AI Is Going Mainstream With 'HER' Assistants

Hi everyone,

This is Lore, the techno-optimist newsletter. 

Every week, I share 5 interesting things, blending insights from Life, Techno-optimism, and Business. From personal growth and inspiration for the future to groundbreaking AI advancements and startup strategies, I offer my perspective to help you stay informed and ahead of the curve.

Thank you for being a part of 19,000 techno-optimist readers and growing. Feel free to forward this to your friends if you feel the urge. 🙏

P.S. Check out the latest episode of The Next Wave. In this episode, we talked about how OpenAI’s SORA changes the future of filmmaking. Watch it here!

1) OpenAI & Google Accelerate

This week, OpenAI and Google's AI events made one thing clear: they’re fiercely competing to be the first to mainstream AI, and they plan to do it with AI Assistants.

Basically, they want to create Samantha from HER.

Unlike previous events, there was much less talk about “alignment” and a lot more mind-blowing real-world demos.

OpenAI stole the show by releasing GPT-4o, their new multi-modal model that is incredibly fast and sounds like Samantha from HER. It will soon be available to all users, not just paid users. In my opinion, this was the biggest news of the week.

But Google released some cool stuff, too. Especially Project Astra, their attempt at creating an AI Assistant. As usual, tho, most of what Google showed is hidden behind waitlists, so who knows when we’ll be able to use it.

In a recent episode of The Next Wave, I predicted that voice would be the main way we interact with AI in a year. It looks like it's coming true even sooner than expected.

Now, with Apple rumored to be closing a deal with OpenAI, we will likely see major upgrades to Siri soon.

All of this combined will lead to a major awakening, with regular people realizing how amazing AI is.

Currently, most people have Siri and Alexa, which are 50 IQs at best and are based on technology over 10 years old.

The average person thinks AI is synonymous with ChatGPT, and when they say ChatGPT, they mean free GPT-3.5, which, compared to the latest models, is pretty bad.

So now you’re about to have over 100M ChatGPT users get access to a model better than GPT-4, with a slick voice interface that is much easier to use than typing.

Plus, the fact that GPT-4o will soon be available to free users tells me we will probably get GPT-5 sometime in the next few months.

As I predicted, the new OpenAI model is the mysterious GPT2 model we discussed last week. My best guess is that it is built on a fundamentally superior architecture to GPT-4. It’s probably doing more with less training data and at a lower cost, so they can give it away for free.

This sets the stage for GPT-5 to be incredible. If they scale that model with massive amounts of data and the leaks about Q* being a superior logic model connected to an LLM are true, GPT-5 will be beyond epic. It’s going to change the world.

If I were you, I’d be doing what I’m doing: preparing yourself and your business for GPT-5. Start imagining what the world will look like with something like the GPT-4o demos, but 5-10x smarter in 2-6 months, with extensive memory and access to your files. Because that’s probably where we’re heading.

And now, with Ilya Sutskever and Jan Leike, the two leading “super alignment” at OpenAI, having resigned today, it looks like the new OpenAI is focused on one thing: acceleration to AGI.

Plan accordingly.

(I skipped a lot of details about the releases. If you want to learn more, you can see examples of OpenAI’s new GPT-4o in this tweet thread I made that got over 5.5M views. You can also learn about Google’s announcements with this video by my co-host Matt Wolfe.)

2) The Next Wave Goes To Hollywood

In this week’s episode of The Next Wave, Matt Wolfe and I talked about OpenAI’s SORA and how it will change the future of Hollywood.

I also briefly mention that Lore.com started as a “crypto-fueled movie studio” concept in partnership with my friend Barrie Osborne, the Oscar-winning producer of "The Lord of the Rings" and "The Matrix." I met Barrie through a VC friend, and then we spent over a year working together trying to use crypto to fund a slate of 5 films. Then COVID-19 happened.

I hope you’ll watch the episode.

If you’re bored, feel free to check out an archive of the old Lore website.

And, it would help if you subscribed to The Next Wave on YouTube, Apple, and Spotify. That’d make HubSpot and me very happy. And if you like, leave a comment or review. Unless it’s negative, then DM that to me. 😉 

3) Major Case For Techno-Optimism: Technology Reduces Poverty

I found this fantastic tweet from Christian Keil, the VP of Astranis (a Starlink competitor), and it blew my mind!

Check out this graph showing the massive drop in extreme poverty.

We're talking about 100,000 fewer people per day living in extreme poverty. That’s way more than I would have guessed.

And a huge part of this progress is thanks to new technologies that create opportunities and boost productivity.

This is one of the big reasons I’m a techno-optimist. It’s also a big reason I feel we must resist everyone rushing to regulate AI. The people in government barely understand tech and don’t think about the second—and third-order effects.

When did technology become a bad word? We need to change that.

Humans are technology-creating beings.

Oh, and by the way, Christian recently launched a YouTube channel called First Principles. He’s got some great videos introducing deep-tech startups. Go check it out and give him some love!

4) The Future of Marketing & Growth With AI Translations

Today, Andrew Chen, the guy who basically invented growth hacking, posted this question on X about how AI will disrupt marketing and product growth.

A big obvious thing is AI translations.

And not just for text. We’re soon going to be able to generate something one time and then have it created in all languages, in multiple formats. Text, video, and audio will all be possible within a year.

Maybe even sooner, now that OpenAI and Google seem to be accelerating.

Imagine the possibilities. Marketing campaigns and content creation can soon reach a global audience without language barriers. This will open up new markets and customer bases, making it easier than ever to scale businesses internationally.

If you’re in business, take this seriously. It’s a huge opportunity that most people aren’t thinking enough about. Plan ahead and take action.

That reminds me that I need to get HubSpot to translate The Next Wave into Japanese and every other language…

5) Things I’m Reading Or Watching

• ChatGPT’s Amazing New Model Feels Human (and it's Free) - My podcast co-host Matt Wolfe has a great video about the new GPT-4o model from OpenAI.

• In conversation with Sam Altman - Enjoyed this Logan Bartlett Show episode with Sam. It was his first interview since GPT-4o was released.

• The Separation of Mind and State - Reading this article by crypto innovator Erik Voorhees about his private permissionless AI system.

That’s all for today.

Let’s keep accelerating together!

-Nathan Lands