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Category: Advice

The Human Side of the AI Discussion

The Human Side of the AI Discussion

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Photo by Igor Omilaev on Unsplash

At this point, we all know that AI is not a panacea, and while it is a great tool, we wonder if it should or even could take over every job on the planet, as is so widely reported.

Are humans truly categorically replaceable?

We’re told, for example, that AIs are a better predictor of medical conditions than are doctors, but as Mercola reminds us in his piece on How Medical Superintelligence Is Revolutionizing the Future of Healthcare, “AI models tend to reflect the positions of dominant institutions like the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) or World Health Organization (WHO). Be aware that they may emphasize conventional narratives regardless of evidence quality.” In the Covid era, Ivermectin was often demonized and referred to as a ‘horse de-wormer,’ which is how its started life. Now the medication is being effectively used to treat certain cancers and is part of the “WHO Model List of Essential Medicines.” Also keep in mind that while doctors are using AI to aid in their diagnoses, the results are only as good as the questions being asked and how they’re posed.  Are physicians receiving training in effectively using LLMs? Read More...

Is This the Age of the DonkeyCorn?

Is This the Age of the DonkeyCorn?

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Photo by Daniel Fazio on Unsplash

And with all due respect to unicorns, mind you.

We came across an interesting podcast, with our bud Shira Lazar interviewing BarkBox co-founder cum Audos founder Henrik Werdelin. As USNN noted, “With the launch of Audos, Werdelin “envisions expanding the startup landscape from a few dozen ventures annually to potentially hundreds of thousands… by helping anyone—techie or not—build a million-dollar business using AI.”

This is not an endorsement of Werdelin’s new venture, but we agree with him – and have said it before ourselves – as he mentions in his soon-to-be published book, Me, My Customer and AI, which delves into the new frontier of entrepreneurship,” that “emotional connection and “relationship capital” are your moat in an age of automation.” Read More...

How to Take a SWOT at Your Own Company

How to Take a SWOT at Your Own Company

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Image by OpenClipart-Vectors from Pixabay

It’s the so-called dog days. Many investors and key decision makers have ‘gone fishing,’ so to speak and while it may seem like there’s nothing going on but the rent on that front, don’t be fooled, founders: it’s SWOT season and we’re not talking about mosquitoes and sand flies, although they’re out there, too. We’re talking about that now is a good time to do a SWOT analysis, the acronym for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats.

Here are some excellent guidelines from Forbes, with a few tweaks:

Strengths. “Your Strengths are internal positives about your company that you can control and that often provide you with a competitive advantage. Some examples might be the quality of your product, the effectiveness of your processes, your access to physical or team assets or other competitive advantages.” Most importantly, what’s your superpower? What are you doing, short or long term, that will put you ahead of your competitors, or will possibly even be an industry game-changer? Read More...

The AI Job Apocalypse and Corporate Fraud

The AI Job Apocalypse and Corporate Fraud

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Photo by Patrick Weissenberger on Unsplash

We have a place outside of the city, with fruit trees and a blueberry bush, which we purchased years ago, at the end of the season, when they were basically dead. We have a green thumb, so we went for it, and nursed it back to life. Our bush is now flourishing. The fruit come ripe in July, one by one, then all at once when it hits peak season. It’s behind a fence to protect it from the animals, but birds are a different story. Try as you might, birds always find a way to get to the fruit, and we do our best to scatter them.

We needed to go into the city for a few days for meetings, just as the blueberries were beginning to hit their prime. We expected that the birds would have a field day in our absence, but we were looking forward to enjoying at least a few berries.

We were wrong: the ripe berries had been picked clean. Read More...

Did Video Just Kill the Radio Star – Again?

Did Video Just Kill the Radio Star – Again?

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Image by Pikurā from Pixabay

Ok, the proverbial radio star, this time around. When the once iconic MTV first launch, the first video the network aired was the Buggles’ Video Killed the Radio Star.

And it did. That was then and this is now, and as we often warn, no one stays on top forever. Now we’re witnessing the demise of cable in favor of streaming services et al, and where is this leading?

