Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Foreign.
[00:00:05] Welcome to ChatGPT Curious, a podcast for people who are, well, curious about ChatGPT. I'm, um, your host, Dr. Shantae Cofield, also known as the Maestro, and I created this show to explore what ChatGPT actually is. Really, though, are the files in the computer, how to use it, and what it might mean for how we think, work, create, and move through life. Whether you're skeptical, intrigued, or already experimenting, you're in the right place. All that I ask is that you stay curious. All right, let's get into it.
[00:00:38] Hello, hello, hello, my curious people, and welcome to episode 15 of, uh, Chat GPT Curious. I am your grateful host, the Maestro, and today we are talking about Atlas, that is OpenAI's newly launched web browser. Did I just hear an eye roll? If I did, totally justified. Like, what are we even.
[00:01:01] What are we even doing? So, uh. Oh, not OpenAI. Atlas was released on October 21st, and apparently it's only available for Mac OS. So I don't know shit about shit. But it's kind of weird to me that a company that's valued at $500 billion rolls out a new product that is only available for Mac. Like, you know, don't get me wrong, I have a Mac, so I can use it, but I'm like, wait. He's like, we're. You're worth $500 billion. You couldn't get this for everybody. Like, but if you wanted me to release notes for it, I will link those in the show. Notes. Um, but like I was saying, I have a Mac because, you know, talks about all the things, I have a Mac. Apple, uh, got me. I got all Mac all the time. And so I downloaded. Or I'll Apple all the time. So I downloaded Atlas so that you don't have to. To download it. Right? I downloaded it, played around with it. You don't have to worry about it. I'm gonna tell you all about it. Um, this episode feels kind of like, you know, breaking this. Be changing so fast. Who knows what will actually be the case a week from now when this episode airs. But at the time that I'm recording this, which is October 22nd, the day after it drops, this is breaking news. But I'm going to take you through the setup of Atlas, the interface, what you can do with it, and my two pennies. But just a little, little teaser about my two pennies, my two cents on the. On the matter. I think it's largely unnecessary. I think it's redundant, and I, uh, think it's redundant to what ChatGPT can already do, my guess is that it's a money play, um, where they're likely trying to get ad revenue at some point. Uh, and it is very much in line with their general rollout of things, which is like, here's a thing we think is cool, now go find a use case for it. Like, that's very backward in the marketing and business world, right? In the business, in the marketing world, you find a solution to problems that people already have. You don't go and present a solution and say, hey, people, go find a problem.
[00:02:53] Ah, but I do also in general think that the rolling out of Atlas, this web browser, speaks to a slowing of the advances in the discoveries in the generative AI world. But we'll save that for another episode because I do have many thoughts on that. Um, but let's just use this episode to talk about Atlas. So Atlas itself, the setup, the, the initial set of the process, you, you, when you, as soon as you open AI. Open AI. Well, as soon as you open ChatGPT, uh, it prompts you to download the browser. Like it's at the bottom of the screen and it will keep popping up. So I just did it that way easiest. Uh, you click on it and then it has like your typical setup thing that pops up. Little, little bubble, little box pops up and you have to move the icons over. So this the standard way that you would install something.
[00:03:42] From there, it'll take the little setup and there's like 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 prompts that it takes you through. The first one is it asks if you want to import data from another browser. So you can import, save passwords, bookmarks, browsing history from either Chrome or Safari. I said immediately fucking no to that. So you just hit skip. Uh, next is you can turn on browser memories. This allows ChatGPT to remember useful details as you browse to give smarter responses and proactive thinking suggestions. You're in control memory. Stay private immediately. No, just say no to that as well. Uh, the next thing is, uh, it just tells you a feature that it has, which is Ask Chat GPT.
[00:04:26] And this, you can do this for any website. And you open the Chat GPT sidebar that's on the, the website any, and then it's on any website and you can ask it to summarize, explain or handle tasks. Um, it's right next to where, where you're browsing. And I'm going to get into this in the, in like the, when I talk about the user interface and I think this is probably the only like I don't even call it a standout feature, but this is the only feature that has like some sort of promise.
[00:04:48] The next thing it talks about is make your cursor or collaborator. ChatGPT can help you draft emails, write reviews or fill out forms. Highlight text inside a form field or document and click the ChatGPT logo to get started.
