According to the latest report from The Verge, Microsoft is currently testing a new AI-driven chatbot designed to automate support tasks for its Xbox gaming platform. As the report notes, Microsoft is experimenting with an animated AI character that will assist in answering Xbox support inquiries. The Xbox AI chatbot is connected to Microsoft's Xbox network and ecosystem support documentation. It can answer questions and process game refunds from the Microsoft support website, all aiming to provide users with simple and quick assistance on support topics using natural language, drawing information from existing Xbox support pages. Training on Microsoft's enterprise data will help Microsoft reduce the AI model's hallucinations and instruct it to do only as intended.

As a result, the chatbot's responses closely resemble the information Microsoft provides to its customers to automate support tasks. Recently, Microsoft has expanded the test pool for its new Xbox chatbot, suggesting that the "Xbox Support Virtual Agent" may soon handle support inquiries for all Xbox customers. The development of the Xbox chatbot prototype is part of a broader initiative within Microsoft Gaming to introduce AI-powered features and tools for the Xbox platform and developer tools. The company is also reportedly working on providing AI capabilities for game content creation, gameplay, and the Xbox platform and devices. However, Xbox employees have yet to publicly confirm these more extensive AI efforts for Microsoft Gaming, likely due to the company's cautious approach to presenting AI in gaming. Nevertheless, AI will soon become an integral part of gaming consoles.

Just a month after releasing the 0.1 beta preview of Chat with RTX, now called ChatRTX, NVIDIA has swiftly addressed critical security vulnerabilities discovered in its cutting-edge AI chatbot. The chatbot was found to be susceptible to cross-site scripting attacks (CWE-79) and improper privilege management attacks (CWE-269) in version 0.2 and all prior releases. The identified vulnerabilities posed significant risks to users' personal data and system security. Cross-site scripting attacks could allow malicious actors to inject scripts into the chatbot's interface, potentially compromising sensitive information. The improper privilege management flaw could also enable attackers to escalate their privileges and gain administrative control over users' systems and files.

Upon becoming aware of these vulnerabilities, NVIDIA promptly released an updated version of ChatRTX 0.2, available for download from its official website. The latest iteration of the software addresses these security issues, providing users with a more secure experience. As ChatRTX utilizes retrieval augmented generation (RAG) and NVIDIA Tensor-RT LLM software to allow users to train the chatbot on their personal data, the presence of such vulnerabilities is particularly concerning. Users are strongly advised to update their ChatRTX software to the latest version to mitigate potential risks and protect their personal information. ChatRTX remains in beta version, with no official release candidate timeline announced. As NVIDIA continues to develop and refine this innovative AI chatbot, the company must prioritize security and promptly address any vulnerabilities that may arise, ensuring a safe and reliable user experience.

AMD has caught up with NVIDIA and Intel in the race to get a locally run AI chatbot up and running on its respective hardware. Team Red's community hub welcomed a new blog entry on Wednesday—AI staffers published a handy "How to run a Large Language Model (LLM) on your AMD Ryzen AI PC or Radeon Graphics Card" step-by-step guide. They recommend that interested parties are best served by downloading the correct version of LM Studio. Their CPU-bound Windows variant—designed for higher-end Phoenix and Hawk Point chips—compatible Ryzen AI PCs can deploy instances of a GPT based LLM-powered AI chatbot. The LM Studio ROCm technical preview functions similarly, but is reliant on Radeon RX 7000 graphics card ownership. Supported GPU targets include: gfx1100, gfx1101 and gfx1102.

AMD believes that: "AI assistants are quickly becoming essential resources to help increase productivity, efficiency or even brainstorm for ideas." Their blog also puts a spotlight on LM Studio's offline functionality: "Not only does the local AI chatbot on your machine not require an internet connection—but your conversations stay on your local machine." The six-step guide invites curious members to experiment with a handful of large language models—most notably Mistral 7b and LLAMA v2 7b. They thoroughly recommend that you select options with "Q4 K M" (AKA 4-bit quantization). You can learn about spooling up "your very own AI chatbot" here.

Generative AI is no longer just for tech giants. With GeForce, it's already at your fingertips. Gone are the days when AI was the domain of sprawling data centers or elite researchers. For GeForce RTX users, AI is now running on your PC. It's personal, enhancing every keystroke, every frame and every moment. Gamers are already enjoying the benefits of AI in over 300 RTX games. Meanwhile, content creators have access to over 100 RTX creative and design apps, with AI enhancing everything from video and photo editing to asset generation. And for GeForce enthusiasts, it's just the beginning. RTX is the platform for today and the accelerator that will power the AI of tomorrow.

