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Don't build AI products the way everyone else is doing it

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Re: Don't build AI products the way everyone else is doing it

#41

Post by andix »

alchemist1e9 wrote: post #31
andix wrote: post #22

I think soon AI will be build into a lot of different software. This is when it will really get awesome and scary. One simple example are e-mail clients. Somebody asks for a decision or clarification. The AI could extract those questions and just offer some radio buttons, like: Accept suggested appointment times: [Friday 10:00] [Monday 11:30] [suggest other] George whats to know if you are able to present the draft:…

I’m trying to build that already personally. My plan is mbsync to Maildir storage, then process all emails using Haystack. Then trigger a pipeline on each new email with the goal of proposing some actions. Still bouncing around various approaches in my head, but all seems very doable already.

Personally I would put this functionality into an email client.

Re: Don't build AI products the way everyone else is doing it

#42

Post by happytiger »

personjerry wrote: post #30
bob1029 wrote: post #3

> The solution: create your own toolchain No thanks. I have an actual job & customer needs to tend to. I am about 80% of the way through integrating with the OAI assistant API. The real secret is to already have a viable business that AI can subsequently improve . Making AI the business is a joke of a model to me. You'd have an easier time pitching javascript frameworks in our shop. Our current application of AI is a…

So the secret to building a viable AI business... is to build a viable business, with AI?

Ai as a tool of the business not ai as the business.

It’s pretty straightforward.

Re: Don't build AI products the way everyone else is doing it

#43

Post by vasco »

personjerry wrote: post #30
bob1029 wrote: post #3

> The solution: create your own toolchain No thanks. I have an actual job & customer needs to tend to. I am about 80% of the way through integrating with the OAI assistant API. The real secret is to already have a viable business that AI can subsequently improve . Making AI the business is a joke of a model to me. You'd have an easier time pitching javascript frameworks in our shop. Our current application of AI is a…

So the secret to building a viable AI business... is to build a viable business, with AI?

They mean, don't build an email summarizer.

Instead if you already run an email service successfully on its own, you can easily include email summaries that are better due to AI.

Re: Don't build AI products the way everyone else is doing it

#44

Post by furyofantares »

rvz wrote: post #20
bob1029 wrote: post #3

> The solution: create your own toolchain No thanks. I have an actual job & customer needs to tend to. I am about 80% of the way through integrating with the OAI assistant API. The real secret is to already have a viable business that AI can subsequently improve . Making AI the business is a joke of a model to me. You'd have an easier time pitching javascript frameworks in our shop. Our current application of AI is a…

> The real secret is to already have a viable business that AI can subsequently improve. Making AI the business is a joke of a model to me. Precisely. No doubt that the tons of VC fuelled so-called AI startups that are wrapping around the ChatGPT API are already getting themselves disrupted due to the platform risk by OpenAI. They never learn. Even when the possibility of OpenAI competing against their own partners i…

> Precisely. No doubt that the tons of VC fuelled so-called AI startups that are wrapping around the ChatGPT API are already getting themselves disrupted due to the platform risk by OpenAI.

Eh - such startups are like a year in with a small headcount I'd think? They're still figuring out what they're gonna build imo. I don't think I'd be sad sinking a year of investment into folks who've been spending a year trying to build things with this stuff even if they are forced to find a new direction due to competition from the platform itself.

Re: Don't build AI products the way everyone else is doing it

#45

Post by Bjartr »

bob1029 wrote: post #3

> The solution: create your own toolchain No thanks. I have an actual job & customer needs to tend to. I am about 80% of the way through integrating with the OAI assistant API. The real secret is to already have a viable business that AI can subsequently improve . Making AI the business is a joke of a model to me. You'd have an easier time pitching javascript frameworks in our shop. Our current application of AI is a…

I slightly disagree. I think a business can have an AI focus rather than it being mere improvement over an already viable business if, without AI, the business model can't succeed due to excessive costs of scaling to serve enough users to have sufficient revenue. There are some cases like that where adding AI makes that previously non-viable business model viable again.

Re: Don't build AI products the way everyone else is doing it

#46

Post by liuliu »

Very similar sentiment when AppStore built. Everyone tries to avoid host their business on someone else's platform. Hence FB tried to do H5 with their app (so it is open-standard (a.k.a. web) based, people launches their own mobile phones etc etc.

At the end of the day, having app in AppStore is OK as long as you can accumulate something the platform company cannot access (social network, driver network, etc). OpenAI's thing is too early, but similar thinking might be applicable there too.

Re: Don't build AI products the way everyone else is doing it

#47

Post by lazide »

Bjartr wrote: post #45
bob1029 wrote: post #3

> The solution: create your own toolchain No thanks. I have an actual job & customer needs to tend to. I am about 80% of the way through integrating with the OAI assistant API. The real secret is to already have a viable business that AI can subsequently improve . Making AI the business is a joke of a model to me. You'd have an easier time pitching javascript frameworks in our shop. Our current application of AI is a…

I slightly disagree. I think a business can have an AI focus rather than it being mere improvement over an already viable business if, without AI, the business model can't succeed due to excessive costs of scaling to serve enough users to have sufficient revenue. There are some cases like that where adding AI makes that previously non-viable business model viable again.

Sounds risky - if you can’t make a big enough improvement, you’re SOL. In their case, they keep making money regardless and just make more and more if they get better?

Re: Don't build AI products the way everyone else is doing it

#48

Post by dumbfounder »

thuuuomas wrote: post #39
adrwz wrote: post #32

Feels like a little too much engineering for an MVP.

LLM codegen should herald the death of the MVP. It’s time to solve problems well.

This doesn't make any sense. LLMs help you get to an MVP much faster, then if you want to take it further you can go deeper and make the solution more robust. Don't solve problems well you don't know you need to solve well. This is premature optimization.

Re: Don't build AI products the way everyone else is doing it

#49

Post by fest »

JamesBarney wrote: post #17
danenania wrote: post #11

This is a thought-provoking post and I agree with the "avoid using AI as long as possible" point. AI is best used for things that can only be accomplished with AI--if there's any way to build the feature or solve the problem without it, then yeah, do that instead. Since everyone now has more or less equal access to the best models available, the best products will necessarily be defined by everything they do that's n…

100%, worked with a founder who thought the AI hype was overblown 5 years ago so focused on "workflows, UIs, UX, performance, and all that other old-fashioned stuff" while all his competitors focused on building AI models. Then ChatGPT came out and all his competitors work was instantly obsolete, and he could achieve AI feature parity in weeks. He was right about what to build but for the wrong reasons and it's been…

Why are these reasons wrong? I have a similar attitude in my field (UAVs), where many desperately chase the next whizzbang technology, ignoring the boring, old fashioned stuff (workflows, UX, 3rd party addons).

Re: Don't build AI products the way everyone else is doing it

#50

Post by duped »

BillFranklin wrote: post #7

This is a nice post, and I think it will resonate with most new AI startups. My advice would be don't build an AI product at all. To my mind an "x product" is rarely the framing that will lead to value being added for customers. E.g. a web3 product, an observability product, a machine vision product, an AI product. Like all decent startup ideas the obviously crucial thing is to start with a real user need rather than…

I think it's a great idea if you're a serial founder and want some money for the idea that's going nowhere. People love to throw money at buzzwords.

A couple of years ago it was blockchain. Not sure what the next one is, but I already see all the "technologists" in my LinkedIn network have pivoted from crypto startups to AI startups.

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