Category: Generative

The Generative Era

Posted on by Christopher Berry

I want to believe that the current generation of applications powered by Large Language Model (LLM) don’t represent the height of the state of the art for prediction machines and that no single firm will reach 80% market share and go onto dominate the generative era. I want to believe that the future is quite open, and that these early returns we’ve made in applied machine learning can compound. It’s because I want to believe so much that it’s worth questioning the assumptions. What might cause the future to become closed? Does OpenAI scan its API logs for good ideas? In 2023, a surge of founders developed skins for OpenAI’s ChatGPT. Some based their startup on enabling a user to[…]

The Tools That Shape Us

Posted on by Christopher Berry

Paul Graham wrote on May 9:  “Observation suggests that people are switching to using ChatGPT to write things for them with almost indecent haste. Most people hate to write as much as they hate math. Way more than admit it. Within a year the median piece of writing could be by AI. … I warn you now, this is going to have unfortunate consequences, just as switching to living in suburbia and driving everywhere did. When you lose the ability to write, you also lose some of your ability to think. I don’t have the slightest hope of averting this switch. I often tell startups it’s safe to bet on laziness, and this is one of the biggest bets on[…]

On Synthetic Media, Synthetic Audiences, And Facts

Posted on by Christopher Berry

Generative Pre-trained Transformers (GPTs) have captured the public’s imagination. There’s a lot of fear. The relevance of that fear, as always, depends on who you are. The technology first caused a surge of panic in December 2022 among some communications professionals. They fear a surge of supply, a massive increase in synthetic media, along with all of the misinformation that goes along with it. Because attention is inelastic, the price for content will collapse, and it’ll take their wages down with it. They aren’t the only ones likely to be affected [1]. It’s kind of curious that you aren’t reading too much publicly from developers and their experiences with the technology. GPT’s are a tool. A good GPT is capable[…]