EP 166: AI Summit NYC Recap - 5 things that stood out (and some scary things.)

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I spent three days with some of the brightest minds in artificial intelligence. Dozens and actually hundreds of people that I talked to. And there was five things that really stood out. So I spoke at the AI Summit in New York City, one of the largest AI summits in the world. And today I'm going to share with you five things that stood out and some pretty scary things, actually. So welcome. If you're new here, my name is Jordan Wilson. I'm the host and this is Everyday AI. Everyday AI is a daily live stream podcast and free daily newsletter helping everyday people like me, like you, learn and leverage generative AI. It's so hard to keep up. There's. There's literally more AI news every single day than one person can read. There's always new tools, tips, techniques. So that's, that's what we talk about here on the Everyday AI Show. So a lot of times I have a guest, but today it's just me and I'm going to be sharing about my own experience. So we're going to get to that in a second. If you are joining us live. Thank you. Thank you to everyone joining us. It's going to be a fun show, I think. So before we get into that, let's first talk about what is going on in the world of AI news. So today there is more OpenAI news than you can shake a stick at. So we're gonna just go over some of the highlights. So OpenAI has announced the results of its Super Alignment Teams research, which focuses on preventing a potentially dangerous super intelligence from going rogue. All right, not just that, but they've also announced a $10 million funding initiative to support research on super intelligence. Super Alignment, sorry. Which shows OpenAI's commitment to this issue. There's more. OpenAI also announced the launch of its second cohort for the Converge program, with selected startups receiving a one million dollar equity investment and access to various resources and events. So this program is open to founders from different backgrounds and experience levels, with an emphasis on building with AI. Hey, that could be so many of you out there. I get messages all the time from, you know, very smart AI startup founders. So maybe that's you. So go check that out. We'll finish. It'll be in the newsletter. And that's literally not all. There's one more big thing is everyone's been, you know, sharing doctored screenshots online and talking about GPT 4.5. So it got so bad with the rumors that OpenAI CEO Sam Altman actually shot them down yesterday with this new. All this new rumors on GPT 4.5 and essentially just said, nah. So, yeah, the screenshots look faked, by the way. And also it's so easy to go on someone's website and just change something and take a screenshot. Right. All right, so there's other news in today's newsletter as well. So a couple things. So go to your everyday AI dot com. Sign up for that free daily newsletter. But some other things we're going to be covering is Russian President Vladimir Putin confronted his AI double during a live call in. Yeah, that's real. Intel is releasing a new GPU chip called Gaudi 3. And it's focused on generative AI. And in place to compete with Nvidia and AMD chips, Google's new model had a breakthrough. It discovered new knowledge. Yes. New knowledge. People say AI can't discover new knowledge. Well, yeah, it can. Google just did it. And always a lot more. So if you haven't already, go to your everyday AI dot com, Sign up for the free daily newsletter. It's written by humans. I'm a human, I write it. So I'm not gonna say, ah, yeah, I'm gonna say it. So many of the other newsletters out there, there's dozens, probably hundreds of newsletters that cover AI. They're all kind of the same, if I'm being honest. They all use AI to summarize news, summarize tools. That's not our take. Our take is every single day, we give you a unique and in depth perspective, written by a human on something that is impacting us all. And, and the hope is that you can read it. You know, maybe not every day, but maybe two, three, four times a week, and you can use it to grow your career. So with that, yeah, I don't know. How did you miss the AI Summit in New York City? It's a good question, Bob. It was good, you know, and Megan's joining us from Central New York. All right, so let's, let's get into. Well, before that, I actually have a question for y'. All. I have a question for our live audience. And if you're joining on the podcast, you can check your show notes. As always, there's always related episodes, but there's also an email and there's my LinkedIn URL. So let me know. Let me know what you want to hear. Okay. Because here's the thing. In the US we're going to have a, probably like a, like a lame duck session, essentially a week of work in the holidays between, you know, Christmas and New Year's that a lot of people just probably aren't going to be working. Here's the thing, we're still going to be sending out a newsletter each day, but I want to know. I think our team's gonna try to relax a little bit, but we're still going to put out a daily podcast and a newsletter, but it's probably going to be a little less intensive than normal, kind of a scaled back version. But what do you want to hear? What do you want to hear? So let me know and you can, even if you're joining us live, type in 1, 2, 3 or 4. But you could just hear me have a quick conversation about the AI news of the day. So type 1 if you want that or reply 1 if you're listening on the podcast. 