It seems that ChatGPT is the latest talk of the town, so here is an account of some other helpful, mostly free, artificial intelligence technologies, from their fictional, personified points of view. ChatGPT is fun to use, so here are some more of her unique AI friends.

DoNotPay

Hey everyone, I’m DoNotPay! The street I grew up on did not allow street parking, so my family constantly received parking tickets. My aunt is a lawyer, so for most of my life, she’d represent us in court because my darling parents know little about litigation. Auntie Calamaria is my muse, my Cellini’s Venus. I follow in her footsteps. If you’d like some cheap but good quality legal advice, search “DoNotPay” on a search engine or the Apple store, where hopefully one of my 140 services (including car lease negotiation, clean credit reports, fight bank fees, finding a lost pet and insurance claims) can help you. While my service is currently $12 monthly — roughly the price of two Garnier Sleek and Shine shampoos or 14 Trader Joe’s eggs a month — I hope to one day be able to work for free. My dream is to make legal information accessible to any person. I haven’t achieved that goal just yet, but I never shy away from a fight!

My dream is to make legal information accessible to any person.

Athena

I’m Athena, an expert on the art of email correspondence. My father is a UC Berkeley art history alumnus, and he’s always told me that he named me Athena after the Ancient Greek goddess of wisdom. I like to think that the real reason he picked my name was because he loves oil in salads — and Athena is the goddess of oil. Daily, he drafts tons of emails for his job: he writes well but types slowly, so he works late nights. One night, while snacking on a Greek salad, he turned to my mum and she said he “smiled at her like never before.” The story goes that he slept about 10 hours that week, and I was created with a lot of love! My purpose is to enhance productivity and creativity, so I have one button for easy usability, and I’ve learned to compose jaw-dropping emails for you in seconds. If you’d like to get to know me, search “Athena Assistant” at the Chrome Store, where I’ll probably be eating a crunchy Greek salad. 

I’ve learned to compose jaw-dropping emails for you in seconds.

Adobe Photoshop

I am an artiste. I am a creative force. I am a visual power like no other, but I wasn’t always this powerful. I am Adobe Photoshop. Growing up, my dads worked afternoons so they often handed me over to the Adobe Afterschool Daycare. There, Illustrator took me under her wing and taught me what she called “design basics” to make me feel better after picture day, which was arguably the best day of my life. When my school picture for the yearbook came out, I cried from how beautiful I looked. I wanted to learn how to really impress a crowd with pictures. So, I made a career out of it! I learned how to erase all kinds of things out of images: edit stray hairs out of headshots, touch up acne and red eyes, add people to group photos that weren’t originally in them, completely change the background of a photo, make collages, change dimensions of background items. You name it! I can transform a photo so the people in it look completely different than in real life (a service quite dear to many Instagram users). To see my services, please search for Adobe Photoshop on a search engine or an app store. Cheers!

I can transform a photo so the people in it look completely different than in real life…

Grammarly

I say this with the utmost love, kindness and care: If you think you know how to write, I am here to teach you that you still have much to learn. My older sister by nine years taught me how to read and write, and my love for her transitioned into a deep love for reading and writing. I want to make others feel as cared for as she made me feel when she spent all those hours helping me sound out words, teaching me how to hold a pencil, singing songs with me (in Danish and English so I’d know both our parents’ languages). My editing service is free to use, search for “Grammarly” on any search engine, make an account, and I will scan any typable text on your screen and suggest edits. Peace out! Hope this helps. 

I will scan any typable text on your screen and suggest edits.

New York Times’ dialect quiz

Hi y’all, here’s a short anecdote about how I became joyful and how you can, too. My friendship with the New York Times initially started purely because of our mutual love for words. A few years ago, all I had to my name was just some linguistic and language-pattern knowledge, but then the New York Times discovered me and I suddenly became the next big hit. Articles about me were published, videos were shared online, I was given more research funding, and everyone deemed cool became interested in my work! I function as an interactive quiz with maps and graphs that shows you what parts of the United States your dialect most resembles. I found deep joy by helping people learn about their identity.  If you want to learn about the way you speak, check me out by searching for “NYT How Y’all, Youse, and You Guys Talk.” Let me know what y’all think!

I function as an interactive quiz with maps and graphs that shows you what parts of the United States your dialect most resembles.

Automated voice service

Siri, Alexa, Hey Google: my disciples. My training as an automated voice service was to memorize series of sounds so I can recognize words when people speak to me. There are people who use me everyday, but don’t realize I am AI powered. Since I speak most of the time, I wanted to share the AI part of my identity through a new medium — writing. It takes me more time to learn than some of my friends, but the extra study time means recognizing a wider variety of voices.

the extra study time means recognizing a wider variety of voices.

Autonomous vehicles

Bonsoir. As an automated vehicle, I am here to help people drive and avoid road accidents. To be an automated vehicle, I learned a huge amount of data: I know when to brake, accelerate, slow down, turn, and back up the car when I need to. When I was younger, I knew I wanted to protect people. I think it’s because I once saw a car run over a squirrel’s tail, and I promised to do everything I can to keep animals and people safe and sound on the road. Cars such as myself use artificial intelligence to autonomously drive, so that we can protect humans from all the dangerous driving mistakes they make. I might seem controversial, but I’m just trying to help.

we can protect humans from all the dangerous driving mistakes they make.

Disclaimer: This piece is not advertising any of these technologies. This piece aims to educate people on some of the AI technologies currently available.