Step aside crypto, Web3 and the metaverse. Generative A.I. is being touted as tech's next big thing.
So what is generative A.I.?
The New York Times article A Coming-Out Party for Generative A.I., Silicon Valley's New Craze defines it as:
"... the wonky umbrella term for A.I. that doesn't just analyze existing data but creates new text, images, videos, code snippets and more."
The venerable venture capital firm Sequoia's excellent white paper Generative A.I.: A Creative New World describes it as:
"Up until recently, machines had no chance of competing with humans at creative work—they were relegated to analysis and rote cognitive labor. But machines are just starting to get good at creating sensical and beautiful things. This new category is called "Generative A.I.," meaning the machine is generating something new rather than analyzing something that already exists."
Image creation is the generative A.I. application that's getting the most attention.
The New York Times article covers the startup Stability AI. which recently raised $100 million.
They built Stable Diffusion, a popular open-source image generator - which is software that turns text prompts into images. The image below was developed using Stable Diffusion.
The picture is derivative, but we think it's quite interesting.
But generative A.I. is not just for art and images.
According to Sequoia, generative A.I.'s top application areas include writing code, copywriting, gaming, media/advertising, design, and social media.
Sequoia also says that "generative A.I. has the potential to generate trillions of dollars of economic value."
Our firm uses machine learning tools and a few other types of A.I. in our work. But we haven't worked with generative A.I.
However, we're planning to start by becoming a user of one of the generative A.I. text creators - likely Jasper.
We'll let you know how it goes. And maybe with a post written by a generative A.I.