2. We could replay some of our best episodes. We've had literally more than 160 episodes. I could pick, you know, four of my favorites. I think there's four days there, the 26th through the 29th, I could replay chat GPT episodes. That's number three. So let me know if that's something you might want to hear. We've had a lot of Chat GPT episodes and I think there's four really good ones, even some from a while ago that you might have missed. Or I could replay some hot take episodes, some of those episodes where I just come in and accidentally on purpose burn, burn something. Burn a bridge, burn something to the ground. So let me know, let me know. It looks like a lot of people, a lot of people just want me to read the news. All right. Interesting human insights. That's why you follow the channel. All right, let's, enough of that. But let's, let's talk about the AI summit. Let's talk about some things that I learned. So I was a featured speaker at this AI summit. Thousands of people in attendance at Javits Center, I think that's what it's called, Javits center in New York City. So many people, I was shocked. But it was really cool to speak there. I spoke on, you can guess it, Chat GPT, how to make less robotic AI or how to make AI sound less robotic in chatgpt. So essentially creating more human sounding content with chatgpt. So really cool to speak there. I've, I've been fortunate enough to speak about Chat GPT to Thousands of people to thousands of you all listening on the channel as well. So thank you for that. So it was a really cool experience, you know, for, for all of you people that say I'm an AI, there's a, a photo of me actually at the summit there and you know, well, well attended, right. And I was lucky enough to not only just be able to speak, you know, at this summit to, to a large group, but I was also able to hear other people speak. Booths, right? Going, going around which was really cool, you know, being, being able to go around and talk to. There's probably close to a hundred different companies exhibiting there. So you know, the big name companies that everyone knows, you know, such as your, your IBMs, then you have your really AI powerhouses right in the house like UiPath, so many, you know, kind of name brand AI companies and, and then some smaller startups too, which, which was really cool to see. But let's go ahead and share kind of five big takeaways and you know, so some things that stood out, but also some things that were maybe a little scary. Right? All right, number one, data gold rush. Right. This probably isn't a surprise, but I would say the overwhelming majority of exhibitors and speakers really had a heavy lean on data. Right. And again, nothing to be surprised there. However, one thing that I was really expecting heading into this summit was a lot more variety, not just of the speakers but also of the exhibitors. But I think that's also indicative, right, because where they're is supply, there is demand. I think that what that says about the state of generative AI is everyone is uncertain about their data. Right? Everyone wants to use generative AI, whether it's, you know, Google's Vortex Duet, Gemini, Microsoft's co pilot, OpenAI's, you know, enterprise version of chat, GPT, whatever it may be. I think you have so many large companies that are still trying to figure this out and that's why there was an abundance of companies and speeches specifically on data. Right. It was almost like especially the walking around kind of the exhibitor space. It seemed like every other or every third company was about data, right? Helping you try to, you know, scrub your data before putting it into a large language model. You know, different, different companies and startups helping change or turn you know, unstructured data into structured data. Right. Again, nothing new, but that's something that definitely, definitely stood out was just that the sheer amount of data work. And hey, for those of you joining us live, if you have any questions about what I saw or my Takes on anything. Get them in. This is, hey, when there's no guests, you all are the guest. So just FYI number two, the lack of people in their 20s, right? And this is one of those things, if I'm being honest, a little concerning. Are you still running in circles trying to figure out how to actually grow your business with AI? Maybe your company has been tinkering with large language models for a year or more, but can't really get traction to find ROI on Genai. Hey, this is Jordan Wilson, host of this very podcast. Companies like Adobe, Microsoft and Nvidia have partnered with us because they trust our expertise in educating the masses around generative AI to get ahead. And