[00:05:03] Again, I think largely unnecessary, but it's just telling you all the things that it can do. And then the last thing is it a pop up is there that looks to incentivize you to set uh, Atlas as the default browser. If you do, it will boost your Chat GPT limits. It says unlock seven days of extended limits on messaging, file uploads, data analysis and image generation on ChatGPT. Alice immediately fucking skip. And only seven days. Like what is stingy company like you? 500 billion, 500 billion fucking dollars you're worth. And they're like, yeah, seven days of this thing. That isn't even a problem. Start off with. So that's the setup worth noting. When you are like going through the setup mode, it puts these like weird flashes of light on the computer.
[00:05:48] Very weird. I found it was very annoying. I was like what is, what's going on in the background of the computer? What is happening? So worth noting if you go and install it, that will happen.
[00:05:57] So when you actually go to use it, it looks like the standard Chat GPT interface. So imagine when you go to Google. Com, right? You just open up a new page and it's takes you immediately to Google. To Google. It looks like that, right? Except there's no URL bar at the top. It's just the Chat GPT uh, prompt input bar, right? Looks like the very much the standard ChatGPT interface. At the top there are five icons. A home icon, a globe or search icon, an images icon, a videos icon, and a news icon.
[00:06:32] The home. Each of those, you can click on each of those icon, you can click on each of those icons and it will take you to basically its own page. It won't open a new tab, it just goes to like a new quote unquote page for whatever it is that you're talking about, right? Whatever the prompt is that you put in, you can use it just like ChatGPT. You can put in a prompt in there, you can just ask a question, you can type in a website. It's the only area that you can type into on this whole thing.
[00:06:55] So the home icon acts just like ChatGPT, right? When you put in your Query, it will give you an answer. And at the top is links or URLs that are scrollable. I don't know how you scroll this on PC because like with a Mac, you, um, you have the ability to go right to left with the mouse. I don't know how you do it on PC. I don't have a PC. But it doesn't matter anyway because it's only available for macOS right now.
[00:07:18] Underneath that are pictures that are relevant to whatever the query, what query was. And then under that is actually like the information or the description or whatever it is that you were asking for.
[00:07:31] The it just like it would give you if you were inside of Chat GPT. The next thing is the globe, and that's a search, um, function. And so if you click on that icon again, it's the same prompt bar that you've already used. But when you click on that icon, it takes you to a new page and that provides a list of links. So that is like, looks like what Google would look like, just all the links. The next icon was images, just like in Google. It's just, it's a bunch of images. Um, um, you can click on them, it'll fill up the screen. You can go to the URL for that image is at the bottom of the screen. You can't actually like drag the images like to your desktop, but you can copy them and then paste them.
[00:08:09] The next thing is videos. You click on that and it shows a bunch of YouTube hyperlinks and thumbnails. And then the next, uh, icon at the top is news. And that gives you links to posts about the topic. So I again, I played around with it for like an hour. Like, I guess there's other things, depending on what you're asking it, that would like make sense for this. But like, I just want to give you the overview of this worth noting. There's a hyperlink to Google at the, in the upper right hand corner, just all the time. This is always there when you use this. You are logged into your ChatGPT account. So you can also open or close the sidebar on the left side of the screen that you're used to seeing that has all of your chats and everything that is there and as well, right. The accounts are linked because you have to sign in in order to, to use this.
[00:08:56] If. And this is again like, I think maybe the coolest feature. If you go to a site and remember you just type the URL right into that little prompt box. If you go to a site, it pops up on the screen. And on the right side there is like the right top corner, there's a little Ask Chat GPT icon.
[00:09:15] And when you click on that, of course it does have prompts that pop up. And, and there's three prompts that pop up. It says agent mode, get best price or find alternatives. Those prompts likely change based on what the site is. But I opened up this like tour site cause I'm going to Hawaii next week. And uh, so it's like it was just top of mind. And so that's what popped up.
[00:09:34] But you, when you hit them, you Click on Ask ChatGPT A, a narrow bar comes out from the right side, similar to the bar that's on the left side. And that's your Ask ChatGPT bar. And all of the conversation will stay in that side on that, on that right side. So agent mode, um, if you recall, right, Agent mode is a way that you can get ChatGPT to perform tasks for you, uh, or to perform tasks on your behalf. Right. Uh, agents can actually execute tasks. I talked about this in episode 7. I will link it. It is still grossly lacking, but they're really pushing it with this rollout. And so that is something you can do if you wanted to like book something for you or you know, buy something for you that would, that would require you to use agent mode.
