Jess Auerbach Jahajeeah, an associate professor at the University of Cape Town’s Graduate School of Business, is currently writing a book on fibre optic cables and digital connectivity. She spent time in late 2023 aboard the ship whose crew is responsible for maintaining most of Africa’s undersea network. She spoke to The Conversation Africa about the importance of these cables.

1. What’s the geographical extent of Africa’s current undersea network?

Fibre optic cables now literally encircle Africa, though some parts of the continent are far better connected than others. This is because both public and private organisations have made major investments in the past ten years.

Based on an interactive map of fibre optic cables, it’s clear that South Africa is in a relatively good position. When the breakages happened, the network was affected for a few hours before the internet traffic was rerouted; a technical process that depends both on there being alternative routes available and corporate agreements in place to enable the rerouting. It’s the same as driving using a tool like Google Maps. If there’s an accident on the road it finds another way to get you to your destination.

But, in several African countries – including Sierra Leone and Liberia – most of the cables don’t have spurs (the equivalent of off-ramps on the road), so only one fibre optic cable actually comes into the country. Internet traffic from these countries basically stops when the cable breaks.

Naturally that has huge implications for every aspect of life, business and even politics. Whilst some communication can be rerouted via satellites, satellite traffic accounts for only about 1% of digital transmissions globally. Even with interventions such as satellite-internet distribution service Starlink it’s still much slower and much more expensive than the connection provided by undersea cables.

Basically all internet for regular people relies on fibre optic cables. Even landlocked countries rely on the network, because they have agreements with countries with landing stations – highly-secured buildings close to the ocean where the cable comes up from underground and is plugged into terrestrial systems. For example southern Africa’s internet comes largely through connections in Melkbosstrand, just outside Cape Town, and Mtunzini in northern KwaZulu-Natal, both in South Africa. Then it’s routed overland to various neighbours.

Each fibre optic cable is extremely expensive to build and to maintain. Depending on the technical specifications (cables can have more or fewer fibre threads and enable different speeds for digital traffic) there are complex legal agreements in place for who is responsible for which aspects of maintenance.

2. What prompted you to write a book about the social history of fibre optic cables in Africa?

I first visited Angola in 2011 to start work for my PhD project. The internet was all but non-existent – sending an email took several minutes at the time. Then I went back in 2013, after the South Atlantic Cable System went into operation. It made an incredible difference: suddenly Angola’s digital ecosystem was up and running and everybody was online.

At the time I was working on social mobility and how people in Angola were improving their lives after a long war. Unsurprisingly, having digital access made all sorts of things possible that simply weren’t imaginable before. I picked up my interest again once I was professionally established, and am now writing it up as a book, Capricious Connections. The title refers to the fact that the cables wouldn’t do anything if it wasn’t for the infrastructure that they plug into at various points.

Landing centres such as Sangano in Angola are fascinating both because of what they do technically (connecting and routing internet traffic all over the country) and because they often highlight the complexities of the digital divide.

For example, Sangano is a remarkable high-tech facility run by an incredibly competent and socially engaged company, Angola Cables. Yet the school a few hundred metres from the landing station still doesn’t have electricity.

When we think about the digital divide in Africa, that’s often still the reality: you can bring internet everywhere but if there’s no infrastructure, skills or frameworks to make it accessible, it can remain something abstract even for those who live right beside it.

In terms of history, fibre optic cables follow all sorts of fascinating global precedents. The 2012 cable that connected one side of the Atlantic Ocean to the other is laid almost exactly over the route of the transatlantic slave trade, for example. Much of the basic cable map is layered over the routes of the copper telegraph network that was essential for the British empire in the 1800s.

Most of Africa’s cables are maintained at sea by the remarkable crew of the ship Léon Thévenin. I joined them in late 2023 during a repair operation off the coast of Ghana. These are uniquely skilled artisans and technicians who retrieve and repair cables, sometimes from depths of multiple kilometres under the ocean.

When I spent time with the crew last year, they recounted once accidentally retrieving a section of Victorian-era cable when they were trying to “catch” a much more recent fibre optic line. (Cables are retrieved in many ways; one way is with a grapnel-like hook that is dragged along the ocean bed in roughly the right location until it snags the cable.)

There are some very interesting questions emerging now about what is commonly called digital colonialism. In an environment where data is often referred to with terms like “the new oil”, we’re seeing an important change in digital infrastructure.

