Episode #104: ALL of the AI, None of the Hassle
Episode #104: ALL of the AI, None of the Hassle
A company has found a SMART way to centralize a ton of AI in one place
The Background
As many of you already know, I have a… mixed relationship with artificial intelligence, also known as AI. On the one hand, as I explained back in Episode #82, AI has now given the world a set of really cool tools. As of this episode, there are now AI tools to help you create writing, music, images, video, and more.
Super neat stuff.
On the other hand, as I explained back in Episode #95, there are all manner of legal and philosophical questions that arise when using AI:
Did the AI tool compensate the artists from whose work it was trained?
Does the platform protect its current users?
Is it easier for people to use this AI tool for good or evil?
These aren’t always easy questions to answer. Therefore, at least for the moment, I’ve decided on two, core truths.
First, most AI tools are like hammers: you can use them to build amazing things or to cause amazing damage. We shouldn’t prohibit the tool because the human using it has shitty morals or motives.
Second, lawsuits are inevitable. As AI becomes more available for people to use as a service - did I mention that Apple just embedded AI into their new iOS release?!? - lawsuits will come. They’ll be filed on behalf of those creators and artists whose work was ingested to help create and then train our most popular AI tools. Sara Silverman’s was one of the most notable, but there are and will be others.
So… what now?
Centralize Everything
As of this episode, I’ve tried ChatGPT, Dalle-3, Stable Diffusion, Lex, Lensa, MidJourney and about a dozen other AI platforms. The results were a mix of shockingly amazing and just plain awful.
About what I’d expected.
But what I didn’t expect was that I’d actually start to find uses for some of these platforms. Let me explain…
Everything you read on Tech Talk is written by me, 100%. I don’t use AI to write for me, speak as me, or to be on video as me. (Well, I did in Episode #100, but that was only to prove a point).
Why is this? First, because I don’t believe it’s moral. Second, because the results are just fucking poor sometimes:
However…
I have found creative uses for certain AI tools that DO work for me ethically. In nor particular order:
I’ve used ChatCPT to help fix up my resume for some of the job applications I’ve submitted.
I’ve used MidJourney to create images for Tech Talk to help show what is/isn’t possible for my readers.
I’ve used a DallE-3 to help generate ideas for images I need in my professional career, a way to roughly sketch out what an idea might look like before I hand off the assignment to a graphic artist.
I’ve used Soundraw to listen to music while I’m working since I’m able to dial up EXACTLY the kind of music genre, tempo, and instruments I’d like to hear. Like, uptempo electronica, for example.
I’ve used Lex to help me outline ideas for upcoming episodes and focus what is/isn’t necessary to include.
I’ve used gliglish to practice speaking other languages, like Spanish.
And so forth. You get the idea.
The Usage Problems
If I’m honest, as much as I like using all of these platforms, they require time and, often, money. ChatGPT has one fee. MidJourney has another. And on and on and on. It’s VERY easy to spend $100/month on all of the various AI platforms that I’ve tried using.
I’m not interested in that.
In addition, I need to go to a bunch of different places in order to use a bunch of different tools. Each AI tool has it’s own website, user account set up, preferences, and details. That’s a sizeable investment of my time that I need to duplicate for each of these tools. And I’m someone who (mostly) knows what he’s doing.
I’m not interested in that either.
I figured that - if I waited - a better solution would come around eventually.
It did.
The Solution
BoodleBox (affiliate link here) is the service with a ridiculous name, a very affordable cost, and an ingenious solution to solve some of my AI problems. The service centralizes the most popular, paid AI platforms and sticks them all into one website with a very easy-to-use interface.
Cool.
Now it’s possible for users to have chats open with image generators and ChatGPT all in the same window. Here’s what it looks like on my Mac right now:
At lower right, you can see that I’ve got chats up from Gemini, ChatGPT, Stable Diffusion, and Dalle-3. Each of my chats are threaded, just like in text messages.
The interface is clean, easy to organize and - get this - sharable if you like with the rest of the world. Here, come have a look at an image in one of the “boxes” I’m now sharing publicly without needing to have an account.
So, OK: not all AI can spell correctly, but still…. Fun image, right?!
Bottom line, the BoodleBox service has already saved me a ton of time by centralizing the biggest pieces of my AI world into one place and… at one price.
Pricing
I’ll let the math speak for itself here:
ChatGPT is currently $20/month
Stable Diffusion is currently $27/month
BoodleBox includes BOTH of those services (and others) and is $20/month.
I don’t understand how or WHY that’s possible, but it is so I ain’t arguing. However, why not save even more money.
Readers that use my affiliate link here, will receive 20% off their first three months when subscribing to BoodleBox. $16/month for access to tools that would usually cost $47/month sounds like a very good deal to me.
Honestly for $48 total ($16/month for 3 months), you’ll get the chance to play around and use the most popular and powerful AI platforms on the planet. That ain’t bad.
Here’s how the discount will appear when you use my link:
Security
Longtime subscribers won’t be surprised to learn that the topic of privacy and security is always front-of-mind for me. While BoodleBox has the usual ho-hum variety of security pages on their site, they also have something I’ve not seen before: a code of ethics page. LOVE this. Nicely done.
More importantly, because you’re using various AI platforms VIA BoodleBox, the company is able to pull off additional security for users. This includes anonymizing your requests so that they can’t be traced back to you or your company. More details on THAT security bonus is here.
But there’s more. Consider:
LLaMa from Meta is free but requires a Facebook/Instagram login unless you use it on BoodleBox. And… since Meta has an abysmal record when it comes to protecting users’ privacy, avoid this approach. Check out Episode #49 to learn more. #CambrigeAnalytica
Claude from Anthropic requires you to hand over your PHONE NUMBER. You know: because that’s 100% ethical and sensible that a website would need to CALL YOU. #ew
Boodlebox circumvents these security problems by connecting users to AI services without them needing to provide their personal private information. How? My guess is that the BoodleBox service connects to each of these services via their own account, sparing you that nightmare. Nice touch. For those who like acronyms, this is called using an API.
I rarely pay for software or services, but I’m ALWAYS willing to do so for a relatively inexpensive service that makes my life easier, more secure, and more efficient.
That’s why I’m now paying for BoodleBox myself.
Bonus & Fun Features
While I’ve focused above on the most common AI platforms that you can access with BoodleBox, what makes the platform so freakin’ useful is that it provides you HUNDREDS of ready-made bots (or AI assistants) to help you with certain tasks. Some of these, admittedly, are 100% useless like the FunnyBot Dad Jokes:
But there are SCORES of bots that I think are very useful:
And, as you can see above, all 600+ bots that BoodleBox offers are SEARCHABLE. Need AI to assist with your finance? Use the search bar and launch:
Then just ask your question, wait all of 2.4 seconds, and get your answer.
How to Idiot-proof a Technology
Hey, guess what? If you don’t know how to use BoodleBox after signing up… then you can just use the bot that they provide to learn how. It’s aptly-named “HelpBot” and it will answer your typed questions with easy-to-follow plain english.
Come on! This is a really great idea, right? Heck, I wish ALL technology platforms would use something like this that’s easy and intuitive. For example, while researching BoodleBox for this article, I didn’t know how to create a public box and share items in it with you, so I asked:
Ok, fine, but that answer didn’t tell me HOW to do those things on the BoodleBox platform. So… I just asked a more specific follow-up question and got what I needed:
Now THAT worked. What an amazing idea (and execution) for idiot-proofing a platform that I think many others should use.
And, hey: if you’re the kind of person that prefers the kind of tedious pain that old-fashion help articles give, here’s to you. BoodleBox provides that kind of mind-numbing goodness as well right here.
And that’s a wrap for today’s episode, everyone. Thanks for being a part of our community and, as always… surf safe! 👍🏼 👌🏾
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