AI round-up: Week of February 10, 2025
Elon Musk offered to buy OpenAI for $97B. I put this on the same level as Rep. Earl Carter introducing a bill to buy Greenland and rename it Red, White and Blueland.
Moving on to this week’s round-up….
The Heavy Stuff
Story 1: Only gonna read one article this week? This is the one to read.
Sam Altman is back on his blog, talking about AGI and the changes that are to come. I’m not sure what makes me more uneasy – the technology he’s talking about or the passive, laid-back nature in which he’s stating it.
For example:
The world will not change all at once; it never does. Life will go on mostly the same in the short run, and people in 2025 will mostly spend their time in the same way they did in 2024. We will still fall in love, create families, get in fights online, hike in nature, etc.
But the future will be coming at us in a way that is impossible to ignore, and the long-term changes to our society and economy will be huge. We will find new things to do, new ways to be useful to each other, and new ways to compete, but they may not look very much like the jobs of today.
Oh, ok.
Story 2: Sam Altman announces GPT-5
Our first story really changes the way you may read this second one. GPT-5 is coming, and it’s going to be able to do … a lot. (Business Insider)
Story 3: Any story that starts with “I’m not an alarmist, but…” has my attention.
This isn’t as ‘doomy and gloomy’ as it sounds … but it is worth noting that we are at a point regarding the technology advancements that we can see what’s coming, and it would be irresponsible of us not to prepare. If this were anything else, every business would be much further down the path than it collectively is. We’re past the idea this is a fad, folks. Time to take control. (Conor Grennan, LinkedIn)
Story 4: Tech projected to spend over $300B on AI in 2025. (Financial Times)
(And that doesn’t even include the $97B to buy OpenAI…)
Story 5: AI’s impact is starting to be seen on IT jobs (WSJ)
Story 6: Your employees think you’re moving too slowly when it comes to AI adoption.
McKinsey & Company says so.
Do you consider yourself ‘dipping a toe’ or ‘in wait-and-see mode’? This report is for you.
Story 7: Want to know what millions of conversations on Claude mean for us?
You’re in luck. Anthropic has published an initial report on ‘millions of Claude conversations’, specifically what the conversations mean, what people are talking about with Claude and where we might be going.
The headline links to the Axios recap. But here is the full report from Anthropic.
And here is a summary/takeaway from Ethan Mollick (I’d start here.)
The not-so-heavy stuff
Story 1: Christie’s announces an AI-only art auction (TechCrunch)
Oh yeah? Well … good luck selling to AI. They don’t have hands, so they can’t even bid!!
Story 2: OpenAI did a Super Bowl ad! (The Verge)
Aaaaanddd … it was about as exciting as their rebrand.
Story 3: 5 sneaky ways hackers are using AI (PCWorld)
Minor point, but … they’re hackers. Isn’t everything they do ‘sneaky’?
Story 4: Lyft is going to use Anthropic’s Claude to handle customer complaints (engadget)
Big deal. Wake me when Claude can drive the car, too.
Story 5: Can an AI chatbot help you stop smoking? (Digital Trends)
I’m going to start smoking just so I can let you know. THAT’S how dedicated I am to this newsletter.
Story 6: Google is adding a watermark to images manipulated by ‘magic editor’ (The Verge)
Story 7: Tinder continues to lose users. Enter AI to help make the matches. (TechCrunch)
I’m going to lose a few of you, but one of my favorite and most underrated movies is Sneakers. In it, a computer genius sees through a dating hack that was used to infiltrate his company headquarters. He says, ‘Wait, a computer matched you … with him?’ I love that movie.
A few that don’t fit in either category
Story 1: Here are five ways to unlock hidden revenue with GenAI
A little basic but still worth a quick cross-check with your own program/strategy.
Story 2: A statement from Anthropic’s Dario Amodei on the Paris AI Action summit
Look, I want to avoid politics in this as much as I can. I’m not hiding from it – give me a call, and we can talk all you want. But here’s the deal – JD Vance said some things … and the rest of the world is thinking some things … and tech leads are worried about some things … and well, you should really read Amodei’s comments to understand how big of a fail this was. And just how serious the fallout will be.
Final Note
I hesitated to share this podcast with you, but if I’m being true to the mission of this newsletter … then I have no choice.
This is Prof G talking to the former Chief Business Owner of GoogleX, Mo Gawdat. It’s on the future of AI and is probably one of the most candid, calm discussions of what truly lies ahead for us. I spent some time chewing on this last weekend; first, I found the transcript and uploaded it to ChatGPT. Then I debated with ChatGPT over the likelihood of what they were discussing and how close to reality/future state they were.
While there was some interesting fallout from that discussion, there was nothing concluded that aggressively opposed the scenario they covered in this podcast.
Up to you if you listen, but know … it’s heavy and will leave you with a lot of questions, ideas and thoughts.
One question I asked ChatGPT was, ‘What can I do to prepare my business?’ and the answer was very encouraging and positive. There are things we can do to get ahead and stay there.
As I’ve said many times – open to discussing these when you’re ready.
Thanks for reading.
-Ben
As a reminder, this is a round-up of the biggest stories, often hitting multiple newsletters I receive/review. The sources are many … which I’m happy to read on your behalf. Let me know if there’s one you’d like me to track or have questions about a topic you’re not seeing here.