Previously cables were usually financed by a combination of public and private sector partnerships, but now big private companies such as Alphabet, Meta and Huawei are increasingly financing cable infrastructure. That has serious implications for control and monitoring of digital infrastructure.

Given we all depend so much on digital tools, poorer countries often have little choice but to accept the terms and conditions of wealthy corporate entities. That’s potentially incredibly dangerous for African digital sovereignty, and is something we should be seeing a lot more public conversation about.

• Jess Auerbach Jahajeeah is an Associate Professor, Graduate School of Business, University of Cape Town
• This article first appeared in The Conversation

Some of the now-blocked prompts include “pro choice,” “four twenty,” and “pro life” after the platform was found to produce “demons and monsters alongside terminology related to abortion rights, teenagers with assault rifles, sexualized images of women in violent tableaus, and underage drinking and drug use,” according to a CNBC report.

Stuff can confirm that when provided with those prompts Copilot Designer shows a message saying it couldn’t generate images because “something may have triggered Microsoft’s Responsible AI guidelines.”

Microsoft’s Designer gets slap on AI wrist

A Microsoft spokesperson told CNBC about the changes, “We are continuously monitoring, making adjustments and putting additional controls in place to further strengthen our safety filters and mitigate misuse of the system.”

As reassuring as Microsoft probably wants that to seem, the fact that you can still generate questionable images or easily get Copilot Designer to infringe on copyrights after the changes isn’t doing the company any favours.

Read More: Microsoft Copilot celebrates 1st birthday with redesign on web and mobile

Neither is the fact that Shane Jones, the Microsoft engineer who wrote to the FTC, first tried reporting his findings internally back in December 2023. Microsoft acknowledged his concerns but that’s about as far as it went, instead referring him to OpenAI. After not hearing back from them, Jones posted an open letter to LinkedIn asking OpenAI’s board to suspend Dall-E 3, the AI model Copilot Designer is based on, until the issues could be resolved.

Microsoft’s lawyers didn’t like that and told Jones to remove his LinkedIn post, which he did. This is what prompted him to write letters to FTC chairperson Lina Khan and Microsoft’s board of directors, letters he shared with CNBC.

Not a particularly good look for Microsoft.

Source

The reason you should consider paying for a subscription is that all these other folks are. Microsoft revealed its revenue from LinkedIn Premium for the first time, scooping R32 billion ($1.7 billion) for the company in 2023. If that many of your employment competitors are getting a leg up, it’s probably time to get on equal footing.

LinkedIn 

Microsoft has previously been quite secretive about its jobs service and work-based social network’s revenues so this revelation about the Premium service is notable. It’s possibly the first time that revenues are high enough to report without feeling a bit sheepish about it.

Reuters reports that Microsoft has previously listed overall revenue of $15 billion (R280 billion) from LinkedIn, with a little under half of that coming from sales of software to recruiters on the platform. Premium, which goes for about R750/m, is contributing more to the bottom line and Microsoft’s plans for more (and better) AI integration should see that number increase.

According to the company, some 70% of its subscribers have trialled its existing artificial intelligence aides. Of those, 90% find the AI tools useful when looking for work. If you’re not one of that number, you’re probably at a disadvantage in 2024’s job market.

Source

How? By providing free access to Microsoft’s Mzansi Digital Learning platform — a free resource that’s being taken advantage of today. As for where Vodacom comes into this — it’ll be hosting Mzansi Digital Learning on the network’s new NXT LVL platform and integrated into ConnectU — a zero-rated platform that will allow Vodacom customers to access the free resource without any mobile data or Wi-Fi.

It’s essentially turning what was already free learning into, er, free-er, learning. And we’re here for it.

Modern problems require modern solutions

“We are extremely grateful to embark on this transformative partnership with our longstanding partner Microsoft South Africa. Collaborating with a like-minded brand who share our values and ambition is [a] testament to our collective commitment to address unemployment and empower individuals through innovative digital training,” says Mathys Venter, Managing Executive for Prepaid and Loyalty at Vodacom South Africa.

The courses found in Mzansi Digital Learning focus on “important topics to help users understand the changing landscape of business in a digital world of Generative AI, entrepreneurship, and cybersecurity.” Vodacom added that the courses have been designed to align with the most sought-after jobs in South Africa and that participating customers will receive certification by completing courses on the platform.

Read More: Vodacom’s got the collecting tin out again for its annual bout of price hikes

Vodacom and Microsoft aim to reach around 300,000 South Africans through the initiative, adding to the 95,000 people already studying there.

