Jeff and Seymour kick off 2024 with a discussion of the three phases of generative AI. Phase 1: The launch of ChatGPT in November, 2022. Phase 2: The rise and fall of AI wrapper companies during early- to mid-2023. Phase 3: The current emergence of AI Agents that can automatically chain together multiple steps that drastically change the kinds of p…

We re-examine the swirl of events at OpenAI in November, starting with the Nov 6th Dev Day in San Francisco. Then the tumultuous firing and re-hiring of CEO Sam Altman, President Greg Brockman, and related Board ups and downs. Links: History of OpenAI Board. Board as of Nov 1, 2023: Sam Altman, Greg Brockman, Ilya Sutskever, Helen Toner, Tasha McCa…

Jeff and Seymour discuss interplay among sci-fi movies, speculative fiction, and 'real world AI' through the lens of Spike Jonze's 2013 movie Her. Also some conversation about the upcoming Humane Ai Pin. Links: Biden's Executive Order and related AP article quoting White House Deputy Chief of Staff Bruce Reed on impact of Tom Cruise's recent Missio…

Seymour and Jeff discuss the recently announced updates from OpenAI, especially regarding image generation in GPT-4 and DALL-E 3. Our ranking of image generation AI's from best to worst: (1) Midjourney, (2) Google Search Generative Experience (SGE), and finally (3) DALL-E. Jeff closes by talking about the recent LLM workshop he conducted for junior…

We discuss the September 2023 AI Conf in San Francisco, Anthropic AI and Claude, and how to test LLMs with "Who Is Jeff Hwang?". Links: 2023 Google Pixel Launch Event news from The Verge. 2023 Facebook Connect on Metaverse, Quest VR hardware, and AI. Schedule of speakers and talks at AI Conf in SF, September 2023. Amazon invests $1.25B in Anthropic…

(Episode originally recorded September 21, 2023) Jeff and Seymour discuss the Microsoft September 2023 Surface hardware event which was mostly about AI, Llama-2 and open-source LLMs, and Elad Gil's 4 Waves of AI adoption. Links: Round-up of news from Microsoft September 21st event from The Verge. Info about Panos Panay's departure from MS and some …

(Episode originally recorded June 30, 2023) We're back! Summertime is slow; Stepfunction episodes will appear more regularly again in the fall. Topics: Jeff and Seymour discuss the launch of the Apple Vision Pro in early June. Databricks bought MosaicML in June and comparison with earlier Snowflake acquisition of Neeva in late May. Profile of the N…

Jeff and Seymour briefly discuss Google I/O which happened last week including the release of PaLM 2. Most of the episode is spent on the strategic and ecosystem implications of an internal Google strategy memo and the impact of open source. They also discuss AI Supply Chains in the context of a series of MIT blog posts from April. Finally, they dr…

Jeff and Seymour look briefly at earnings and layoffs from 2023 Q1 for the Big 5 Tech giants which leads to further pessimism about Google BARD. This sparks a larger conversation about how best to organize internal research groups. Which extreme works best–Google or Apple? Links: The Information published a detailed article on April 27th about Appl…

Jeff and Seymour mention a framework of 3 personas: (1) end-users; (2) technical builders like EPD teams, i.e., Engineering-Product-Design; and (3) business leaders. Topics discussed: End-user experience: what it's like to use the free and paid versions of ChatGPT, compared with other LLM user experiences like Google's Bard, Microsoft's Bing Chat, …

Jeff and Seymour mention audio generation technology which leads to a larger conversation about how we can tell if audio, text, images, and other media is a Deepfake. They end with questions about media gatekeepers, social polarization, and how do we know what's real? Links: Vim is Jeff's favorite text editor and 10 reasons you should learn it. And…

The news that Gordon Moore passed away broke last Friday just as we were recording the previous episode. Today, Jeff and Seymour discuss Moore's legacy, the past and future of Moore's Law, and how advancements in microchips have been the foundation of deep learning for more than a decade. Links: NY Times obituary for Gordon Moore and a remembrance …

Jeff and Seymour debate the significance of the generative AI revolution relative to the invention of the WIMP interface, the web, and even the Industrial and Agricultural Revolutions. Prometheus refers to the humans learning how to control fire; is gen AI bigger than that?! Articles referenced: Bill Gates "The Age of AI Has Begun" Thomas Friedman …

Jeff and Seymour start with another major week of news, including GPT-4, Microsoft and Google adding generative AI to their office suites, and LLaMA breaking out into the wild and onto Raspbery Pi and smartphones. Simon Willison's 3-day history of LLaMA developments this past weekend. Potentially bigger news than the dramatic collapse of Silicon Va…

Jeff and Seymour dig further into image generators like Midjourney, DALL-E, and Stable Diffusion. What is the role of the visual artist as generative AI tools continue to evolve? How might it replicate the relationship between a great writer and a trusted magazine editor? Additional links: Adam Gopnik's piece on DALL-E 2 in a recent issue of The Ne…

Jeff and Seymour discuss the launch of a new marketing company using generative AI called Typeface. This leads to a conversation about copyright consent, compensation, and credit. We discuss how the history of photography, Napster, and Paul Cézanne's The Card Players might help us understand the future of image generators like DALL-E, Midjourney, a…

Jeff and Seymour use stories and analogies to explain the two main approaches to AI: Bottom-Up and Top-Down. The recent wave of AI success is mostly based on the bottom up path which includes machine learning, neural networks, and deep learning. Related links: The case of the construction worker with a nail in his boot Murray Shanahan's excellent D…

Jeff and Seymour discuss the unexpected impact of ChatGPT and how Bing Chat may not be ready for prime time. Did OpenAI unintentionally open Pandora's Box because they were worried someone else would beat them to it? Plus some reassurances that Sydney is definitely not sentient or emotional. Kevin Roose's article in The New York Times and transcrip…

Jeff and Seymour kick off the podcast with an exploration of ChatGPT. What is it and how might it impact our careers and lives? They use ChatGPT and large language models (LLMs) as an entry point to the larger topic of generative AI. Questions and comments? Talk to us.By Jeff Hwang and Seymour Duncker