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

builder.io

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

#71

Post by nostromo »

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…

Just be prepared for OpenAI to pull the rug out from under you at some point... and probably sooner than you realize.

This is always the approach in our industry. During the land rush, you offer very affordable, very favorable terms for people building on your stack.

When they've wiped out most of the competition and have massive marketshare -- they shift from land-rush mode to rent-seeking mode, and your business is either dead entirely or you now live as a sharecropper.

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

#72

Post by threeseed »

fkyoureadthedoc wrote: post #68
elpakal wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think we'll find that, when the dust settles, AI's usefulness wasn't as impactful as we thought. AI is only as good as its data and no meaningful dataset is 100% representative and 100% accurate IMHO. Don't get me wrong-- it's neat and all, and it can be somewhat useful in the right context, but the hype is huge. Much bigger than Kubernetes ever saw and probably bigger than blockchain.

> data and no meaningful dataset is 100% representative and 100% accurate IMHO And? What point are you trying to make here?

People seem to think that LLMs are going to be this source of truth that everyone can rely on to give them the information they need. Which for certain use cases e.g. text based is fine because you can tolerate inaccuracies.

But I have worked at highly regulated finance companies who aren't interested in LLMs at all. Because their business can't tolerate if your model returns a figure or calculation that is inaccurate.

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

#73

Post by threeseed »

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 most people I know offline hate interacting with chat bots as products

It's hilarious to me when people are bringing back chat bots as a concept.

We had chat bots a few years ago and it was something that almost all larger companies had built strategies around. The idea being that they could significantly reduce call centre staff and improve customer experience.

And it wasn't just that the quality of the conversations were poor it was that for many users it's about being the human connection of being listened to that is important. Not just getting an answer to their problem.

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

#74

Post by danenania »

SomeoneFromCA wrote: post #67
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…

Not doing so will produce same boring Chatgpt based bot, everyone have already seen and tired off. I mean, differention is quite important thing actually.

That's why you should spend your time building a great product rather than an also-ran model. While you're working on your model, your competitors are working on their products. In a few months when your model is made obsolete by the latest OpenAI release, your competitors will have a better product and a better model than you.

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

#75

Post by cj »

LtWorf wrote: post #70
chasd00 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the secret is to already have a viable business and constantly sprinkle in the latest tech. trends to maintain the illusion of being something fresh and new.

That's why our bakery uses AI generated blockchains :D

My local bakery adopted a new Point of Sale that does a really good job making me feel like I have to tip $2 when buying a donut!

No blockchain or AI, but new tech (for them) nonetheless :)

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

#76

Post by elorant »

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…

Sure, and then you'll wake up one morning and OpenAI will either have eaten your lunch, or quadrupled their prices because they'd have achieved wide adoption.

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

#78

Post by jumploops »

To preface, I largely agree with the end state presented here -- we use LLMs within a state machine-esque control flow in our product. It's great.

With that said, I disagree with the sentiment of the author. If you're a developer who's only used the ChatGPT web UI, you should 100% play with and create "AI wrapper" tech. It's not until you find the limits of the best models that you start to see how and where LLMs can be used within a traditional software stack.

Even the author's company seems to have followed this path, first building an LLM-based prototype that "sort of" worked to convert Figma -> code, and then discovering all the gaps in the process.

Therefore, my advice is to try and build your "AI-based trading card grading system" (or w/e your heart desires) with e.g. GPT-4-Vision and then figure out how to make the product actually work as a product (just like builder.io).

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

#79

Post by j45 »

Shortcuts in early product can definitely affect flexibility as new things keep arriving to tryout and further handcuffing things.

I love speed and frequency of shipping but sometimes thinking about things just a bit, but not too much doesn't always hurt.

Sometimes simple is using a standard to keep the innovation points for the insights to implement.

Otherwise innovation points can be burnt on infrastructure and maintaining it instead of building that insight that arrives.

Finding a sweetspot between too little, and too much tooling is akin to someone starting with vanilla javascript to learn the value of libraries, and then frameworks, in that order rather than just jump into frameworks.

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

#80

Post by j45 »

nostromo wrote: post #71
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…

Just be prepared for OpenAI to pull the rug out from under you at some point... and probably sooner than you realize. This is always the approach in our industry. During the land rush, you offer very affordable, very favorable terms for people building on your stack. When they've wiped out most of the competition and have massive marketshare -- they shift from land-rush mode to rent-seeking mode, and your business is…

It's why being platform independent as possible is critical. Even if it's an app in someone's store. Can't quite run it with just their stuff.
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