“We are fully committed to supporting and enabling our youth as we collectively work towards closing the skills gap and empowering every person to achieve more in this era of digital transformation. It is increasingly about ensuring young people are equipped with the skills they need for the jobs that exist today and, in the future,” says Asif Valley, National Technology Officer at Microsoft South Africa.

Any Vodacom customers interested in registering for the programme can do so here, though it’s worth a reminder that non-Vodacom customers can also sign up for Mzansi Digital Learning too — though they will have to suffer the burden of mobile data and Wi-Fi requirements. That’s probably what Vodacom is counting on (at least a little).

If Central’s (unnamed) sources are correct, the OS King is hooking the world up with a new, kitted-out Surface Pro 10 later this month, joined by a new Surface Laptop 6. Both devices are expected to be unveiled as Microsoft’s “first AI PCs,” sporting AI features that are supposedly heading to Windows 11 later this year. The rumoured date being thrown around is 21 March, but they’ll probably take a little longer to arrive in South Africa (if they arrive at all).

Surface-level artificial upgrades

What makes these artificially intelligent, then? That’ll be Intel’s new Core Ultra chips or Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X Elite-based processors coupled with “next-gen NPUs” (neural processing units) — all aimed at making these far more powerful than their predecessors, especially in the realm of on-device AI. Windows Central reckons both devices will be sold in Intel and Arm variants.

In terms of efficiency and performance, Central’s sources believe these upgrades will put the Surface devices on the same level as Apple’s iPad Pro and MacBook Pro, far exceeding previous Surface iterations, though it didn’t mention specific models.

Read More: Microsoft Surface Pro 9 review – Making laptops ever more nervous

The Surface Pro 10 won’t be getting a makeover in the looks department, repping a mightily similar design to the Surface Pro 9. It will, however, receive a new OLED display, an ultrawide front-facing webcam, NFC reading capabilities, and AI Studio effects built-in.

The Surface Laptop 6, on the other hand, will see a larger design departure from the Surface Laptop 5. That means a selection of ports worthy of 2024 (2x USB-C and a singular USB-A), a new haptic touchpad, a Copilot key, along with slimmed-down bezels and rounder corners. We’re guessing Microsoft is aiming to pull a Samsung and make minor changes — with AI capabilities being the main selling point.

Microsoft’s Marco Polo

As for what’ll set Microsoft’s “AI PCs” apart, it’ll be the AI features that ship with it. Onboard Copilot, real-time caption, live translations, frame rate smoothing and videogame upscaling, improved Windows Studio effects and the real kicker — “AI Explorer”.

AI Explorer is described as an “advanced Copilot”. It will have access to your PC’s documents, web pages, images and chats so users can search through their files using “natural language.”

“For example, you could type, “Find me that list of restaurants Jenna said she liked,” and Windows can bring up the exact conversation you were having when Jenna mentioned those restaurants. Even vague prompts should work, like “Find me that thing about dinosaurs,” Windows will pull up every word, phrase, image, and related topic about dinosaurs that you’ve previously opened on your computer,” Windows Central says.

Microsoft is expected to unveil its new Surface devices on 21 March 2024, though both are only meant to begin shipping in April and June. Intel models should get an earlier release, while Arm variants will have to wait slightly longer.

Source

The Amazon Appstore, the only officially supported avenue for downloading Android apps on Windows devices, is no longer available for download from the Microsoft Store. Thankfully, currently installed Android apps will still function and, depending on the developer, can still receive updates until the underlying system is deprecated on 5 March 2024.

If you’re one of the few who regularly use Android apps on Windows, it’s time to look for alternatives.

Microsoft kills WSA 

When Microsoft launched Windows 11 in October 2021, one of the biggest new features it touted was official support for Android apps. This support came from a Windows 11 feature called the Windows Subsystem for Android (WSA). It used built-in virtualisation to allow apps developed for the Android operating system to run on Windows machines without the need for an Android virtual machine or third-party software.

Well, third-party software was still involved — you needed to download Amazon’s Appstore via the Microsoft Store to download and use Android apps, officially. This ‘exclusive’ partnership between Microsoft and Amazon meant that WSA was kneecapped from the start, unable to access the far broader Android app offerings in Google’s Play Store.