some of the most innovative companies in the country hire us to help with their AI strategy and to train hundreds of their employees on how to use Gen AI. So whether you're looking for ChatGPT training for thousands or just need help building your front end AI strategy, you can partner with us too. Just like some of the biggest companies in the world do. Go to your everydayai.com partner to get in contact with our team or you can just click on the partner section of our website. We'll help you stop running in those AI circles and help get your team ahead in building build a straight path to ROI on Gen AI. So let's even talk about my expectations heading in. I'm 38 years old, right? Most of you know my background but you know, I was in journalism for 8 years, spent about 10 years executive director of a non profit that turned into an activation agency for Nike and Jordan brand. Then I've had my own digital strategy company after, for now for almost five years. So that's my background, right? And all of my internal feelings and thoughts are, hey, this generative AI wave, this is going to be carried by younger people, right? College aged, fresh graduates, you know, people in their early to mid to late 20s, right? Like think of, you know, I hate using like web two, web three, whatever. But you know, the, the boom of web two was social media and the generation driving social media's explosion was younger people, right? People generally in their twenties or in many times, you know, their late teens. I was surprised. I was surprised, right? So my expectation going into this was I would be in the older group, right? You know, obviously I was dead wrong on that one, but I would say this, I would say there was more people in their 50s than in their 20s. Let me repeat that. One of the largest AI conferences in the world where people go to learn, you know, it's Obviously a seismic shift in the, in the workplace right now in people's careers and what the future of work means. With that in mind, my assumption going in was to see a lot more, a lot of younger people. Right. And obviously maybe it's one of those things where companies maybe send their, you know, their management, their directors. So that could have something to do with it. But regardless, I was actually surprised that there was overwhelmingly more people that were seemingly in their 50s than seemingly in their 20s. Right. And that's a little concerning to me. That's honestly a little concerning to me because I feel that the younger generation, for whatever reason, Right. And yes, this isn't old, old man Jordan on his porch yelling at the kids, but I don't think that, you know, college age kids, kids, college age students, people in their 20s are really adapting to generative AI. The rate at which I thought they might be, the rate at which they all, you know, every single, you know, college student wants to, you know, work in social media. Or do they say they're a social media expert or strategist. Right. Like I've had interns off and on. I've been managing interns off and on for 15, 16 years. And it seems like for 15, 16 years, so many people coming out of school, right. They want to have, they want to do something in social media. So I was shocked at that. I was shocked at that. Yeah. Like what Cecilia says it should, it should be concerning. I agree, I agree. Well, I'm, I'm glad that Tara's 15 year old is watching everyday AI with her. So hold it down. Yeah, I'm not Megan. Yeah, if you're 38, you're not old. Sometimes I feel old. Sometimes I feel I'm 38 going on 83. All right, so that's, that's point number two, a lack of people in their 20s, which I was surprised about. Number three, just tons of carbon copies. Tons of carbon copies. So this was more on the exhibitor side. And again, if you haven't been to an AI conference before, this is, you know, the biggest one I've been to. You know, you have kind of a who's who, right? So you have your, your, your legacy tech companies, you have your kind of Internet companies, you have your kind of AI companies, right? So it's literally a who's who's list of AI, right? You have companies with trillion dollar market caps, you have companies generating hundreds of millions of rent in revenue and then you have companies that aren't even, you know, cash flow positive yet. Right. Like you have companies that are brand new, fresh, and just looking for their first customers. But regardless, I saw tons of carbon copies. A lot of companies just trying to do the same thing. So, yeah, a lot of that. Going back to point number one, focus on data. Another big one that I saw, a lot of carbon copies, copy and paste, like the McMansions in the suburbs, was people building models essentially to help you bring in multiple large language models into your workplace environment. So I was actually surprised that. And maybe this is me following gen AI companies a little too closely, but there was only one company that I saw there that I was like, huh, that's kind of creative. Or, huh, that's fairly unique. I believe it was a company called Pal. Pal. Let me. Let me look that up here. But yeah, I mean, I