7 Comments

"C3 and SoundHound are not developing the next iteration of ChatGPT any more than Canopy Growth CGC 0.00 was going to be the next Anheuser Busch InBev BUD -0.09%↓ or 3D Systems was going to power a worldwide network of specialized micro-factories."

Got a good chuckle. Good piece

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thanks for the reply - always a bit dicey with these broad thematic pieces (particularly without a catalyst to do something near-term!) so it's gratifying to see that readers have found some value in it.

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As almost always seems to be the case, I agree with most of your investment conclusions.

Investing aside, if there is a systematic error in evaluating generative AI, it seems more likely that the error is in underestimating its technological potential and societal impact based on its current capabilities.

Consider, for example, that GPT-4 is "10 times more advanced than its predecessor, GPT 3.5".

https://www.searchenginejournal.com/gpt-4-vs-gpt-3-5/482463/#:~:text=GPT%2D4%20is%2010%20times%20more%20advanced%20than%20its%20predecessor,more%20accurate%20and%20coherent%20responses.

I don't know if 10x is the right number, but for the purposes of this thought experiment it doesn't much matter. Consider how long it took to go from v 3.5 to v 4.0, and now compound that rate of progress. Over 12 months. 24 months. Ten years.

With apologies to Albert Einstein (I'm no Albert Einstein) and his Eighth Wonder of the World, the implications of what we've stumbled upon are truly mind-boggling.

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I'll add as a postscript that The Manhattan Project represents a kind of evolutionary event horizon at which our technological capabilities exceeded our maturity as a species.

It seems like we are now well over our skis, assuming we still have two skis, and the terrain has just gotten a lot steeper and wilder.

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Great points all. Ugh. Could phrase it this way: which is more likely in ten years, that ChatGPT seems like a quaint party trick that made people overreact, or that we're all looking back wondering why we weren't much more concerned? The latter scenario isn't the *most* likely of any, but it's much more likely than the former, right?

Ugh again.

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My guess is that ChatGPT will evolve in ways that we can't currently foresee, kind of like what happened to the Internet after it was co-invented by DARPA and Al Gore.

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Great read, thank you!

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