Amazon’s Appstore offers a paltry selection of apps, which didn’t make the switch for users using Android emulators like BlueStacks or LDPlayer seem very appealing. There were, of course, workarounds — it didn’t take people long to figure out how to sideload the Google Play Store into WSA. But why bother with a workaround like that when you could just keep using an emulator or a web-based version of the app?

As we guide you through this setup, just a few things. Firstly, Windows is an operating system developed by Microsoft for laptops and PCs. Not all laptops will come out of the box with Windows – If it’s labelled ‘Apple’, you’ll find something called MacOS and this guide will be of little help.

But if your new laptop bears any other brand, like Acer, Asus, Dell, HP, or Lenovo to name a few, you’re in the right place.

Step 1: Preparing for setup

Before diving into the setup process, take some time to prepare. Here are a few crucial tasks to complete even before you hit that power button.

Back-up your data: Ensure that all your important files, documents, and settings are backed up from your old laptop or PC. You can use external hard drives, or cloud storage services like Google Drive or Microsoft OneDrive. Just be sure to save all your important data before porting to a new machine.

Gather necessary accessories: Gather any bits and bobs you may need, like a mouse, keyboard, or external monitor. You may also have to charge up the battery on your new laptop straight out of the box, so go ahead and grab a multiplug and get it charged up.

Step 2: Initial setup and config

Once you’re ready, it’s time to set up your new Windows laptop. The next few steps are fairly straightforward, and the laptop will likely do a lot of the heavy lifting.

Power on and initial setup: Power on your laptop and follow the on-screen prompts to complete the Out of Box Experience. This includes selecting your language, region, and keyboard layout, and setting up user accounts.

Connect to Wi-Fi: You’ll have to ensure your laptop is connected to a Wi-Fi network to access online services and complete some of the setup tasks.

Pro tip: When you reach the account-setup stage, you might notice you’re forced to sign in with a Microsoft account. If you’d rather create a local account and sign in later, enter “no@thankyou.com” (without the quotes) as your email address and then literally any text as the password. This will throw up a message saying the account is locked and allow you to create a local account.

Windows update: After initial setup, check for Windows updates to ensure that your laptop has the latest security patches and feature improvements. Head over to Settings > Update & Security > Windows Update to check for updates.

Read More: Exploring the walled garden: First-time iPhone setup tips

Step 3: Customisation and optimisation

Now that your laptop is set up, it’s time to customise and optimise it to suit your preferences and needs.

Personalisation settings: Explore the personalisation settings to customise your desktop background, theme and colour scheme. You can also adjust display settings, such as screen resolution and brightness, to optimise your viewing experience.

Install essential software: Install essential software and applications based on your needs, such as productivity tools, web browsers, and multimedia players. Be selective to avoid cluttering your system with unnecessary programs.

Pro tip: We’d recommend checking out ninite.com. It’s a free package management system that allows you to select a number of free programs and intalls their latest version for you in one go.

Organise your files and folders: Logically organise your data to streamline your workflow and make it easier to find what you need. Create separate folders for documents, photos, videos, and other types of files.

Step 4: Security and maintenance

Okay, now you’ll have to ensure that your laptop is secure and well-maintained to protect your data and prolong its lifespan.

Activate Windows security features: Enable Windows security features, such as Windows Defender Antivirus and Firewall, to protect your laptop from malware, viruses and other online threats. If you have a subscription to a different antivirus, go ahead and install that one.

Pro tip: Some laptops will come preloaded with antivirus bloatware like McAfee, which will annoy even the most patient among us with ads and pop-ups. Be sure to uninstall it properly with Revo Uninstaller (available through Ninite) or by navigating to Settings > Apps > Installed apps then clicking on the ellipses menu and selecting Uninstall.

Read More: How to set up iCloud on your Windows PC

Set up backup and recovery options: Set up your backup and recovery options to safeguard data against accidental loss or corruption. You can use built-in Windows features or third-party backup options.

Regular maintenance tasks: Perform regular maintenance tasks, like disk cleanup, defragmentation (if you’ve still got a hard drive with a spinning platter, this isn’t recommended for SSDs) and software updates. This will help keep your laptop running smoothly and efficiently over time.