was surprised, right? I was surprised. It just seemed like so many of the specifically exhibitors were, you know, could be placed in just like two to three buckets, right? When you think of a hundred different companies, the fact that the overwhelming majority of them were all chasing after the same thing tells me a couple things. One, there's obviously a market there, but number two, not. Not all these companies are going to make it, right? So what that means for you, the everyday person, and I tell people this all the time, you have to be careful with. With who you place your operations in, right. In the startup world or the tech world, you always say, like, what's your moat? Right? What is that thing that is guarding your castle that other people are going to fall in and they're not going to be able to take your customers or slip the rug out from under you? And it seems like a lot of these companies didn't have a moat, right? It just seemed like everyone's kind of looking at the success of a few and trying to duplicate their success and not really coming up with anything unique. I know that's. I know that's kind of harsh. Tara, what kind of swag do they have on their tables? Good question. I was really trying not to become a swag collector. Got some socks from Brave. Brave, the browser, and talked to the. The two gentlemen there that create the Braves AI chat. That was one. You know what? That was it. I think I got like two little pieces of swag. Nothing crazy. Nothing crazy. All right, let's keep it going. Number four in this one. You know, I have. I've talked about some things that I think are scary, but here's one that's maybe a little reassuring. No one has it figured out. No one. No one has it figured out? You know, even when I started the Everyday AI podcast about, I don't know what it's been now, six months ago, I was like, man, I'm so late. I'm so late. I should have started this a year ago. But then I come to find out that more and more I have people. You know, it's like I literally got a message from, you know, someone at Microsoft yesterday and they're like, this is amazing, right, what you're doing. And so this again, this AI summit was also a good reminder that no one has it figured out, right? So being able to listen to some speeches from some big companies again, you know, you had your big consulting companies there, your ey, your Boston Consulting group, you know, like I said, your, your big name tech brands, most of them were there or had speakers there and even looking at the contents and, you know, being able to listen in on some speeches, I was like, huh, no one has it figured out yet, literally, you know, which. Which was surprising. You know, that was also surprising. I don't think it's concerning. But that also, if you're listening, right? If you're listening and maybe you've been thinking about going all in on generative AI or being that leader in your organization that and you know, be the first to help implement a large language model or something like that. Maybe you're thinking, God's too late. Or maybe you're thinking like, you know, oh, this I'm gonna seem like, you know, I don't know enough. Here's the reality. There's very few people, very few companies that have it all figured out. Very few, right? Even the content of some presentations that I went to and I was expecting like, oh, we're gonna get some answers here, it was just more questions, right? General guidelines, you know, the same big bucket categories, but it's just like, ah, you know, we just slapped some, some, some study numbers, you know, here's some statistics, but it's still the big pieces that no one yet has figured out. No one has generative AI implementation figured out top to bottom. I do think that's going to be the story of 2024. Victoria says there were a lot of socks. Yeah, there were a lot of socks there. All right, let's get to number five. I'm gonna try to get to your questions. If I didn't just drop it in again, We're gonna have to end this with a hot take. I gotta take a sip of coffee before I get on this one. Number five, lack of general knowledge. This isn't a shot. This isn't a shot at anyone, right? But I was extremely taken aback by this, right. I'm not going to name names because that would be rude and no one would talk to me ever again. But I will say this. I looked up, you know, There was about 10 conversations I had where I was left scratching my head and I was like, there's no way that just happened. And again, like, I'm not just talking to, you know, SDRs, right? People who are selling software who just have like one focus. I'm having conversations with VPs of marketing, co founders, etc. Right. And yes, they're super smart in their one area, right. But a lot of times I was shocked, right? So someone might be telling me about their product and I would say, oh, is this similar to how, you know, Microsoft Copilot, you know, has their, you know, knowledge graph inside of, you know, it's, it's model and they're like, oh, I don't know anything about Microsoft Copilot. And I'm like, interesting. You know, you're a ten plus billion dollar company, right? I