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Get Ready For Your Smart Agent
Finally, the news is out – $3,499 later, and you will eventually be able to buy the fabled AR/VR headset from Apple. It does look impressive from a technical perspective – alas, I am still unsure about the use cases. Time will tell… Meanwhile, AI is racing forward.
Read on to further dig into the ripple effects created by AI.
Warmly,
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Decode. Disrupt. Transform.
No other than Microsoft’s co-founder Bill Gates made a bold statement during the recent AI Forward 2023 conference in San Francisco: “[…] you will never go to a search site again, you will never go to a productivity site, you’ll never go to Amazon again.”
Gates’ comment is the logical conclusion of the end of search as we know it, which we talked about in our last briefing. His vision goes a few steps further – in effect and cause. The first part of the statement above is “Whoever wins the personal agent, that’s the big thing […]” – Gates’ vision for the future is smart, autonomous, personal agents executing tasks on our behalf.
We already see the weak signals for this possible future emerging: ChatGPT has plug-ins, Microsoft’s AI can leverage the Bing search engine, and open-source projects such as AutoGPT lead the way. And as per usual in the world of technology – progress happens “gradually, then suddenly” (as per Ernest Hemingway), and the early versions of this technology are simply not good.
During my time at Mozilla, Chris Beard (who later became Mozilla’s CEO) worked on a set of agents representing the different facets of your personality – you are a different person in different settings, your online persona should match that and smart agents are possibly the most powerful way to express this. Back in the 2010s, this was mostly a speculative concept, as technology wasn’t mature enough – something which has changed with the rise of LLMs. And Beard just founded a company to make his ideas a reality. Another weak signal bubbling up…
Here at be radical we are looking at ChatGPT and its siblings less through the lens of its direct implications but rather like to ask ourselves what the implications of the implications will be – as the true disruption will be experienced in the ripple effects of evermore powerful AIs. (via Pascal)
Stack Overflow Moderators Go On Strike
Open source AI community Hugging Face released a visual summary of the “Can AI Code?” challenge – and the results look promising. Given software’s inherent logic and structure, it is a prime candidate for generative AI to do its magic. But every coin has two sides. Coding Q&A site Stack Overflow (which has become the de-facto standard for developers to look things up) recently issued a near-total prohibition on moderating AI-generated content – and the moderators are unhappy. Their main point – due to the fact that LLMs like GPT 4 have a tendency to “hallucinate” – is that the site is being flooded with inaccurate information. Take this as the harbinger of things to come – we will see more and more content being generated by generative AI and more and more content being simply inaccurate.
What We Are Reading
🪞 You’re Not Powerless in the Face of Imposter Syndrome Many people suffer from impostor syndrome, but leaning into your moxie and making it your superpower with the four tactics highlighted can help you get further than you ever imagined. Mafe ⇢ Read
📛 It’s not just State Farm. Allstate no longer sells new home insurance policies in California The shakeup of home insurance in California is absolutely a signal to watch for a bellwether on how markets, firms, and regulators adapt to the climate crisis. Jeffrey ⇢ Read
📉 ‘Degrowth’ starts to move in from Europe’s policy fringes Although strong positions are established in the debate around growth alternatives, the discourse is shifting, as a five-year contrast illustrates. Julian ⇢ Read
🎮 Super Bowl vs LoL Worlds: Are Esports Bigger than Sports? Were you aware that esports has gained recognition as an official sport in numerous countries, including the United States, South Korea, and China? Moreover, they have even been included in the 2023 Olympics with their own division. Although traditional sports still maintain the highest market value, the rapid surge in the popularity of esports is unparalleled. Pedro ⇢ Read
😺 The role of cat eye narrowing movements in cat–human communication I am not a cat person, but it’s fascinating to learn how finely tuned our animals are to our physical cues. Makes you wonder if we can train an AI on this to better interact with our pets? Pascal ⇢ Read
The Thin Wisps of Tomorrow
🧑🎨 Adobe Photoshop’s generative fill is quite impressive.
😱 Fascinating discussion on HackerNews on the worsening results from GPT 4.
🇦🇪 Abu Dhabi’s Technology Innovation Institute released Falcon, a highly performant LLM as open source.
🧠 Deep brain stimulation during sleep strengthens memory.
💥 A brain grew in a Petri dish and learned to play Pong.
🧑🏫 Intelligent brains take longer to solve complex problems.
🤣 Train your LLM to speak like Homer Simpson.
😂 A good tweet about AI.
Internet Finds
Randomized controlled trial finds that parachutes prevent death and major trauma when jumping from aircraft. 🪂
In Other Parts of the Radical Universe
🏴☠️ The Heretic: No One Cares | 🎧 Listen | 📺 Watch
🧨 Disrupt Disruption - The Podcast: We brought Christina Nesheva, CEO at Officinae Bio, back to talk about leadership. Listen now.
📕 Disrupt Disruption – The Book: Get your copy of our bestselling book and learn how to decode the future, disrupt your industry, and transform your business here.