Founder Fridays, February 17, 2023

The "Hindsight is 20/20" Moment I'm Having

• Are You Accidentally Building the Second Hardest Type of Startup? | by Aaron Dinin, PhD | The Startup | Feb, 2023 | Medium. I've done this in Education (so long Edlocker)! My wife did it in Healthcare (Long Live Dohje). And one of my best friends is doing now it for travel experiences (I'm still rooting for you!) We're drawn to building the 2nd hardest type of startup because that's the space that is ripe for innovation. But WOW IS IT DIFFICULT.

Article Helping Me Think MORE about our AI Future

• Is the future about one all-knowing AI or many? The new app Poe gets you ready to chat with them all | Nieman Journalism Lab. Let the anthropomorphic games begin. There's been a lot of talk this week about the excitement and potential dangers of AI. As we continue to explore the potential of generative AI, we're discovering a range of flavors to suit different needs. There are platforms with specialized voices and areas of expertise, constitutional AI that follows a set of directives, and pithy AI that cuts straight to the chase. "Now you are a Physics Tutor; Now you are a Research Assistant; Now you are my Best Friend." Triangulation of AI engines may do the majority of the work to get there, and our anthropomorphizing could do the rest. From the article: “as these AIs integrate themselves deeper into our lives, it’ll be important to see them less as an all-seeing oracle and more as a set of compelling voices — who can still screw up sometimes.”

The Space I Investigated This Week While Contemplating Our Collective Moral Future

• Is There Anything ChatGPT’s AI ‘Kant’ Do? - WSJ. Compelling voices...who can screw up sometimes (hand raise). But how do you get a machine to feel guilt? How do you write an algorithm that induces the experience of shame?