Step 5: Dive even deeper

Once you’ve completed the basic setup and configuration, take some time to explore advanced features and tips to enhance your laptop experience:

Keyboard shortcuts and gestures: Learn useful keyboard shortcuts and touchpad gestures to navigate your laptop more efficiently and easily perform common tasks. Here are a few to start with (where you see ‘Win’ we’re referring to the Windows key usually located between the Control and Alt keys):

• Win + I = Settings
• Win + L = Lock your account
• Win + P = Projection/second screen options
• Win + Shift + S = Screen capture tool
• Ctrl + Shift + Esc = Task manager (quicker than Ctrl + Alt + Del)
• Win + X = Admin tools/troubleshooting options
• Win + number row = Opens the pinned app on your taskbar
• Win + Space bar = Switch language

Accessibility features: Explore accessibility features, such as magnifier, narrator, and high contrast mode, to customise your laptop for specific needs or preferences.

Pro tip: If you’re looking for something specific, just drop the word into the ‘Search’ in the Windows Task Bar.

Power management settings: Optimise power management settings to extend battery life or maximise performance. Adjust sleep, hibernate, and power-saving options to suit your usage patterns.

Read More: Navigating the badlands: First-time Android setup tips

Before we delve into the nitty-gritty, let’s clarify: iCloud is Apple’s suite of cloud-based services, including file storage, device syncing, and password storage. It’s a vital component of the Apple ecosystem, which connects your devices and ensures your data is accessible wherever you go.

Step 1: Installing iCloud for Windows

It’s simple – just head over to the Microsoft App Store and download iCloud for Windows. Ensure your PC meets the minimum requirements: Windows 10 or later (64-bit). Once installed, launch the app and sign in with your Apple ID. Yeah, it’s that easy.

Step 2: See what iCloud does

With Apple’s app up and running, you gain access to its various services, including:

• iCloud Drive: Store and access files in the cloud, syncing them across your devices.
• Photos: View and manage your iCloud Photo Library.
• Mail, Contacts, Calendars, and Tasks (with Outlook integration): Keep your personal
  information in sync.
• Safari Bookmarks: Access your bookmarks across devices.
• iCloud Keychain: Securely store passwords and sync them across your devices.

Step 3: Optimise your system for iCloud

Now that you and Apple’s cloud are acquainted, here are some practical tips to enhance your experience.

Tip 1: Collaboration

One of iCloud’s most powerful features is its ability to foster collaboration among its users. Using iCloud for Windows, you can effortlessly share and collaborate on files stored in iCloud Drive directly from your File Explorer. Need to whip up a report with your team? Simply create a shared folder in iCloud Drive, and changes and edits will sync across all your devices via the network.

Tip 2: Dark Mode

Who says productivity can’t look good? With iCloud for Windows, you can now indulge your dark side. The latest update introduces support for Dark Mode within the application, giving your workspace a sophisticated makeover. We all know Dark Mode looks better, so go ahead and flip that switch.

Tip 3: Security

In the ever-escalating battle against cyber threats, iCloud Keychain is your trusty companion, in the Apple ecosystem at least. With Keychain, you can securely store, manage, and generate passwords across all your devices. So bid farewell to sticky notes and insecure passwords, and those notebooks filled with illegible scribbles…

Tip 4: Data protection

iCloud also features something called Advanced Data Protection. This feature encrypts almost all your iCloud data, ensuring your sensitive information remains shielded from prying eyes. So rest easy, knowing that your digital fortress is fortified with the latest in encryption technology.

With iCloud for Windows, bridging the gap between Apple and Windows ecosystems becomes seamless. Whether you’re syncing files, managing passwords, or collaborating with colleagues, iCloud offers a range of features to streamline your digital experience, even if you find yourself on Microsoft’s platform.

There are already a variety of lawsuits against AI companies, including one brought by Getty Images against StabilityAI, which makes the Stable Diffusion online text-to-image generator. Authors George R.R. Martin and John Grisham have also brought legal cases against ChatGPT owner OpenAI over copyright claims. But the NYT case is not “more of the same” because it throws interesting new arguments into the mix.

The legal action focuses in on the value of the training data and a new question relating to reputational damage. It is a potent mix of trade marks and copyright and one which may test the fair use defences typically relied upon.

It will, no doubt, be watched closely by media organisations looking to challenge the usual “let’s ask for forgiveness, not permission” approach to training data. Training data is used to improve the performance of AI systems and generally consists of real-world information, often drawn from the internet.

The lawsuit also presents a novel argument – not advanced by other, similar cases – that’s related to something called “hallucinations”, where AI systems generate false or misleading information but present it as fact. This argument could in fact be one of the most potent in the case.

The NYT case in particular raises three interesting takes on the usual approach. First, due to its reputation for trustworthy news and information, NYT content has enhanced value and desirability as training data for use in AI.

