The Cult of Silicon Valley Has Finally Found Its Savior in ChatGPT
After decades of false prophecies, the technological rapture is nigh and early adopters will flourish
The tech industry has cultivated a quasi-religious fervor to grab the reins of power, continually making impossible promises of endless authenticity, productivity and innovation. Many techies do so in good faith, a combination of naivete and youth driving their utopian visions. Others are cynical bad actors just looking to exploit suckers. Most fall somewhere in between, the ends justifying the means.
Regardless of intention, the impacts are clear. Information technology is now widespread but has led to negligible increases in US “total factor” productivity, an estimation of technology effects. Instead of increasing overall prosperity, the primary effect of the internet has been economic concentration among a few giants, leading to a state that Yanis Varoufakis deems techno-fedualism.
So is this it? Are we doomed to platform capture, our lives dominated by annoying half-working solutions designed for everyone, and thus no-one?
NO! We are not. There are alternatives, ones where software adapts to our circumstances. Ones where we can fully own and utilize our data to make better decisions based on personalized goals rather than pleading to alggorithms. Ones where we can trust that the technology we depend on will support our purpose in the world.
I know because I’ve spent my career creating software from these principles, and I have seen the impact that it brings. I wish everyone could experience it, but unfortunately these alternatives have historically been expensive to build, available only to large or saavy companies.
But that is about to change. Recent advances in AI, particularly ChatGPT, will make it possible to build these alternatives at scale, for everyone.
This will unlock enormous untapped potential in technologies like big data and internet of things which have already been adopted but never quite lived up to their billing. A complete business revolution will then follow, creating stress and opportunities for every company regardless of its size.
I have been preparing for this moment my entire career, waiting to help the world navigate this historical moment. My goal is to ensure that early adopters understand future possibilities so they can proactively create a better world, rather than become trapped in reactivity and chaos.
I will be doing this in several ways, one of which is PromptGenius Academy, the world’s first comprehensive school to master AI in all its facets. I will soon be holding a free 90 minute webinar to explore the future of AI and its impact on business. Space is limited to 50 participants, you can find out more here.
This post is an introduction to one of several themes I will be covering during the webinar.
The Age of False Prophecies
I have spent my whole career in tech. So you can believe me when I say we’re all fucking nuts. We’re always going on about how some new fangled doohickey will imminently change the world. That everyone who uses it will be better, faster, leaner, sexier, richer. That everyone who doesn’t will be banished to live in caves. We plaster media with a single message: sign up now, now, now or forever be a social pariah.
We serve up utopian cocktails with a fear chaser. And we’re drunk on our own supply.
AI is our favorite shot to push. It’s an oldie but goodie. Something to come back to decade after decade. And this time around is the strongest yet.
If you call us out, we got no shame. What about the metaverse, crypto, fintech, IOT, smart homes, autonomous driving, VR, big data, 3-D printing?
Or that revolution in healthcare and education, two industries that the Marc Andreessen --the biggest pusher of all time-- claimed were ripe for the taking as software ate the world?
Oh that, we reply. Well there was a little hitch, that’s all. It’s probably the government’s fault. But anyway, AI will actually change everything this time, so jump in now.
Will you take the bait?
Doing the Crime, All the Time
Although I’ve been in tech for decades I’m not rich because I suck at lying.
So when real world businesses ask me if they should adopt the new doohickeys I always tell them no.
Hyped tech is buggy, expensive and just plain sucks. You might as well just burn money.
The dirty secret is that once the tech is actually worth using, it will be available in packages that affordable and just work. At that point the hype is long gone, but actual value has arrived.
Wait until the tech has matured, I tell my soon to be ex-prospective clients. You can adopt it then, your company will be far better off focusing on other issues while you wait.
It keeps my soul full, my wallet empty, and my heart incensed at the hustlers who seep lies out of every pore of their body.
Until recently, I would have said the exact same thing about this new wave of AI. I would have said, Yeah ChatGPT and Midjourney are cool. Yeah they can probably replace your interns. Yeah it’s something to keep your eye on.
But should you build your real world business strategy around it? No way. Wait another 10 years at minimum.
Then GPT-4 was released just a bit over a month ago. And everything changed.
My Awakening
I’ll be honest, I didn’t think much of ChatGPT until recently. I had played around with it last year, thinking it was a neat diversion but little more. My network was telling me there was a new version being tested which would blow everyone away, but I didn’t really believe it.
I’ve never been more wrong.
Now that I’ve spent a month using it, I believe it is a key to achieving artificial general intelligence. To me this means it has potential — when combined with other systems — to become as good at humans at a wide range of tasks.
