2. Letter x Dog x ChatGPT
Week 3/52 of 2023. "The very first date".
As promised, here we are on what I would call “the very first date” with this newsletter.
It is Monday, 6.30 AM and I am putting the finishing touches to this week’s episode. The original plan was to share it over the weekend. SPOILER ALERT, I failed!
I am still trying to understand how to put the pieces together, so comments are welcomed! (It is more a cry for help than anything else).
I have been thinking about the structure of the newsletter and, for the time being, I’ll try out a three-part newsletter. The first part will often have content taken from a tv series or a film, the second from a book, and the third from a business-related article or news. And, for those of you who will endure what’s to come, there will be a bonus at the end.
Letter
Those who know me, know that I am a tv-series-aficionado. This week I finished a new tv series called The Bear. It had been on my watch list for a while, and I finally managed to give it a go.
I would recommend it just for the main actor, Jeremy Allen White (whom you might know from the infamous Shameless). However, I liked the show overall, good actors, a good pace, and a not-so-predictable plot.
What really stood out for me, though, was the main characters’ struggle put on display by the director: even though to different extents and with different purposes, every character is trying to hold their shit together, to the best of their abilities. I have always had a soft spot for people holding their shit together, not because I am a sociopath (or am I?) but because it is something close to home for me.
What I wanted to share with you today refers to Episode 8, Season 1. Here, Camry opens a letter from his deceased brother. I was overly excited as I am a sucker for well-written letters. However, it wasn’t a letter at all, at least not a long one at it.
It made me think. When you have a really tight bond with someone, a brotherlike bond, it doesn’t take much to convey a message to that person. If I had to think what mine would be, I believe it would be something along the line of:
Love you man.
Take it easy.
Dog
I have been reading a book called Never Finished by David Goggins. You may have heard of him, or more likely seen him either on IG’s reels or Youtube’s shorts. While those contents may give you an idea of what he is all about, the book is the only way to really dig into that. A good starting point, also, is the Joe Rogan Podcast where he was invited to speak about his book.
One of the many passages that struck me is the following:
We all have that ferocity - that dog - inside us. It’s a natural response to provocation […]. [The dog] is always hungry, always looking for scraps of nourishment and finds them in competition, failure, and disrespect. […]. I passed over a lot of juicy scraps for years, but that motherfucker’s casual comment did not slide down my back. The dog was hungry again, and on that final stretch, I realized how much I missed the feeling of being obsessed, the buzz I get from draining the tank dry.
Have you ever met your dog inside? I believe that everyone has their own but they will discover it at different times in their lives. Truth is that, just like a vehicle, it has to be ignited to become alive. Then, it has to be fed to be kept alive.
I think mine snapped the first time during the first few months of boxing. In particular, I remember this dude who used to hit really hard during the supposed-to-be light sparring sessions. With him, they were everything but light. It took the dog a while to snap, but when it did, it felt like an out-of-body experience: everything was very fast and very slow at the same time. They had to separate us after a while. Good times!
That dog thrived during my boxing years. It had to otherwise I would have had my ass kicked way more times than I already did. Nowadays, while I do CrossFit it may have changed a bit but he is still there, be sure of that!
We still take disrespect as fuel, and we always will.
ChatGPT
In the world of buzzwords, you can’t turn anywhere without hearing about the revolutionary AI platform ChatGPT. I decided to delve into the matter as I recently read that Microsoft is planning to invest $10 billion in OpenAI (the product provider of ChatGPT).
Let’s tackle this in a productive manner. The source of what follows is this article from The New York Times.
What is ChatGPT?
It is an AI-based product, provided by OpenAI. It is the most conspicuous example of technology called generative artificial intelligence: that is, the term for a system that can generate text, images, sounds, and other media in response to short prompts.
What is the relationship between ChatGPT and Microsoft?
As soon as I saw the news, I asked myself: why would Microsoft spend so much money on this? As it turns out, Microsoft had already been investing in OpenAI since 2019. Indeed, it started with 1 billion dollars and continued with $2 billion dollars more in the following years. According to the article, the $3 billion dollars were used to pay for the enormous amount of computing power that OpenAI needed to build the chatbot. So, the initial question is all the more so compelling.
According to the article, these new generative A.I. technologies could reinvent everything from online search engines (like Google) to digital assistants (like Alexa). Therefore, Microsoft sees these technologies as a way of expanding and improving its already wide range of products for businesses, computer programmers and consumers, while boosting revenues across its Azure cloud computing services.
What’s ahead?
OpenAI is already working on an upgraded version of ChatGPT. The following picture represents the difference in the number of training parameters between the current and the upcoming version of ChatGPT.
Training parameters determine the size and flexibility of the model: roughly speaking, how creative it can be.
So what?
Microsoft is definitely gearing up to challenge the Big Tech competitors (like Google, Amazon, Apple) with a technological advantage the company has not possessed for more than two decades.
The Game of Thrones for the AI Westeros is slowly, but relentlessly taking shape, and it seems that Microsoft is the only house in Westeros to have a spitting-fire dragon on their side. We will see if the other houses have hidden aces up their sleeves to counter that.
Up next…
I plan to delve a bit more into the specifics of ChatGPT, focusing primarily on how Microsoft could use ChatGPT as leverage to enhance its already existing products.
*Bonuses - The nonchalance | New girl blooper | A bit of comedy
For now, that is all folks! See you next weekend.
Unfaithfully yours,
V