Flat GPT
Are we at the top of the hype curve?
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Friends,
Three people pointed me to Gary Marcus’ article that belief in magic might be declining - I think that might be because I am so “gung ho” about this new era that we are in. We moved from an agrarian society to an industrial one - and we are now in a new phase. It’s part knowledge, it’s part services and part automation. AI forms a big chunk of that.
There’s an argument that AI is being mentioned less in earnings calls:
but, the reality is that AI is becoming part of our everyday. It’s embedded in everything we do. In every tool we use.
One lens that I see the world in is the education industry - and we are seeing shifts in policy for AI happening faster than any other change in technology for 20 years - even if it is perceived as too slow. And if you’re reading what I’m reading tools are being released by larger and small players daily.
So - I do still believe that we need to rebuild the world for this new economy. When cars came around, we built roads. Now we are in the digital world, we need to build digital pipes - to support the technology that will drive us forward. The magic that will drive us forward.
There is some hype, but I think the hype is calming - and the possibilities remain. I think the magic is happening. This is not like blockchain, which, while important - has become a background technology. AI is foreground technology - tech that we are using, and we will choose to use.
ChatGPT does appear to be encountering a plateau, with web traffic dipping 11% from its zenith in May 2023. While initially bursting through the gates, it now seems to be losing its stride, signalling a potential shift in OpenAI's journey towards AI innovation. But a plateau does not mean shrinkage. We are right at the beginning
ChapGPT captured our imaginations and sparked discussions about the future of AI. but a dip in usage raises questions about the sustainability of such technologies and the transient nature of digital fascination. But when technology becomes embedded, you end up evolving with it. Small changes like Google replacing Assistant with Gemini on Android smartphones puts it front and centre. And the ongoing race for big tech to stay ahead will be the landscape of AI is far from static.
OpenAI's unveiling of Sora, which I mentioned last week, underscores the relentless pace of innovation in the field. This development, coupled with Google’s Gemini reaching parity with GPT-4, highlights the fierce competition driving the AI industry forward. OpenAI, is valued at an astonishing $100 billion and finds itself at a crossroads, needing to continuously innovate to maintain its edge. And many of us didn’t know of OpenAI a few years ago.
The essence of OpenAI's mission remains unshaken. The company's strategic sale of GPT models to enterprises, generating substantial revenue, demonstrates a clear vision for leveraging AI's capabilities. Efforts to enhance ChatGPT's functionality indicates a commitment to evolving alongside technological and societal needs.
However, the broader implications of ChatGPT's fluctuating fortunes are a reminder of the inherent limitations of general-purpose chatbots as a user interface. The excitement surrounding AI's potential must be tempered with a recognition of its boundaries and the necessity for continuous, user-centric innovation.
The journey of OpenAI, from its dazzling highs to its reflective moments, encapsulates the dynamic, unpredictable nature of technological progress. As we peer into the future, the evolution of AI remains a testament to human ingenuity, curiosity, and the unending quest for advancement.
This chapter has not yet been written.
Stay Curious - and don’t forget to be amazing,
Here are my recommendations for this week:
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AI-Powered ‘Thought Decoders’ Won’t Just Read Your Mind—They’ll Change It
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I Spent a Week With Gemini Pro 1.5—It’s Fantastic: Gemini Pro 1.5 is a serious achievement for two reasons: 1) Gemini Pro 1.5’s context window is far bigger than the next closest models. While Gemini Pro 1.5 is comfortably consuming entire works of rationalist doomer fanfiction, GPT-4 Turbo can only accept 128,000 tokens. This is about enough to accept Peter Singer’s comparatively slim 354-page volume Animal Liberation, one of the founding texts of the effective altruism movement. 2) Gemini Pro 1.5 can use the whole context window. In my testing, Gemini Pro 1.5 handled huge prompts wonderfully. It’s a big leap forward from current models, whose performance degrades significantly as prompts get bigger. Even though their context windows are smaller, they don’t perform well as prompts approach their size limits. They tend to forget what you said at the beginning of the prompt or miss key information located in the middle. This doesn’t happen with Gemini.
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