In ~ Hypergrid businessWe’ve been working with OpenSim and other desktop-based virtual environments since 2009, and started covering virtual reality extensively in 2014.
Our goal was to promote an open source decentralized metaverse and help little guys and gals navigate that landscape. Especially those who run OpenSim-based virtual worlds because they think OpenSim is a great role model for how to create an interconnected, open-source metaverse.
Today, we believe we have entered a new era for small businesses. Well, not today. Similar to November 30, 2022, when ChatGPT was launched.
People worry that AI will take away jobs and ruin creative industries. Maybe that will happen. And lawsuits are being filed left and right, government regulators are trying to figure out how to prevent the worst outcomes, and columnists are opining at length about all of this. Criticism is legitimate and must be addressed. I don’t agree with that.
But there is a flip side to technology.
AI can be a power multiplier. It’s like what happens when you replace a stone ax with a power saw. (I’ve been watching a lot of primitive technology videos these days.)
In the hands of big players, it can be fatal. However, large companies tend to be slow to adopt new technologies because they have a lot of institutional inertia and can’t afford to spend a penny.
In the hands of little people, AI can become very powerful. Every disruption is an opportunity for a small company to seize market share and grow significantly, and we believe AI will be a bigger disruption than anything we’ve seen before.
“Today, the largest scale of AI computing is doubling every six months, far outpacing Moore’s Law,” Google CEO Sunchar Pichal said in a post Monday.
Moore’s Law states that technology doubles every two years.
Now imagine doubling every six months.
Think about how much we have changed in the past few decades: the Internet, the World Wide Web, and smartphones. The global smartphone penetration rate is expected to reach 89% this year. Almost everyone on the planet, no matter where they live, has a smartphone or knows someone who uses one, and they have access to all the information in the world. For those with tight pockets, the Android operating system is free. That said, a few years ago I bought my grandmother a smartphone at Walmart for less than $30. Smartphones did almost everything an $800 phone could in emerging countries, and they had bigger screens to boot. , mobile phones are much cheaper. The web browser is free. Free web translation for over 100 languages. Online maps and step-by-step directions are free. Weather forecast is free. The world’s largest and most up-to-date encyclopedia is available for free. You can take online programming courses and earn certificates for free.
Internet access has placed enormous power in the hands of individuals and small businesses around the world. The world is very different than it was at the turn of the century.
All that knowledge and communication transformed society and accelerated scientific progress. We are editing our own DNA. We have cracked fusion and quantum computing. We are flying a drone helicopter on Mars. We plan to build a permanent base on the Moon and build space industry infrastructure.
I am very happy to be alive today. scared. Everything we are doing, including AI, can very easily go wrong. But there are also tremendous opportunities.
Of course, not every technique is a slam dunk. Unfortunately, there are many platforms that are desperately looking for use cases, including in virtual worlds.
AI is not included in the category. AI is every use case, all the time.
It’s already being deployed as a force multiplier in every single industry and is a top priority for nearly every CEO of every major company on the planet. Until last fall, ordinary people could use AI if it was built into everyday tools like search engines or recommendation apps. Large companies use AI directly because they have teams of data scientists on staff.
ChatGPT changed that. On November 30, people will have easy, free, and direct access to AI.
ChatGPT grew to 1 million users within 5 days of launch. According to USB, it surpassed 100 million users in January.
“In 20 years of Internet space, I cannot recall a faster ramp to consumer Internet apps,” USB analysts said in a research note.
According to VR vision expert John Carmack, AI will soon be able to simulate the human brain, perhaps within 10 years.
ChatGPT and other generative AI, such as image generators and voice and video generators, have pushed the boundaries of what AI can do into areas that many experts I spoke with a few years ago said were impossible with current technology. Common sense AI is still decades away, they said.
Common sense and creativity turn out to be emergent abilities when AI systems become large enough. These are some of the 137 emergent abilities in large-scale language models like ChatGPT. In other words, ChatGPT can do things that can’t be explained by the fact that it’s “autocomplete on steroids” or a “stochastic parrot.” Yes, we find correlations and use statistics to predict what you will say next. However, if you have enough training data and parameters, at some point strange things start to happen. For example, ChatGPT allows you to pretend to be someone else and answer questions. Even if that particular scenario is something you’ve never seen before.
This is why ChatGPT succeeds while previous AI-based chatbots do not. We have reached a stage where we can actually use it. And people are using it. They use them for millions of trivial tasks, including making recipes from food in the refrigerator, writing code, learning complex topics, and more. Yes, we make mistakes. Yes, I’m not good at math. No, I can’t access the web. But OpenAI is working to solve these problems, and so are all its competitors.
ChatGPT already has a million use cases.
And it’s incredibly easy to use. Go to chat.openai.com and ask your question. But just because it’s easy to use doesn’t mean it’s easy to use well. It’s like playing the keyboard. Yes, it’s pretty easy to hit a key and get a pretty sound. It’s much easier than doing the same thing with a violin, for example. But the secret is to get it to play the way you want it to, right?
So how can we effectively use AI as a tool? How do you surf without being swept away by the waves of new technology? This is the question I am trying to answer.
By day, I write about AI for major technology publications such as CIO Magazine. I cover how large enterprises are leveraging AI to improve efficiency, discover new business models, and build better connections with their customers.
In ~ Hypergrid business, I plan to do the same, but from an individual user and small business perspective. Small businesses like OpenSim Grid.
AI and open mind
What this means is that we are expanding the coverage of AI here. Hypergrid business.
I was already writing about AI on this blog. One of our most popular recent articles is about how to use ChatGPT to write press releases. We used a virtual OpenSim grid as an example, but you could have used a real OpenSim grid instead. Over a thousand people read this article, many of them hearing about OpenSim for the first time.
Do OpenSim Grid or OpenSim-related products or services use AI?
Maybe you have AI-based NPCs in your grid. Or, you can use AI to help you design your website or create content. Are there AI-based games in your world? Does your Grid or OpenSim hosting company have AI-based technical support?
Let me know and I will write an article about it.
AI news and use cases are currently in high demand. Let us know about your AI project and we’ll get you excited about what you’re working on.
This is also a great opportunity for someone to break into tech journalism. If you are interested in working with AI or OpenSim, please send me an email. I’ll teach you how to write in the Associated Press style, how to connect with your sources, and how to build a professional portfolio.
If you have a story idea or want to learn how to get started as a technology journalist, please email maria@hypergridbusiness.com.