I have become a disciple.
In the two weeks since I wrote that post, I have created full programs, including a basic operating system, entirely in ChatGPT. I have also created a rich assistant capable of guiding users through the same process. And I have done all this by using a programming approach that was never before possible.
All in two weeks!
I am now integrating it into a platform already under development which had the goal of reducing the costs to develop fully personalized software by 10x. I say had because now I believe it will be possible to reduce development costs 50–100x once our platform is mature.
With this platform it will be cost effective for businesses of all sizes to streamline their operations and increase coordination, resulting in a substantial decrease to administrative costs, most likely between 30-70% depending on the industry.
This alone will be transformational, as it will enable several of our initial customers to have best-in-industry performance and fundamentally alter their business model. However, that is just the first step.
A Promise Delayed but a Promise Kept Nonetheless
Remember when I called you all suckers for believing the tech hype? Well it’s a good thing you did.
Because every time those technologies failed to deliver on their outlandish promises you complained. And we techies just said, well of course it doesn’t work yet, you need to 1) collect way more data and 2) integrate it with more systems.
You took our word. You put the tech deep into your businesses and now you rely on it for every part of your operations. Sure it’s still not great, but it’s good enough and you can’t back out.
And now your patience will finally be rewarded.
Because not only will AI platforms help with streamlining administrative tasks, LLMs like ChatGPT enable you to access expertise in any field. Expertise which can then analyze your data and provide support or even make decisions in real time.
This will solve the #1 reason for the failure of most tech reality to live up to the tech hype. The problem wasn’t in the tech itself, it was in the inability for people to use it.
I can’t count the number of times where I have worked with business leaders that had good vision but couldn’t find the right technical talent, or vice versa, where great talent was not utilized because the business leaders didn’t understand the potential they had.
And I have been tormented seeing enormously powerful systems barely utilized because they a) didn’t have the right user interfaces b) relied on external data which weren’t natively compatible or c) the users simply didn’t understand what they did.
Much as been made about the coming displacement of jobs automated away by AI, but not nearly enough attention has been made of the fact that AI will provde millions upon millions of domain experts — both as producers and consumers— that can finally use all our digital infrastructure to its full abilities.
That means all that junk we’ve been pushing in the past, from internet of things to big data analytics and even blockchain, will find their role. Originally hyped as the answer to everything, each of these technologies will find their place in limited but powerful ways, with generalized AI acting as the primary coordinator.
Palantir has announced a platform with this design and it’s just the beginning.
This effect will be profound, immediate and even weird. I am going to write a post soon detailing how, but my conclusion is:
The benefits are enormous, reducing waste in many industries by 20–75%, saving tens of billions of dollars and countless resources. In healthcare alone, the estimate is saving $200B+ and, by adopting beat practices, more than 50k lives every single year.
This form of coordination is a major piece to solving the climate puzzle, and building resiliency to disruption like Covid, the Russian invasion of Ukraine and weather disasters. With these systems in place, inflation will be drastically lowered, relieving stress from our political systems trying to solve an impossible problem.
Overall we’d have much greater chance of thriving.
Of course the root causes of these issues are not solely technical. Political, organizational and monopolistic forces are huge contributors. However, the destruction of entry barriers will enable countless small players to flourish and societies which support that will quickly reap the gains.
What Should You Do Now?
As I stated above, I am very hesitant to play into new tech hype. I’ve seen far too many people get burned, losing money, time and humanity.
On the other hand, I truly believe that this time is different. Not because there won’t be hucksters and broken promises — there will be, more than we’ve ever seen before — but because the technology is powerful and accessible enough that it is guaranteed to affect your life soon no matter who you are. I don’t think there is an option to “opt out” and ignore the fuss, unless you’re close to retirement.
But more than that, these advances provide a once in a lifetime opportunity for leaders to step forward and and shape the future. And it provides a once in lifetime opportunity for new leaders to emerge.
The changes will be so profoundly immense, the impacts so disruptive, that leadership will arise from those who have the clarity of vision and purpose to navigate the raging waters. Across all walks of life, sense making and perspective taking will become increasingly important.
Yes technological understanding is necessary and finding opportunity essential. But my advice is to first stop and breathe. Listen, learn then pounce. Then the raging hype will just be a din in the background.
I have founded PromptGenius Academy as the world’s first comprehensive school for generative AI to support this path. I will soon be holding a free 90 minute webinar to explore the future of AI and its impact on business. Space is limited to 50 participants, you can find out more here.