How Did AI and Gaming Converge?
NVIDIA pioneered the integration of AI and gaming with DLSS, a technique that uses AI to generate pixels in video games automatically and which has increased frame rates by up to 4x. And with the recent introduction of DLSS 3.5, NVIDIA has enhanced the visual quality in some of the world's top titles, setting a new standard for visually richer and more immersive gameplay. But NVIDIA's AI integration doesn't stop there. Tools like RTX Remix empower game modders to remaster classic content using high-quality textures and materials generated by AI.

Newegg released its PC Builder ChatGPT Plugin yesterday, and former TPU writer—Francisco Pires—decided to put it through the proverbial ringer. His hands-on adventures with AI-assisted PC build suggestions were documented in a Tom's Hardware article. Initial impressions are a mixed bag—he brings in a metaphor to describe his experience: "it was akin to entering Alice in Wonderland (the Tim Burton version): everything's interesting and somewhat faithful, but laid out in just the wrong way." The beta version (released back in March) proved to be a confusing mess, according to Avram Piltch, Editor-in-Chief at Tom's Hardware.

Pires proposed that the tool is decent enough for fledgling PC build novices to utilize, but the chatbot was found to overvalue certain components: "the typical price for the Radeon RX 6700 XT hovers around the $330-$370 range so the $558.99 MSI card the bot recommends is overpriced by more than $230!" The assistant also struggled to keep a suggested system build within a specified $1000 budget, the total was stretched to $1123.09. He also discovered some quirks related to the assistant's (apparently) incomplete GPU model database: "why did ChatGPT suggest a GeForce RTX 4060 for the build, if its knowledge cut-off is set at September 2021?" The plugin seems to have scraped information about newer products from Newegg's store, but the bot's full text answer (see the attached screenshot) provides a comparison between older generations.

Google has notified the world about its AI chatbot, Bard, getting a wider release and new features—with a rollout across Europe (27 territories), plus the addition of Brazil: "Today we're announcing Bard's biggest expansion to date. It's now available in most of the world, and in the most widely spoken languages. And we're launching new features to help you better customize your experience, boost your creativity and get more done." Their updated system is available now, so users "can collaborate with Bard in over 40 languages." A spoken response function has been implemented which is advertised as being very "helpful if you want to hear the correct pronunciation of a word or listen to a poem or script. Simply enter a prompt and select the sound icon to hear Bard's answers."

Jack Krawczyk, Bard Product Lead, and Amarnag Subramanya, Bard's VP of Engineering made sure to mention that Google is covering its bases, since privacy issues have delayed Bard's ability to reach new places (now mostly in the past): "As part of our bold and responsible approach to AI, we've proactively engaged with experts, policymakers and privacy regulators on this expansion. And as we bring Bard to more regions and languages over time, we'll continue to use our AI Principles as a guide, incorporate user feedback, and take steps to protect people's privacy and data." The initial "trial" period was restricted to the USA and UK, when Google launched Bard back in March.

Galactic Civilizations IV: Supernova is a 4X turn-based strategy game set in the 24th century where you take on the role of leading a spacefaring civilization that has just developed faster-than-light (FTL) travel. You begin the game with only your home planet and must research new technologies, explore the known galaxy, and colonize new worlds while keeping your people at home happy. At the same time, you will engage in trade, diplomacy, intrigue and war with other alien civilizations. Thanks to the invention of hyperdrive, your people are now ready to discover new worlds, encounter alien civilizations, and learn about the dark history that encompasses them all.

Stardock has released the latest sequel of its award-winning space strategy game series today into early access. Galactic Civilizations IV: Supernova sees the player as the ruler of a united home world that has just discovered faster-than-light travel. Galactic Civilizations IV: Supernova continues a 30-year trend of innovation in the series. This latest sequel introduces AI-generated content OpenAI's ChatGPT technology allowing players to create their own civilizations that uses AI to create the lore, conversation dialogs, quests and more. The game also uses AI, trained on decades of Stardock's alien art to deliver custom graphics for their custom civilization.

Alphabet Incorporated's Google AI division has today revealed a planned update for its Bard conversational artificial intelligence chatbot. The experimental generative artificial intelligence software application will become capable of assisting people in the writing of computer code - the American multinational technology company hopes that Bard will be of great to help in the area of software development. Paige Bailey, a group product manager at Google Research has introduced the upcoming changes: "Since we launched Bard, our experiment that lets you collaborate with generative AI, coding has been one of the top requests we've received from our users. As a product lead in Google Research - and a passionate engineer who still programs every day - I'm excited that today we're updating Bard to include that capability."