[00:10:20] The other two options, like I said that it gave me the two prompts was get the best price or find the alternatives. I, I'm guessing if you have other sites that you pull up that aren't like that, it will give you other prompts. Cause it wants to, it wants you to like know what you could possibly do with this thing. Right?
[00:10:33] Um, of note, you can enter agent mode at any time. Like just like when you're inside of ChatGPT. And I know that as I'm saying this, some m of you may be like what the is Agent mode.
[00:10:43] Agent mode is when you can literally have ChatGPT do things for you. It doesn't work that well.
[00:10:49] Like we, I, I, I, I can make a whole episode on this. And I have talked about this in past episodes. But as these companies are looking to grow and get more money, one of the things they kept talking about was agentic AI and this idea that AI could just replace people and do things on its own. And these were called agents.
[00:11:09] What they're seeing is that these agents still require a lot of hand holding.
[00:11:14] OpenAI is continuing to try to push this as like, hey, this is a new like this works, this is cool. It doesn't really work that well and that's why they buried it inside of the, the prompt box, you know. And it's not some um, like standout, like really front facing feature, but with this rollout they have circled back and they're like, yeah, you can use agent mode. So just bringing that up again for what it's worth. Okay.
[00:11:37] Uh, and then lastly for the interface, just like another, any other web browser, there's the plus icon at the top of the window and if you click that it will open up a new tab. So if you like having 57,000 tabs open like I do, that's how you do it. Um, so that's the whole interface. It's you know, if you watch the little rollout video, the launch video, um, man, Sam Altman's a weird guy. He's a weird guy. He's a weird guy. But if you watch the rollout video, like they talk about how they want it to be intuitive and not this like huge departure from what we're used to. But you know, in the same breath they're like, but it's going to be revolutionary and like be so helpful and different but also it's gonna be the same like it's just, it, it's the thing that's a good segue into my, my thoughts around this. So to me it very much feels like OpenAI is grasping and they are trying to make money. Right. Their own browser would theoretic. Having their own browser would theoretically open them up to ad, uh, revenue which is how both Meta and Google be making all the monies. Right. They are ad companies.
[00:12:39] So it, it feels like they're trying to be also kind of trying to be like Apple where they're just like you're going to be fully immersed in our ecosystem and you're going to have the browser and you're going to have the Sora app and you're going to have OpenAI ChatGPT app. Like it's uh, unnecessary to me. And, and it doesn't, it doesn't actually mirror what Apple did because with Apple it was actually like different products that you actually know, quote unquote, need for different things like a phone versus a computer versus whoever. The using a tablet if you're using one. Good for you. I use a very select use cases for it. But these are uh, these are different things. And you know, maybe even in saying that that's kind of what it feels like a computer versus a tablet or like uh, a tablet's not even like a big phone. Like, it is kind of. But you can't make phone calls where, you know, this tablet's kind of like this, like, special use case kind of thing. And that's. That is more like what it feels like OpenAI is actually creating. Not these, like, individual, standalone, uniquely, um, beneficial products.
[00:13:35] It just very much overall feels unnecessary. It feels redundant. And as I say that, I'm hopeful that they don't unbundle things, because when. When there is redundancy, like, these companies are cheap, right? They're gonna give you seven free days. Like, when there's redundancy. To me, the next step is that they will remove things. And we saw that with Sora. Right? Right. So I did. Last week's episode was about Sora. Uh, their image, their video generator. And Sora used to live inside of Chat GPT. They unbundled. Um, it. It's the same price, right? It's like, it's part of your. Your. Your what? Your subscription. But they made it its own app. Right. They developed Sora 2, and then they house it inside of a Sora app. And so I'm just kind of hoping that they.
[00:14:18] They don't start taking things out. I mean, I guess if they take the agent mode out, who would care?
[00:14:22] Um. Um, but I'm. I'm just hoping that they don't start unbundling things and being like, well, it's only available if you use the browser, right? And they just kind of force your hand with that. So we'll see.
[00:14:33] Uh, but it feels unnecessary and redundant because you can. You can also just type these things right into Chat GPT right now. Like, I think chatgpt is incredibly helpful and incredibly useful. And I will do an episode because, like, there's just a lot of naysayers. And, um, you know, people just lack nuance. Like, they're either like, super, super all about AI and ChatGPT and, like, that's too much, or they're just like, this is the worst. It's terrible. It's gonna die tomorrow.
