significantly dampened by the launch of Deepseek-R1, an new open source model produced by Chinese startup DeepSeek that matches and in some cases exceeds the performance of OpenAI’s reasoning model o1, but at a fraction of the cost (if the reports from DeepSeek are correct). Yesterday, the market responded to these developments, with AI chip producer Nvidia losing almost $600 billion in value and nuclear energy companies Constellation Energy and Vistra losing 21.4% and 28% of their value, respectively. If DeepSeek really did train their model at such a low cost (5% of the cost of OpenAI’s o1), this does open a new avenue for the development of significantly cheaper, and more environmentally friendly, LLMs.

OpenAI’s new Operator AI agent can do things on the web for you

In the midst of such a tumultuous week in generative AI, OpenAI launched a research preview of Operator, an AI agent that can perform tasks on the webs for users, similar to Claude’s Computer Use that we reported on back in October. According to OpenAI’s website, “Using its own browser, [Operator] can look at a webpage and interact with it by typing, clicking, and scrolling.” OpenAI also announced that it is collaborating with a group of companies that includes DoorDash, Instacart, OpenTable, Priceline, StubHub, Thumbtack, and Uber to address “real-world needs while respecting established norms.” Operator is only currently available to users of ChatGPT Pro (the $200 per month plan) but there are plans to make it available to other paid users in the near future.

Quick Hits

Tool of the week: Meta AI

Meta AI will now remember conversations it’s had with you and use data about you it finds in Facebook and Instagram in your conversations.

Meta's AI tool can now remember key details from previous chats to provide results more personal to you. For example, if you tell it in one chat that you are vegan, it will remember that for future chats.

It will also access Facebook locations, Instagram viewing history, and other profile data to give you more personal recommendations.

This feature is launching in the US with no ability to opt out.

AI-generated image of the week

Your favorite Innovation Profs are teaching a Drake University class together for the first time starting today. For a little inspiration on what that may look like, we turned to Ideogram. Not sure if either of us will go with the untucked look today. (Bonus: See us dance)

Prompt: A realistic photo of two 40-year-old male college professors giving an enthusiastic lecture to an auditorium full of students. One has gray hair and beard. The other has brown hair and beard. The professors are standing at the front of the room, using a whiteboard to explain concepts. The students are seated in the auditorium, attentively listening to the professors. The room is well-lit, with a projector screen at the back.

Get starting with Generative AI

New to generative AI? Here are some places to start…

• NightCafe image prompting tips

• Learn ChatGPT prompting

• Best AI image generators

• AI terms everyone should know

• Prompt Engineering: What to Know and Why It's Important 

• 7 amazing Midjourney styles to bring your AI images to life

What we found

Want more control over your AI images? Krea this week introduced real-time custom AI models. Krea is an AI-powered platform that allows users to create and enhance images and videos.

With this tool, you can train your own styles, characters, or products and use them in Krea Real-time.

See it in action here: