That’s a compelling story. But that doesn’t make it accurate. We are early on and it’s hard to determine how large or small the ecosystem and value that will be created on top. Some went big, like personal computers, the internet, databases, Java, electricity, and so on. Others did not (yet), web3 (maybe), other databases, low code platform, website builders, workstations, many old personal computing systems, etc.
Yes, it’s easier for incumbents to capture value because they own customer relationships. However, if that was always the case open ai wouldn’t exist. So some do breakthrough.
Early on could people see the future and know what Ms dos, Oracle, or google would become? No because it’s new and it’s the future. It’s only obvious in hindsight. Yes, all of these ai companies on top of chatgpt could become nothing. On the flip side the complexity and depth of chat gpt and other models will continue to expand, creating more possibilities for potential value creation. Or the whole thing can turn into an overvalued version of Clippy. It’s hard to see how it will play out.
I certainly see the opportunity for start-ups to break through here. I just don't have much faith in ones where GPT-4 is their core tech.
On the other hand, companies going after the entire vertical where AI is a feature and not the product, or well-funded companies with innovative models that outperform OpenAI is totally a possibility.
I'm not convinced of the alternative either though. If you think of the AI as an intelligence akin to an employee.. at some level it becomes a commodity and then it becomes what is the AI doing.. what is it harnessed into?
There is value created, but the argument was that it is the big ones with existing customer relationships that are going to benefit, not the 100th startup that offers an AI assistant to schedule appointments via voice commands. I think all of that second group of thin GPT wrappers will be eaten by the entities developing and running the foundational models like OpenAI.
In general, AI is data hungry and college kids in their dorm room will always be at a disadvantage in that regard compared to large companies (many of which locked down scraping on their properties, even if "their" content is mainly generated by users, i.e. non-employees).
> In general, AI is data hungry and college kids in their dorm room will always be at a disadvantage in that regard compared to large companies (many of which locked down scraping on their properties, even if "their" content is mainly generated by users, i.e. non-employees).
It's a two-way street too. The big players have more data to start with and they're already the "place" that you go to add more data.
Google's ML/AI stuff (the behind the scenes stuff, not the consumer facing chatbot type stuff) in gmail/calendar/etc is already useful because of their vertical integration. They "see" everything and can add new records in any part of their productivity suite, then make correlations / recommendations across the entirety of their offerings in a way that ChatGPT wrappers outside of their walled garden will never be able to replicate.
Now with OpenAI, MS has the same opportunity. Issues on github? Code? Emails? Teams conversations? Calendar appointments? Bing search history? It's all just part of the same bundle to them and it's all read/write.
Except PCs, Internet, etc were new things or in case of Java, improvements
These "AI Startups" were just 2 lines of code wrapping a call to OpenAI (or 10 lines if js with langchain - which already makes it easier for devs to use features like "string templates" or such /s)
> if that was always the case open ai wouldn’t exist
Because there were no incumbents offering a ChatGPT similar product
I used to think I wouldn’t rationalize a losing position while I was invested, but after a hedge fund I was in divested from a large position, I was able to see the other way so clearly
This is quite funny. If it weren't for tax (and maybe liquidity in certain situations), this suggests a quarterly "sell everything" day might make sense. You'd sell everything on a friday perhaps, and come monday buy again after having the weekend to freshen your eyes.
alternatively you could take unbalanced bearish positions, like too many at the money put options, everyone can start thinking about the ways that becomes profitable by noticing the bear thesis and rooting for that for a little while.
then people could see which thesis is stronger and more probable, the bullish or the bearish ones.
Good points. Premature optimization and over engineering when one hasn’t been part of either not having any esoteric or unfair knowledge is like shooting in the dark.
YC’s premise to start small, serve the problems and solving them and they will light a path has merit to it especially since they took on a B2B focus.
> Early on could people see the future and know what Ms dos, Oracle, or google would become? No...
In the case of Oracle, yes, because Oracle was created directly to compete with DB2 (which was already a success) but as a product that could run on all the popular platforms of the day. So success of their early RDBMS-based-business was predictable, assuming they could execute.
The extreme of living for today only or living for tomorrow only will mean you are under serving your present or future self. Time is short so it’s wise to give to your present day self. Also you don’t want to rob your future self, so investing in your future is also important. Extremes are easier to manage. With balance you’ll have the choice and its burden to decide between today and tomorrow.
I agree, but I tend to lose my perspective and skew heavily to living in the future. I loved reading this article because it helped me to reprioritize some things, like that family vacation I've been putting off. Or even just playing that board game with my kids that I promised them.
Let’s assume there will be some % of kids that lack interest in learning, have no parental or community support, and despite schools providing them additional support for years they show no improvement or desire to improve. I think it’s reasonable some % of these people will always be in the population pool. What is the solution for these individuals?
That's quite a big assumption, but what do you think will happen if you don't offer them any education? They won't earn much or grow the economy and might end up going to prison, which is far more expensive.
Assuming such a group exists, the point is that if you do offer them an education (or, rather, try to force it upon them), they won't accept it, so they still won't earn much or grow the economy and might end up going to prison, but now their peers don't get an education either and suffer the same fate.
Based on the Amazon reviews, this doesn’t look like a very good book.
“A Lot of Non-math Digressions”
“Way too wordy and discursive. Boring format.”
“It's hard to imagine that someone would write a book ostensibly about math that has so much personal, political, social, and just plain silly off-subject commentary.
This book is so interspersed with that kind of commentary that it is difficult to focus on the math.”
“The book has some helpful insights regarding teaching elementary students basic mathematical operations. However, it is filled with so many abrupt political digressions, often incoherent, and ironically, occasionally illogical, that the entire work is barely readable.”
There are a lot of comments attempting to rationalize the value add or differentiation of humans synthesizing information and communicating it to others vs an llm based ai doing something similar. The fact that it’s so difficult to find a compelling difference is insightful in itself.
I think the compelling difference is truthfulness. There are certain people / organizations that I trust their synthesis of information. For LLMs, I can either use what they give me in low impact situations or I have to filter the output with what I know as true or can test.
Imo one part of the confusion and complexity is pricing. There is no standardized pricing. Many countries with government run healthcare systems solve this by not showing patients the prices and standardizing the price they pay to doctors etc. in the US you have the hospitals / health care providers, insurance companies, and patients all negotiating with each other. Some state governments tried to mandate a defined list of services and costs, but I don’t think it worked. Each provider categorizes things slightly differently. Also it seems the insurance companies and providers are fighting it out around what to pay, leaving the patient in the middle also trying to negotiate. It’s all very exhausting.
Mixing profit with healthcare is bound to lead to trouble. Patients got no choice but to accept the abuses of the system when they are sick. Like agreeing to things under duress.
Anyone who has had several kids and worked at home knows you can’t do both unless you leave the house or have a nanny / partner / grandparent watch the children while you work. Young children are on a cycle of eat, poop, sleep, activity every few hours or even over a matter of minutes sometimes. It may be easier to have children while at home, but working and raising kids under the same roof would be challenging.
This article pulls together a lot of evidence, but it does not consider evidence for the contrary. Productivity went up with remote work. Fertility rates went up. How was productivity for people with little kids at home who never sleep? Is there any evidence that sleep deprived people aren’t as productive? Also what is productive? Pumping out the most units of work? Sitting at home with no in office social obligations will give more time for work output. But does that create the most value for the economy? What about innovation, serendipity, brainstorming, building relationships, sharing ideas etc. They will provide long term productivity, vs short term output based productivity metrics.
>Anyone who has had several kids and worked at home knows you can’t do both unless you leave the house or have a nanny / partner / grandparent watch the children while you work.
Anyone who has had several kids and worked at home knows that it's much easier than when commuting to work. Even if you can't have one partner (or parters alternating) to cater to them constantly, and need a nanny, it's still much better, you can help much more, doing little errands, tending to them, be there for whatever small emergency and so on, than when stuck in some office 10-50 miles away. You also have the extra hours you'd be commuting to be with them.
And that's when they're babies and need constant care.
When they grow enough for school? It's not just much easier than commuting, but unbelievably better too.
Except if one goes for the "out of sight, out of mind" angle. Then sure, tending to your career in some office while the nanny or your partner takes care of the kids is better.
Agree. It is easier to be present for children and their needs when you are physically present. One could say the same applies in reverse. Being physically present at a business allows for someone to more easily reach them, discuss issues, get to know coworkers etc. I believe remote work works well enough with all the digital tools. But it’s not as engaging as being physically there surrounded by teammates.
Perhaps. But perhaps we should consciously sacrifice that for better quality of life. We don't need more or fancier stuff. We need better opportunities for more people, better distribution of the wealth, wages to match productivity which they haven't in decades, and better quality of life.
Agree. But also if Chinatown wasn’t founded by one group it wouldn’t be Chinatown. When we are appreciating a culture, that culture is a set of values, norms, and beliefs that are consistent, not diverse.
I didn’t have any background knowledge on this so started looking on Wikipedia. It looks like Chicago has one of the largest Chinatowns so I started there. You can read about its origin in the history section https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinatown,_Chicago. From what I’ve read, it appears it was people primarily from China. Do you have any information about Chinatowns being formed by other Asian cultures?
I believe this is a topic where many people have predefined narratives they repeat. The comments above are about the benefits and costs of diversity (different but informed opinions), yet the non-narrative fitting opinion is downvoted. In my experience diversity provides access to new ideas and a variety of experiences through the people you meet. However there are also costs to diversity which shouldn’t be ignored. Communication is more challenging in diverse groups. Also values, beliefs, and norms vary more in a diverse group. That’s beneficial for those looking to expand their understanding of others and the world. However it also means less cohesiveness within the group which reduces feelings of belonging. You can’t have your cake and eat it too. There are similar trade offs in building technology. Having access to a wide variety of frameworks and technologies helps you learn more ideas and discover better ways to do things. However groups also create standards which allow for interoperability. Pros and cons.
Yes, it’s easier for incumbents to capture value because they own customer relationships. However, if that was always the case open ai wouldn’t exist. So some do breakthrough.
Early on could people see the future and know what Ms dos, Oracle, or google would become? No because it’s new and it’s the future. It’s only obvious in hindsight. Yes, all of these ai companies on top of chatgpt could become nothing. On the flip side the complexity and depth of chat gpt and other models will continue to expand, creating more possibilities for potential value creation. Or the whole thing can turn into an overvalued version of Clippy. It’s hard to see how it will play out.