[00:14:57] Uh, and super naysayers. And I'm like, that's too much. Also, like, we can be living in the middle and have nuance here.
[00:15:06] Uh, so, you know, the Chat GPT as it currently stands, it does have a ton of utility. And that's what I think makes the web browser unnecessary because I'm like, I can type these things into ChatGPT right now. All right. I actually did this, and I. I try and test it out, and I was asking it about online business coaches. I was like, hey, can you find me some online business coaches that won't bamboozle me? Uh, that, that specialize in, you know, health and fitness people.
[00:15:32] Spoiler. I did not come up. Neither did Jill. Um, but I'm not surprised. You gotta really be in the SEO game for that. But, um, but I put the same query into Chat GPT. I did it in, in Atlas first to see what came up and poke around and kind of learn and try some stuff. And then I put it in Chat GPT and it's like. Is the same. So it's like why do I need. Why would I be all up in this browser? The thing that I need is, is I can get it with the thing I already have.
[00:15:59] Um, the release video really touted the personalization side of things. But like how necessary is that? Like I don't need it to remember that I looked at some random at 2am after having edibles. Like that doesn't.
[00:16:12] That's not helpful for me.
[00:16:14] I. They also really promote and, and to do that you have to have like logged in and saving stuff. And I'm like, I don't want you saving that stuff. I just, just let me, let me, let me stay over here on Chat GPT.
[00:16:25] Right? They also promoted the integration with your email and such. And number one, again, I don't want them in my.
[00:16:32] Number two, the use case, they showed it was like cleaning up an email and I'm like copy and paste that. Like it's just two seconds. Like also tying into number three. Connectors already exist for this, right? There is a feature inside of ChatGPT called Connectors where you can be linking things together. I spoke with this in the previous episode and that is when they were really trying to push the agent. But you have to connect it to your inbox and I was like into your calendar and things. And I was like immediately no. All right. But either way, because of that connectors like you had. This stuff already exists is my point. And so it all largely feels redundant and uh, and unnecessary.
[00:17:11] Worth noting because it still is Chat GPT. It gets wrong as well. So I actually asked it to, uh, I asked whenever I have like a spelling question or grammar question, I put it into Google and I just want the quick answer at the top. And I asked is all star hyphenated or not? And it like it up. It was similar to if you folks remember when it couldn't count the number of Rs in the word strawberry. Like there was a whole thing around that it was like that it gave me the right, the answer. And the reason I say it was wrong is because it gave me the same answer twice.
[00:17:44] It was like, hey, this is the time that you would use it, as evidenced here. But in the, the example it gave me, it had hyphen. And then it was like, here's the time you wouldn't use it as evidence here. And it, it did. It still also had the hyphen. And I was like, so do I need. When do I fuck do I need it? So you know, it can still get stuff wrong because it's still chatgpt and you're just like, uh, like that's annoying.
[00:18:07] The, like I said earlier, the only promising feature, because I want to be like a super deb about it, but like, also I'm AI, um, realist. But the, the only promising feature in my opinion is the Ask ChatGPT feature, which I do think is, is pretty cool. Right? Again, that is in the top right hand. When you go to a website, this little, um, that's like a button pops up, you click it, the right side of the screen expands and you can ask things about the, the web page and the website that you're on. Uh, so I went to my, I went to my website and I used the Ask ChatGPT feature and I asked it to summarize it and the summary it gave me, I was like, oh, this is cool and it's good and it's correct. Uh, and then I asked it like, do, does this person offer coaching? Because it doesn't know it's me and m. It listed out the main offers, it hyperlinked things and then it asked, do you want me to check the actual coaching page? So it was actually a helpful feature. Like if you don't feel like poking around a website, you know, there's some utility there. But you know, I'm saying that this, that there is some promise there if I'm forced to find any, uh, and you know, if I take a step back, if you zoom out and be like, what is that? What is that capability? It's that it can, you know, go to a website and it can crawl it as you're. As you're watching.
[00:19:18] Um, because currently there are some limitations with that when you're using native chat GPT. So my two pennies. Do you need to download it? No.
[00:19:27] Moose is barking. I don't know if you can hear that Moose is barking, but do you need to download it? No.
[00:19:33] No, you don't.
[00:19:34] If you want to download it because you're curious, clearly, by all means do so.
