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Sam Altman’s ‘Code Red’
It's tough being Sam Altman since November 18.
That's the day Google launched Gemini 3. Since then,
And DeepSeek with Huawei and other Chinese firms.
Unless you are in a technical field, “good” AI, readily available, and cheap is all most people are going to want or need for now. Something in between Alexa and Captain Kirk’s “computer” on the old Star Trek series:
Kirk: “Computer, find me a four-star Mexican restaurant within five-parsecs that has chicken mole on their menu.”
Computer: “Working . . . Maria’s has a 4.5 star rating, is located two-parsecs from your current location, and lists chicken mole as one of their house specialties . . . would you like directions?”
Kirk: “Plug the coordinates into the ship’s guidance system, and make us a dinner reservation for 430 crew members. Mr. Sulu, please engage the warp-drive.”
If you can do that with anything less than Nvidia’s newest chips, and figure out a way to charge something for it besides, you are half-way home.
Agreed. I think they’re making a mistake dropping the Assistant as a priority. I’m so sick of trying to talk to my Google Home w/ all the agents that exist on a device. It’s slow, not as comprehensive and it needs to be concise and conversational, not throw out entire Wiki pages worth of info. Whoever can lead w/ a simple product, Google w/ a refresh or Apple w/ actual innovation, in the home and car will crush that segment. I envisioned that OpenAI and Ives would be doing something like this with the secret product launch they were teasing.
“Alexa, engage the warp-drive.”
“enraged wolf dice added to shopping cart”
That’s funny!
Shootout at the AI Corral. In the end, how many seats will there be at the AI table. Still no killer apps beyond game play, protein mapping and super search. The current state of AI is still ‘ask me no questions and I’ll tell you no lies’. Musk’s GROK is hiding in the closet, wonder if he’ll use the stolen data for the entire US citizenship courtesy of DOGE. Got to be worth hundreds of billions at least.
None of what I write changes the thesis around the companies creating AI, whether or not that is in a bubble, or who will come out on top (probably companies we haven’t even heard of yet but who figure out how to use AI to create new markets and big moats, very much like what happened after the dot com boom busted and when mobile devices became smart phones).
But, I will say that I had a couple of recent AI epiphanies.
One, I finally figured out that I could ask it do some of the noodling around research that I tend to enjoy doing. This one was looking at finding new locations based on some criteria where I could expand my little booze empire. I had a couple of locations in mind, but wanted to see if AI could speed up that process.
Wow! It came back with a bunch of quality answers in moments, with good details and descriptions. Using search and reading through countless websites to find all of that info would have taken me a couple of weeks (nights and weekends) to accomplish. And it found my couple of already-known locations. It was impressive.
So then I saw a podcast (that I’ve listened to before) post an episode about how AI can transform business thinking by learning how to use it as a thought partner, and how to write prompts to do that. And especially to get past using AI just as ‘search on steroids.’ The guest wrote a book, and I won’t promote him here as I’m sure there’s already other good ones out there, though I did order it and will devour it this coming weekend. I’ve also listened to a bunch of podcast episodes by the author, and as much as they are commercials for his book, I am almost astounded by how learning to use this as a tool is a real game changer. He is focused on the C-Suites of mid market to enterprise level firms and teaching them to leverage AI as a thought partner for strategy, big picture thinking, transformation, and even cost reduction to a level that I think hasn’t been this easy before, ever.
I think it will increase the digital divide in horrible leaps, and I think everyone who wants to stay competitive needs to start learning how this tool is already being used in C-suites around the world. I also think it needs to be brought to Main Street to give them (us, me) a fighting chance. But for the first time, I see how this new technology is here to stay and will create an entirely new set of circumstances about how business gets done.
Would you mind sharing the guest authors name?
On a much smaller comparison I searched for how to check a car battery with a multimeter (cold weather causes them to act up) AI gave a very satisfactory answer, this illustrates John3D’s point also.
Geoff Woods, The A Driven Leader is his book and podcast
Your happy experience does little to answer the fundamental question = how will AI ever pay for itself? If you cannot fire a couple of people thanks to its efficacy at search, how much will you be willing to pay every month for this time saving tool?
I wonder if you would be better served by a pay per use model similar to the model Salesforce was toying with? Then you would not have to pay for monthly access to something you might only occasionally use.
You’re correct, there, on the debt. The whole thing can certainly run into some walls, but I think much like the dot com crash, winners with durability emerge from that. But also, I think understanding the power in this new tool will lead more and more to daily use for everyone (have you been away from the internet in the past 5 years?)
I haven’t tried much of this out yet, it’s all new to me. But I’m really eager to build an AI “advisory board” of varying personalities and expertise to advise me on business decisions. I’ve heard some examples and I’m clearly a bit astounded. I’ll report back if anything insightful develops!
Booze empire?
A couple of little stores, but adding a third soon. In NJ, so wine, beer & spirits, unlike NY.