AI Changes Everything
The AI Tsunami Is here, let's ride
AI changes everything.
That’s it. That’s the tweet. That’s the story. That’s what’s happening.
Two months ago, I started this Substack newsletter because I saw that AI had hit an inflection point. I’ve spent my life in technology, including working on machine learning and natural language processing at AI startups and big tech firms. I also made a decision early this year to focus on writing, and so once I realized that AI was exploding, I decided to focus 100% on writing about AI.
Now I’m all in on AI. I am tinkering with AI, reading AI research papers, staying on top of AI news, thinking about AI and it’s issues and challenges, and - yes - writing about AI. I’m doing it every day. My aim is to help people survive and thrive in the AI revolution, to help you be more productive by leveraging AI.
The AI Tsunami Is Here
When I started, I thought I’d be helping people prepare for the coming AI tidal wave, but the AI tsunami is already here. This moment, right now in 2023, is when the AI tsunami hits the beach.
Each week surprises me with the rush of new AI advances. Last week, I felt literally overwhelmed tracking down the dozens of blockbuster releases, research papers and news items that happened in AI the prior week. If AI is a Tsunami, I feel like I’m trying to drink from it.
Every new thing seems to be a new blockbuster, so much so I’ve run out of hyperbolic adjectives for the game-changing, industry-shaking, earth-shattering, mind-blowing, this-changes-everything going on.
Even incremental results give hints of the speed of progress. Each new open source model seems just a small step, yet small steps are happening every week. Look back and in a mere 8 weeks, a whole ecosystem of open source AI model innovation has sprung up out of just one paper, the Alpaca paper.
Let’s just look at it from only the advances from OpenAI since chatGPT launched a mere 6 months ago:
chatGPT: Natural language interface and instruction-tuned GPT-3.5. Powerful!
GPT-4: Power of 'sparks of AGI' as GPT-4 make major leaps in quality.
ChatGPT plug-ins: Super-power of extending chatGPT with other tools.
GPT-4 + plug-ins + code interpreter: Super-SUPER-power, custom code for any task on the fly embedded in a powerful AI model, aided by myriad plug-ins.
Looking back on the history of technology or even the history of AI, each of these advances would be fundamental enough progress for several years. What took years in the past now takes months.
AI Accelerating to AGI
I’ve already stated that AI has achieved a kind of escape velocity where AI progress is accelerating by compounding upon itself. AI progress is accelerating. I also stated in the “Singularity is inevitable” essay that:
AI’s ability to write software is driving the marginal cost of new apps to zero
The competitive advantage of leveraging AI is too great for any company or professional worker to fail to use.
AI capabilities will ripple through and impact every industry.
AI’s advance will drive ongoing economic and social disruption and change before, during, and after AGI.
In my essay Fundamental Thoughts on The State of AI, I made these fundamental points:
Scale is effective in AI - unreasonably and amazingly effective
We are in the era of Foundational Models
The prompt is the interface
Current state-of-the-art AI will change the world
2023 is the inflection point for the AI adoption
Anyone who says “AI cannot do X” will eventually be wrong
We will have super-human AI by 2029
All these statements hold and then some. Foundation AI models are the basis of AI ecosystems and AI Agents; these ecosystems are getting us closer to AGI.
The only change I’d make to these breathless predictions of AGI soon and the singularity thereafter is this: It’s happening faster than I thought it would be even two months ago. The future isn’t just closer than you think, it keeps getting closer than we all think, because change is accelerating on an exponential curve. We cannot wrap our minds around this acceleration.
A New Name but the Same Mission
Here’s the bottom line: AI progress is already accelerating, every human being will be impacted by AI, and we need to be ready to make the most of it.
To reflect this reality, I am changing the title of the newsletter: AI Changes Everything.
We have the same goal and same content: Three to five articles per week, including how-to articles on AI tools, AI research reviews, AI news deep-dives, thoughtful essays on AI trends and principles, and our weekly AI Week in Review. All of it to help you makes sense of what AI is and what is going on, so you can survive the thrive the era of AI.
Buckle up, the ride has just started.
Postscript
I need your help. My goal is to help as many people as possible; that’s why this is a free newsletter and will remain so. What I do need though is your help to reach more people, so they get informed and ready for the AI. So please like, share, subscribe and tell others.
I also need your feedback on what you want me to write about. Let me know in comments what articles and topics you like, or what questions you want me to tackle.
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