Luis (and @pietergaricano) are correct below, and @paulkrugman is much too sanguine about Europe's challenges.
As it happens, the same wealth point that Luis mentions also struck me when I traveled to Nashville a few weeks ago.
BREAKING: New poll shows @DanielLurie is the most popular American mayor.
Key findings:
- 74% of SF voters approve of him
- Majorities support his handling of public safety, downtown revitalization, neighborhood cleanliness
- He earns support from across the political spectrum
I think there's a slow, growing realization that "the model will fix it all, and if not the next one will, so all you can do is to wait, there's no way to compete" is bullshit.
It seems obvious to me that there are, and will continue to be, many opportunities in building companies that can leverage ("scaffold") AI models to address all sorts of problems in sectors and contexts that they know best.
This is efficient even in the face of growing capabilities, for the same reason as it remains more cost effective for a model to call on a calculator rather than to try to resolve the problem internally.
Some reasons for this are proprietary data flows, regulatory needs, deep integration with crusty legacy systems, customer trust earned over time, and tacit knowledge. So to be clear this is not a story about thin wrapper around an API - shallow/fake specialization gets eaten ofc.
People focus on labs because that's sexy, and to be clear they'll continue to be, and I don't think you'll see thousands of companies investing that kind of capex; but I think a big part of the story (and value creation) will look like the nameless businesses that never get discussed on social media, by journalists or commentators.
This is great news for entrepreneurship and shaking up incumbents, and bad news if your view of the world is "the eye of Sauron will simply ingest everything, all that is left is the zero sum fight for power and escaping the permanent underclass".
On the other hand I expect lots of bubbly dynamics and failing businesses and questionable commercial ventures (always has been etc), partly because the territory is still so uncertain that many can still make a quick buck while VCs are in (temporary) Opus psychosis mode. But this too shall pass.
@erfmufn So sorry for what you are going through but so happy to hear of the progress you have made. Thank you for all the joy you have brought me on here and YouTube
If Gemma 4 comes out 5 years ago, the entire world thinks itβs AGI
Today you can run it locally for free on a Mac Mini
God handed us literal magic and completely democratized it
Donβt take this for granted
This is roughly what my mind is doing. Just swapped out this free local model for a paid cloud one on a personal project and it blew my mind. Congratulations Google
Wait a sec - Google's new gemma-4-E4B is running at 400 tokens per second on my Macbook m5, while Claude Code does 90/tks? And it's free? Same-ish quality as ChatGPT 5.2 I was using last month? π€― #gemma#codex#claudecode
Almost every AI power user I know is MORE stressed and busier after using AI, not less
What people thought AI would do: 10x productivity so that we can finish work earlier & relax more
What itβs actually doing: 10x productivity so that we end up with 20x more things to do cos of the sheer possibilities
Toto Wolff on seeing Kimi Antonelli, George Russell, Lewis Hamilton, and Peter Bonnington on the podium at the Chinese Grand Prix:
"You know, looking at the podium with the three of them up there and, and Bono, the race engineer of Lewis and Kimi, that's probably one of the best moments I've had in Formula 1, to be honest."
[via F1TV]
#F1 #ChineseGP