had so many conversations like that, right? So even, even other companies, again, these aren't small startups. These are all companies in the 10 billion to $100 billion range. And they're showing me a new feature and I'd say, oh, that's similar to, you know, this feature in mid journey and they say, oh, I'm not, not familiar with that. Or it's like, oh, so this, this can kind of automate what you can do with chat GPT plugins, right? Because I'm trying to understand this, right. I'm also trying to bring this knowledge back to you. And I was shocked at the level of. I won't say that, I'm not going to say that. I was shocked at just the overall lack of general knowledge. So yes, people that work at big companies, they obviously know their own product front to back. They not only don't know their competitors, but a lot of them didn't even know name brands out there, right? You're not saying people don't know ChatGPT, but they didn't know of ChatGPT functionalities or they didn't know of Microsoft's functionalities or they didn't know of, you know, Gemini, right? Gemini was released when I was out there and people are like, what's Gemini? It's like, okay, so no one out here follows what's going on in the world of generative AI. Again, y', all, I know I'm a little different because I, I talk about it every day. Right. But I was shocked. I was a little shock and a little surprised. Yeah. Mike, Hot take. Had to get one in. Had to get one in. Let me, I don't, I don't want this to turn into one of those, you know, 40 minutes rants, but let me try to get to a couple of the questions. So Brian asking, could the lack of 20 somethings be due to the learning curve? Maybe it could be. Right. But if I'm telling, like if I'm telling you the truth, Gen AI, right. Is not hard. It's not terribly difficult. I don't think there's a huge learning curve. Right. And this could, this could. Brian, go back to, you know, and I've ranted on this before how the higher education system, especially here in the US has, has pushed off Gen AI and Chat GBT and all these models for so long. So, you know, it could be that, you know, students who have graduated in the last two years maybe just aren't interested because they didn't learn anything. Right. But I actually don't think that there's, there's a huge learning curve. I don't. Narandra. Something to do with legal outlook and companies sending people closer to policy. Yeah, it could be, you know, I know that some companies keep things kind of close to the vest. So that could be Katie. What's going on, Katie? So Katie says the event person in me wonders if the conference model appears to younger, appeals to younger generations, can they afford it? Yeah, that's a good point. Yeah. Like I said, maybe it is. You know, obviously a lot of companies are paying the bill and conferences aren't cheap. So yeah, it could be that they're sending their more senior employees. But I was just shocked. Right, like, like yogasha is saying here saying college students are worried about using Chat GBT because professors are discouraging them, which is interesting. Yogesh. Hey, I know I'm pretty sure you, you, you teach there or you teach Yogesh, but former guests on our show as well. I love when we get former guests in the comments, but I'm, I'm perplexed by that if I'm, if I'm telling you the truth, right? Not to go off on a side rant, but this is like college professors telling students not to use the Internet. Sounds wild. Sounds like this is a college policy problem. Right? Douglas? Douglas, I love this. So Douglas saying I partner with large enterprise and have noticed when on their Internet that they have many AI platforms blocked still. Yeah, yeah. Strange, Strange, right? All right, so quick recap, y'. All, Quick recap. The five things that stood out to me. Number one, data gold rush. Number two, just lack of people in the younger generation at this conference. Number three, just tons of carbon copies. Didn't see a lot, like a lot of originality or creativity, especially in the exhibitors there. Number four, no one has it figured out. So don't worry if you feel you don't have it figured out. Seems like no one does. Number five. And just a lack of general knowledge. So many very smart, bright people who are specialists who just didn't know some of the basics about Gen AI. All right, that's it, y'. All. Thank you for joining us. If you haven't already. Why? Why, why haven't you subscribed to the newsletter? Go do that if you're listening on the podcast. It's an essential guide, right? We spend so much time just taking all of the mystery out of Gen AI and telling you, here's how to use it to grow your company, grow your career. All right, thank you. We'll see you back next week and every day for more Everyday AI. Thanks, y'. All.

And that's a wrap for today's edition of Everyday AI. Thanks for joining us. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and leave us a rating. It helps keep us going for a little more AI magic. Visit your everydayai.com and sign up to our daily newsletter so you don't get left behind. Go break some barriers and we'll see you next time.