Christopher Penn on open-source AI models: “Fine-tuning a model isn’t nearly as costly as building the model in the first place. If entrepreneurs and engineers wanted a custom model for a specific task, it’s far easier to fine tune an existing model, as long as the source model is high enough quality. And that’s what LLaMa is – a very high quality starting point for a lot of innovation that Facebook released to the world. Think of LLaMa like this: let’s pretend that generative AI is like pizza. Up until now, you had to order pizza delivery from OpenAI, right? Through ChatGPT and their APIs, they were the only game in town. You might have thought about making your own pizza from scratch, but for a variety of reasons – time, money, talent – you just didn’t. Along comes Facebook and LLaMa, which is like one of those pre-baked pizza kits. Now all you have to do is customize the very nice pre-made pizza with the toppings you want, but you don’t have to go through all the work of making the pizza from scratch.”
Shane Parrish: “When we know a lot about a topic, it can be difficult to write about it in a way that makes sense to the layperson. To improve writing, Cognitive psychologist Steven Pinker suggests several strategies: 1) Use concrete nouns and refer to tangible things instead of abstractions. 2) Assume that readers know less about the topic than you do, but are still intelligent and sophisticated. 3) Have someone from the intended audience read your work and provide feedback. 4) Allow time between writing and editing, so you can approach your own work with fresh eyes.”
RMI: “The energy transition is a technology revolution. At the heart of the energy transition lies the fact that renewable technologies are far superior to fossil fuels. The energy transition is a shift from a concentrated, expensive, polluting commodity-based system with no learning curve, to an efficient, manufactured, technology-driven system that offers continuously falling costs and is available everywhere. It is moving from heavy, fiery molecules to light, obedient electrons; from hunting fossil fuels to farming the sun. Like past technology shifts, it is a transformation, not merely a substitution. As RethinkX notes, this is not a brown caterpillar to a green caterpillar, but rather a caterpillar to a butterfly, which means different economics, geographies, winners, and energy carriers. Just like past technology shifts, the falling costs of the new render the old obsolete…When it comes to the renewables revolution, linear is the default perception, but exponential is the default reality. The growth of the key new energy technologies is exponential.”
Emergence Capital: “Founders building in generative AI today can take many paths, but I see two ways forward to build a lasting, defensible business. First understand your and your team’s core strength, then, choose one of these options: 1. Major in generative AI’s emerging technical capabilities and hunt for a function or vertical problem that benefits from your insights. Or… 2. Major in deep domain expertise and market relationships, and form a team to add in the technical knowledge. Given the broad accessibility of AI capabilities, both of these strategies can lead to large opportunities for startups…In the age of generative AI, one lesson remains true: the tighter your context and industry, the wiser your model and product.”
