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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...

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...

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...

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...

The Dirt on Startup Essentials

The Dirt on Startup Essentials

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Image by Richard Duijnstee from Pixabay

After a long, cold winter, it seems that suddenly it’s Spring when, as ee cummings wrote, “the world is puddle-wonderful,” although considering all the rain we had here on the East Coast last week, negotiating the puddles at every street corner was not so wonderful, unless you were wearing waders.

And there’s more on the way. Isn’t rain supposed to be an April thing?

But as those of us who’ve been circling the sun for a few years now well know, the sunshine always does return and once again, all is right with the world and as we also know, into every life a little rain must fall and that’s what helps to turn the grass green and what founder or investor doesn’t want to suddenly find an abundance of green in his or her life? Read More...

Will the Real Slim Shady Please Stand Up

Will the Real Slim Shady Please Stand Up

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Image by gt39 from Pixabay

Thank you, Eminem, and who’d have thought and how could you tell?

The multitude of falsehoods and over-promises of AI aside (Instagram’s AI Chatbots Lie About Being Licensed Therapists), Deep Fakes, that other wonderful outcome that AI hath wrought, is fast becoming a huge problem thanks to the improvements in AI. We’re currently witnessing The Rise of AI-Powered Deepfake Scams and as CNN  reported, “Finance worker pays out $25 million after video call with deepfake ‘chief financial officer.’”

Of course, AI savior, Sam Altman, has a solution: capture the digital identity of, well, every human on the planet.  He first rolled out his orb (nee World Orb) iris scanner in 2023 to create a unique digital identity as proof of being human, which it seems “More than 12 million people have already verified their identity using Orbs, which are available and free to use in more than 20 countries,” said CNN. Not a huge number considering the billions of people on the planet, what to speak of the fact that there are those who are “worried the project could centralize too much power under Altman, who already has an outsized role in what’s expected to be a revolutionary tech transformation.” Read More...

The Myth of the Crowded Vertical

The Myth of the Crowded Vertical

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Image by Rudi Arlt from Pixabay

Disclosure: this is not a new product promotion but rather a study in how to potentially disrupt a very crowded vertical.

“A new American electric vehicle startup called Slate Auto has made its debut, and it’s about as anti-Tesla as it gets,” TechCrunch reported, once again missing the forest through the trees, and proving yet again that the tech media loves to get their digs in, whether it’s appropriate or not.

While there are current Tesla owner who are experiencing buyer’s remorse, or as the New York Times wrote, “In Marin County, There’s Trouble in Teslaville,” is the main selling point of the Slate the fact that it isn’t a Tesla? Or maybe the fact that “It’s affordable, deeply customizable, and very analog. It has manual windows, and it doesn’t come with a main infotainment screen. Heck, it isn’t even painted. It can also  transform from a two-seater pickup to a five-seater SUV,” as TechCrunch pointed out. Read More...