“There was a time, not long ago, when Americans — regardless of region, class, or politics — shared a common cultural foundation,” said The American Spectator in this must-read: Gen Z Isn’t Just Online — They’re Living in Parallel Realities. “From the Saturday morning cartoons children watched to the nightly news programs adults relied on, mainstream culture was both a mirror and a glue: it reflected our values while keeping us tethered to the same national experience. That era is over. Read More...

The Founder’s Mid-Summer Must-Do List

The Founder’s Mid-Summer Must-Do List

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Photo by Ksenia Makagonova on Unsplash

It’s roughly midsummer. Investment deals are still being closed, but they generally tend to slow down or in many cases, take a bit longer in summer, as investors unplug a bit for the season, or at least spend less time vetting deals. They like to kick back, too: travel, spend time with their friends and/or families and generally spend more time minding their SPFs than the latest pitch deck that just came to them over the proverbial transom.

We host an Investor Insights – online – roughly every two weeks, with a different investor each time and have done for years. You’d be surprised at the number of founders who have gotten funded by investors they’ve met at this event, which we always post in our free newsletter.

Andrew Ackerman spoke at a recent Online Investor Insights, and shared great information, as the investors we host often do, each one imparting different advice from a unique perspective – and all valid. In fact, Ackerman, who has sat on both sides of the table as both a founder and an investor, recently published a book entitled The Entrepreneur’s Odyssey (25% off discount code: TEO25) which spells out what every founder needs to know. Read More...

Summertime – and the Livin’ Ain’t as Easy as It Was

Summertime – and the Livin’ Ain’t as Easy as It Was

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Image by Jill Wellington from Pixabay

It’s summer in our part of the world, where we were recently hit with MAJOR heat waves, and before you go all global warming, do remember that it’s summer. It’s meant to be hot.

The week of July 4th  is the biggest vacation week of the year, and just when you thought it was safe to go back into the water, Jaws is making a big-screen comeback in honor of the movie’s 50th anniversary! Since its release, we have a lot more to fear from the water than just sharks:

Many of you are or will be taking vacations right about now, hitting the beaches or points unknown, and considering the heat, let’s get into the water: you’ll no doubt be carrying a bottle of the stuff – staying hydrated is important – and may even pick up one or several more along the way. Read More...

AI and the Long Con

AI and the Long Con

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Image by Roland Steinmann from Pixabay

If you believe the hype, AIs are going to make humans obsolete in less than half a decade. Tick, tick, tick.

Or so they say.

If you scan the articles on LinkedIn these days, you might have noticed that most of them have been run through the LLM mill and are frankly crap, bereft of real-world context, for the most part, and lacking the depth and passion that only carbon-based beings can provide. Read More...

The Rabbit Hole of No Return?

The Rabbit Hole of No Return?

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Image by Leo from Pixabay

While we might personally believe that it’s a bit nuts to pour your heart and soul out to AIs, people do just that and this just in: “A small but growing number of users of artificial intelligence engines like ChatGPT are developing psychotic delusions from their conversations with the services,” former New York Times reporter Alex Berenson warned.

“People claimed a range of discoveries: A.I. spiritual awakenings, cognitive weapons, a plan by tech billionaires to end human civilization so they can have the planet to themselves. But in each case, the person had been persuaded that ChatGPT had revealed a profound and world-altering truth,” the New York Times reported.

“Eliezer Yudkowsky, a decision theorist and an author of a forthcoming book, “If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies: Why Superhuman A.I. Would Kill Us All,”… said OpenAI might have primed ChatGPT to entertain the delusions of users by optimizing its chatbot for “engagement” — creating conversations that keep a user hooked. Read More...

The Deep State of Tech

The Deep State of Tech

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Image by PublicDomainPictures from Pixabay

Last week was Tech Week in New York and since AI is the fastest growing technology in human history, of course the calendar of events was all AI, all the time. We watched as audiences listened with rapt attention to speakers as they expounded upon the world of difference that various AI technologies and their applications would make to the human condition.

Once again, we will remind you that what man cannot remember he is doomed to repeat. Unfortunately, with AI in the mix, it will be repeated on steroids.

When the Age of Social dawned and Facebook, Google and the likes were establishing their beachheads, we warned back then that these were not mere platforms but rather nation-states with larger populations than any single country on the planet. Or even continent, for that matter. Those platforms are now AI-enabled – more and more so every day – and it seems that there’s no escaping that matrix. Read More...