The Bard chatbot was made available, on a trial basis, to users in the USA and UK last month. Google's AI team is reported to be under great pressure to advance the Bard chatbot into a suitably powerful state in order to compete with its closest rival - Microsoft Corporation. The Seattle-based giant has invested heavily into Open AI's industry leading ChatGPT application. Google's latest volley against its rivals shows that Bard's has become very sophisticated - so much so that the app is able to chew through a variety of programming languages. Bailey outlines these features in the company's latest blog: "Starting now, Bard can help with programming and software development tasks, including code generation, debugging and code explanation. We're launching these capabilities in more than 20 programming languages including C++, Go, Java, Javascript, Python and Typescript. And you can easily export Python code to Google Colab - no copy and paste required." Critics of AI-driven large language models have posited that the technology could potentially eliminate humans from the job market - it will be interesting to observe the coder community's reaction to Google marketing of Bard as a helpful tool in software development.

Elon Musk has formed a new AI-focused company, as reported by the Wall Street Journal yesterday. The entity registered under the name X.AI was incorporated via a filing in Nevada last month, and Musk appears to be listed as the company's only director with Jared Birchall joining him under the role of secretary. Birchall heads the Musk family office, Excession LLC, and he serves as CEO of Neuralink - a neurotechnology company that was co-founded by Musk back in 2016. It is widely speculated that Birchall serves as a type of fixer - go watch the TV series "Ray Donovan" if you would like to observe a crude (and obviously fictional) example - in corporate affairs.

Reports emerged earlier this week, with Musk being at the forefront of a massive purchase of GPUs destined to arrive shortly at his data centers - this impressive chunk of hardware is speculated to power AI-related number crunching at Twitter in the near future. The founding of X.AI could provide another home for a portion of the 10,000 GPU order, but industry insiders firmly believe that Twitter will need to tool up quickly for its new AI-driven endeavor - the GPUs will likely be set to work on a ChatBot system to underpin the social media platform. Musk has already recruited researchers from DeepMind and setup a lab for them at one of his operations. It remains to be seen how the X.AI startup will run alongside efforts at other Musk-owned companies - it is theorized that he wants to beat OpenAI at their own game, and compete with similar undertakings at Google, Microsoft and Amazon.

According to Business Insider, Twitter has made a substantial investment into hardware upgrades at its North American datacenter operation. The company has purchased somewhere in the region of 10,000 GPUs - destined for the social media giant's two remaining datacenter locations. Insider sources claim that Elon Musk has committed to a large language model (LLM) project, in an effort to rival OpenAI's ChatGPT system. The GPUs will not provide much computational value in the current/normal day-to-day tasks at Twitter - the source reckons that the extra processing power will be utilized for deep learning purposes.

Twitter has not revealed any concrete plans for its relatively new in-house artificial intelligence project but something was afoot when, earlier this year, Musk recruited several research personnel from Alphabet's DeepMind division. It was theorized that he was incubating a resident AI research lab at the time, following personal criticisms levelled at his former colleagues at OpenAI, ergo their very popular and much adopted chatbot.

Last Tuesday, Alibaba announced its intentions to put out its own artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot product called Tongyi Qianwen - another rival to take on OpenAI's pioneering ChatGPT natural language processing tool. The Chinese technology giant is hoping to retrofit the new chatbot system into several arms of its business operations. Alibaba had revealed initial plans for chatbot integration earlier this year, and mentioned that it was providing an alternative to the already well established ChatGPT tool. Alibaba's workplace messaging application - DingTalk - is slated to receive the first AI-powered update in the near future, although the company did not provide a firm timeline for Tongyi Qianwen's release window.

The product name "Tongyi Qianwen" loosely translates to "seeking an answer by asking a thousand questions" - Alibaba did not provide an official English language translation at last week's press conference. Their chatbot is reported to function in both Mandarin and English language modes. Advanced AI voice recognition is set for usage in the Tmall Genie range of smart speakers (similar in function to the Amazon Echo). Alibaba expects to expand Tongyi Qianwen's reach into applications relating to e-commerce and mapping services.

We're starting to open access to Bard, an early experiment that lets you collaborate with generative AI. We're beginning with the U.S. and the U.K., and will expand to more countries and languages over time. Today we're starting to open access to Bard, an early experiment that lets you collaborate with generative AI. This follows our announcements from last week as we continue to bring helpful AI experiences to people, businesses and communities.

You can use Bard to boost your productivity, accelerate your ideas and fuel your curiosity. You might ask Bard to give you tips to reach your goal of reading more books this year, explain quantum physics in simple terms or spark your creativity by outlining a blog post. We've learned a lot so far by testing Bard, and the next critical step in improving it is to get feedback from more people.