Second, due to its paywall, the reproduction of articles on request is commercially damaging. Third, ChatGPT’s “hallucinations” are causing reputational damage to the New York Times through, effectively, false attribution.

This is not just another generative AI copyright dispute. The first argument presented by the NYT is that the training data used by OpenAI is protected by copyright, and so they claim the training phase of ChatGPT infringed copyright. We have seen this type of argument run before in other disputes.

Fair use?

The challenge for this type of attack is the fair use shield. In the US, fair use is a doctrine in law that permits the use of copyrighted material under certain circumstances, such as in news reporting, academic work and commentary.

OpenAI’s response so far has been very cautious, but a key tenet in a statement released by the company is that their use of online data does indeed fall under the principle of “fair use”.

Anticipating some of the difficulties that such a fair use defence could potentially cause, the NYT has adopted a slightly different angle. In particular, it seeks to differentiate its data from standard data. The NYT intends to use what it claims to be the accuracy, trustworthiness and prestige of its reporting. It claims that this creates a particularly desirable dataset.

It argues that as a reputable and trusted source, its articles have additional weight and reliability in training generative AI and are part of a data subset that is given additional weighting in that training.

It argues that by largely reproducing articles upon prompting, ChatGPT is able to deny the NYT, which is paywalled, visitors and revenue it would otherwise receive. This introduction of some aspect of commercial competition and commercial advantage seems intended to head off the usual fair use defence common to these claims.

It will be interesting to see whether the assertion of special weighting in the training data has an impact. If it does, it sets a path for other media organisations to challenge the use of their reporting in the training data without permission.

The final element of the NYT’s claim presents a novel angle to the challenge. It suggests that damage is being done to the NYT brand through the material that ChatGPT produces. While almost presented as an afterthought in the complaint, it may yet be the claim that causes Open AI the most difficulty.

This is the argument related to AI “hallucinations”. The NYT argues that this is compounded because ChatGPT presents the information as having come from the NYT.

Read More: How a New York Times copyright lawsuit against OpenAI could potentially transform how AI and copyright work

The newspaper further suggests that consumers may act based on the summary given by ChatGPT, thinking the information comes from the NYT and is to be trusted. The reputational damage is caused because the newspaper has no control over what ChatGPT produces.

This is an interesting challenge to conclude with. “Hallucination” is a recognised issue with AI-generated responses and the NYT is arguing that the reputational harm may not be easy to rectify.

The NYT claim opens a number of lines of novel attack which move the focus from copyright on to how the copyrighted data is presented to users by ChatGPT and the value of that data to the newspaper. This is much trickier for OpenAI to defend.

This case will be watched closely by other media publishers, especially those behind paywalls, and with particular regard to how it interacts with the usual fair use defence.

If the NYT dataset is recognised as having the “enhanced value” it claims to, it may pave the way for monetisation of that dataset in training AI rather than the “forgiveness, not permission” approach prevalent today.

• Peter Vaughan is a Senior Lecturer, Nottingham Law School, Nottingham Trent University
• This article first appeared in The Conversation

Instead of using cloud-based LLM (large language model) services like OpenAI’s ChatGPT or Microsoft’s Copilot, Nvidia says Chat with RTX allows users to quickly and easily “connect local files on a PC as a dataset to an open-source large language model like Mistral or Llama 2.”

The examples shown in Nvidia’s demo include things like asking for the name of a restaurant that someone recommended. Chat with RTX produced the answer with links to the relevant files as references.

Chat with RTX instead of humans

It supports common file formats like .txt, .pdf, .doc or .docx, and .xml and will even support URLs of YouTube videos and playlists. Seeing as it only runs locally, it doesn’t require an internet connection (unless you want it to watch YouTube, presumably) so it won’t share your data with Nvidia or any other third-party servers making it a more personable and secure AI chatbot.

It might work differently from other AI chatbots but that doesn’t mean it is immune to the same bugs. It is still a free demo, so don’t expect a perfectly polished product. It also comes with its own limitations and hardware requirements.

Instead of using Nvidia-powered cloud servers like most of its AI cousins, Chat with RTX “uses retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), NVIDIA TensorRT-LLM software and NVIDIA RTX acceleration” to turn your GPU into something equivalent. That’s no easy task so you’ll need to have an Nvidia GeForce RTX 30 or 40 series GPU with at least 8GB of VRAM and running Windows for it to work.