Caption: DALL-E - Image of a strawberry jumping across the digital world
I have to keep reminding myself this is just the beginning. I am ever wondering the more we invest in AI the more we might know ourselves. One of the most interesting conversations that I had this week was with someone who has been in the AI space, worked at IBM, with a few patents under his belt. Arguably someone who knows his stuff. One of the discussion areas we had was that somehow everyone is an AI expert. In one way, I can appreciate his comment as I was there during the web3 bubble, but we are going from researchers to scaling motions. So this is what is needed. People need to experiment and innovate with the capability. Are we in a bubble. I think this time it is different. That beings said, it is fascinating how researchers themselves don’t know how this capability does what it does. In the past, like cars, we knew everything that went into the machine. We are not always understand how this AI (statistically model) works and the insight it can gather. It’s a black box, which is what is so interesting about this capability.
Yann LeCu - VP & Chief AI Scientist at Meta talks to Lex Friedman - Take was super fascinating. To frame the learning inputs as bandwidth. Text is low bandwidth, video is high bandwidth, and let’s say touch is HD. If you think about metaphysical where you can sense someone is good or bad, is that Super HD?
Japanese apartment tower that is combating loneliness - I love seeing these different ways of living. I feel this deserves a podcast episode for sure. Japan is the world’s oldest population, with 28.2% of its population aged 65 . What is interesting about this living situation is that people eat together for a communal dinner. The building was designed in a V shape so that everyone could see each other when they enter or leave their homes, allowing them to greet each other. In my time living in London, with how flat complexes are developed, you might live in an area and not know your neighbours. On top of this, the balcony has no separation. These are just some of the physical things that contribute to help loneliness.
Google Gemini refuses to produce white people - This is one of the problems of excessive agency. Google with its trust and safety team put extra training into the model so that it would over index on diversity. I think this is an example of how these LLMs for search will remove the need to hunt for information. My parents, like many, invested in the Britannia Encyclopedia for us. When Microsoft Encarta came out with this unlimited also updating version, it changed my world. But then when Wikipedia came out, it just killed the encyclopedia. While the change was good, we stopped going to find different sources to find the truth. When you use Google today, you read multiple different sources when you search for something. You go from one link to another. You might read multiple sources to get information. If LLM provides you the information right away, portions of the internet might never get shown. An automatic filtering engine.
The Next Great Consumer .- Simon Taylor one of my favorite authors on substack. I read this before but came back to it to better understand where Gen Z are going.
For a generation of people:
Generative AI does the homework
Your social life exists more online than in person
Your first bank account was probably a family card like Greenlight
Live streaming and video have always existed
Your Dad or both parents play video games
Crypto and day trading always existed
A High tech - Strawberry - The venture capital scene might appear quite desolate, yet this isn't the case for Oishii, a vertical farming startup from New Jersey. Oishii is known for its exquisitely named Omakase Berry, a type of strawberry that commands a price of $12 for a six-pack. Just last week, the company announced it had secured $134 million in new funding, aiming to improve its robotics technology and expand its distribution network. I went to Japan last year and with my friends splurged on this cantaloupe for about $100 or more dollars. Perhaps what is happening here is with expensive fruit like what Tesla did for electric cars, we can bring hyper local and fresh fruit to a more affordable price while we optimise this technology.
