AI companies need a "customer moat".

Google's Bard now links to Google, Docs, and Maps. Vercel releases a UI tool that generates React code,

Author

Tara Tan
September 21, 2023

Happy Thursday! Lots to chew on this week. Investors are increasingly looking for AI companies that have a strong customer moat. Sequoia Capital’s David Cahn goes into detail in “AI’s $200B Question”.

This has been our core thesis at Strange from day one: that the biggest winners in AI will be driven by those that can win customers, and markets.

This is why design is crucial. And why we are doubling down on it at Strange. Design is the process of discovering and distilling user needs, and turning them into products people love.

The AI infrastructure build out is happening. Infrastructure is not the problem anymore. Many foundation models are being developed—this is not the problem anymore, either. And the tooling in AI is pretty good today. So the $200B question is: What are you going to use all this infrastructure to do? How is it going to change people’s lives?

Sequoia Capital’s David Cahn in AI’s $200B Question

Enjoy this edition! If you have any thoughts or feedback, just hit reply.

📰 The Long Read

From hate speech to AI music: The YouTube chief trying to leap tech’s biggest hurdles. Alison Lomax, London chief of the video platform, says it is committed to embracing artificial intelligence – but ‘responsibly’. In this interview, she talks about YouTube’s take on the next big technology. (link)

🔥 Latest news

  • This is a gamechanger. Vercel Labs releases v0.dev, a User Interface designer which generates copy-and-paste friendly React code.

  • Google’s new Bard extensions link Gmail, Docs, Maps, and more to its AI chatbot. The new version lets users double-check its answers, collaborate with others and integrate with Google’s own apps and services, including Gmail, Docs, Drive, Maps, YouTube and Google Flights and hotels. The idea is to use Bard as a one-stop shop to grab information across these different services. https://tinyurl.com/5n78wuwn 

  • OpenAI hustles to beat Google to launch ‘Multimodal’ LLM. With all the reports of Gemini being released soon and potentially better than GPT-4, Open AI is trying to keep its lead intact. The multimodal features will be launched under the name “GPT-vision.” Also, they are training a multimodal LLM from scratch codenamed Gobi. https://bitly.ws/Vh44 

  • Microsoft’s AI researchers accidentally exposed 38TB of private data. The researchers accidentally exposed sensitive data, including private keys and passwords, while publishing a storage bucket of open source training data on GitHub. The example shows new data security risks as companies use more AI. Sharing lots of data for AI training can lead to leaks if security teams don't guide researchers properly. Also, AI models themselves can be hacked if they aren't reviewed well, which can spread malware. https://tinyurl.com/2trwp9wp 

  • OpenAI launches the Red Team Network to enhance AI model resilience. The contracted consortium of experts will play a pivotal role in informing the company’s assessment of AI model risks and strategies for their mitigation. While it may not directly remedy issues, red teaming serves as a vital mechanism for identifying biases inherent in models such as OpenAI’s DALL-E 2. Notably, this model has been scrutinized for exacerbating stereotypes related to race and gender. Additionally, it can pinpoint pitfalls that lead text-generating models, including ones like ChatGPT and GPT-4, to inadvertently disregard safety filters. https://tinyurl.com/y5f34r9d 

✨ Inspiration

🎓 Recent Academic Papers

  • Google research introduces MediaPipe FaceStylizer: An efficient design for few-shot face stylization https://tinyurl.com/ms33yxtd 

  • Researchers from MIT and Microsoft introduce DoLa: A novel decoding strategy aimed at reducing hallucinations in LLMs https://bitly.ws/VeBo 

  • Baichuan 2: A series of large-scale multilingual language models containing 7B and 13B parameters, trained from scratch, on 2.6T tokens https://bitly.ws/VeAp 

🔧 Cool Tools and Experiments

  • Shortwave: An AI-powered assistant that lets users ask questions about their email history https://tinyurl.com/bdd78938 

  • Catch+Release launches an AI-powered search for user-generated content https://tcrn.ch/3PpDsY5 

  • Typeset launches AI that rapidly generates presentations, social posts, and more https://bitly.ws/VeoN 

  • AI-powered visual branding platform Catbird, that competes with industry giants like Pinterest and Canva, exits beta with 300K users and $100K in recurring revenue https://tinyurl.com/ye27fzwj

  • Developer Thomas Simonini shares a tutorial on how to create NPC characters using Unity Sentis and Hugging Face transformers https://tinyurl.com/ynnknsec

💰 Latest Startup Fundings

  • Social gaming and livestreaming platform Eloelo raises $22M in a pre-Series B round to expand its entertainment app https://tinyurl.com/r4e96pwu 

  • Learn.xyz secures $3M to launch its AI-driven social learning app that combines elements of Duolingo and Wikipedia to generate quick, informative “Curiosities” https://tinyurl.com/yck89s5r 

  • LimeWire acquires BlueWillow, a generative AI image creation platform that competes with Midjourney and Stable Diffusion https://tcrn.ch/3PsOzjd 

  • Babbel acquires language learning browser extension Toucan https://tcrn.ch/3PJGw2H