[00:19:42] Uh, but I downloaded it so that you don't have to. I, like I said earlier, I think it's redundant. I think it's an attempt at a future money grab. Uh, I think it's another cart before the horse type of scenario. Right. Like here, Here' something that we think is cool. Go find a use case for it. Like that is backwards.
[00:20:02] Um, like I mentioned earlier. And I will do a full episode on this, um, atlas as a web browser. And this is rollout. It ultimately speaks to generative AI hitting a ceiling. And until they figure out a way to make these models, needless handholding and AKA make the agents actually be agentic, uh, it's contin. It's going to continue to be the case. And is it possible. Yes. I spoke about this in the previous episode and uh, Gary, Gary Marcus calls this neurosymbolic learning or neurosymbolic models. And it's like a combination of uh, neural networks and, and typical, like LLMs and pairing that with um, these, these systems that can actually memorize things and understand. I don't say understand, but things that are used for like gaming and things like that. Um, so if we could have combined the two. Yeah, we would have, uh, you know, things would probably be, they would be better. Um, but we are not there yet at all. So for now, you know, it's extra annoying. It continues to be extra annoying. Like, yes, it is cool that these things maybe exist of this agent mode, but it's that much more annoying. And you guys all understand that, right? When you have an assistant, you're like, if I have to double check your work, it's more annoying than having just not having you at all because I don't have to teach you how to do it. Then I got to go and check it. I could have just done it myself in the first place. And so that's, that's largely where we're at. But hopefully, uh, uh, they don't start unbundling because that would be annoying. So when there's redundancy, I think that there's the possibility for that. But we will see. All right, let's move to the last part of the episode and then we'll wrap it up. Which is how I use Chat GPT this week. Each week I include a section where I briefly discuss how I use chat GPT that week. And uh, this week I'm actually going to highlight my girl Rachel, who I've spoken about here before.
[00:21:59] She hit me up with A win that she used Gemini. Uh, that's. That's her favorite one to use. Remember, Gemini is Google's, uh, LLM. Um, she used Gemini to help her learn how to do some video editing for her mom.
[00:22:11] And her mom calls her her tech. Her, like, tech savvy daughter. And Rachel's like, immediately, that is not me, Billy. No. Um, but she got Gemini. And so she did some troubleshooting and then did some celebrating at one point after figuring out a problem area, which I know, like, if you've done this before and used it before, you know that feeling where you're like, yeah, I figured this out. Like, when I. I used it to replace, uh, the. The power board in my, uh.
[00:22:36] What is it called? My. My wine fridge. I, uh, talked about a previous episode. It's like, when you do stuff you like. Fuck, yeah. This is so cool.
[00:22:44] And so I wanna. I want to use, uh, her story to highlight two things. Number one, using these LLMs, using these chatbots creates competency, right? The more you use Chat, GPT or Gemini, whatever, the more you start to understand how it can help you, right? And that just opens up so many doors because you're just like, oh, you can help me with this. And then if I get stuck, I can still ask it this thing, or I can give it a picture of this. And that can help me in that way. And like, ultimately, it can help me get what I really, you know, the outcome I really need. That's amazing. So, Rachel, shout out to you.
[00:23:15] Uh, and number two, this. To me, this highlights what I believe to be the best use case for these LLMs, for these chatbots, which. Which is as assistants. They are not replacing humans anytime soon, but they are still really valuable and really helpful, and I think they have tremendous potential when they are used as assistants instead of as replacements.
[00:23:41] All right, got a little fired up there, but that is all for today. That is your introduction to Atlas OpenAI's web browser. I downloaded that shit so that you don't have to, um. Hopefully you found this episode helpful if you did consider leaving a rating or review. You folks with the best. I read them and I just smile like. It's just like, people will be listening and writing things and like, I know some of you, you're my friends.
[00:24:06] Just thank you. Really, thank you.
[00:24:09] Don't forget, uh, if you're more of a reader sometimes, even though you listen to this episode, uh, I have a companion newsletter that drops every Thursday. There's basically the podcast episode in text format. So if you prefer to read, or you just want a written record that maybe you're never going to look at again. Uh, then join the newsletter fam. You can head over to chat GPT curious.com forward/newsletter. Or you can check out the the link in the show notes and sign uh up for the Curious Companion. As always, my friends, endlessly, endlessly, endlessly appreciative for every single one of you.
[00:24:44] Until we chat again next Thursday, stay curious.
