Growing pains

JustVibe claims that when you ask it something like “What would have happened if Napoleon started fighting 2 hours earlier at Waterloo,” instead of providing you a text answer, or serving up a list of links, it will build you an app that, I guess, will answer that question for you. I tried asking it a question but the site prompts you to sign up before displaying any results. Also, how many people who ask about Waterloo need or want an app in response? This approaches pets.com territory. Also they seem to not really be clear on what their product is. Is that really a search engine?

The company has 5 devices it’s working on, but the first to debut will be a smart speaker with no screen that OpenAI thinks you will want to carry around with you in the house. It has a camera (and other sensors), so it can see you. It will control smart-appliances and play media like songs (e.g. “Rock you like a hurricane”) and podcasts. Also: “OpenAI believes the product’s defining feature will be its personality and ability to connect on a humanlike level with users. The speaker incorporates mechanical elements that can move on their own, creating a sense that it is alive and not just an object responding to commands.” I’m skeptical that this will be a hit.

AI is supercharging the ability of companies to dig into the online activity of their employees and job candidates. “Applying for most jobs is less invasive than running for public office, but the gap is closing.” Ha ha, that sucks! Even if your name is nowhere on your, for example, sexy website, but your photo is, facial recognition software can spot it and link it with other photos that do travel with your name. The good news? If you try to clean up your digital act, that is also a red flag. “Not posting” is no defense.

AI-based advertisers are moving beyond knowing that you’re 35, married, and have gout. They will know where you are, and that you talked with someone who likes tennis, and then they will serve you ads for tennis rackets.

The ad has a “doomy to happy” arc to it, but most people got stuck in the dystopian vibes in the first part of the ad. You can kind of see what they were going for, but the execution came up short for a lot of the commentariat.

It works for now, but they will probably fix this. The font incorporates letters that move, which humans can read, but AI can’t.

OAI forecasts $100 billion in 2030. “OpenAI’s forecast assumes the company will capture search ad budgets at scale, dominate a mature chatbot ad market, and outperform every ad format in history.” Emarketer thinks, “Nope.”

Revenge of the candidates, ha ha. People are using AI to make them seem more capable than they actually are, including using ChatGPT covertly during job interviews. “32% are using it to generate text for writing samples and 26% to answer questions on assessments; 13% of respondents admit they’re using chatbots in real time during job interviews.”

I’m sort of obsessed with questions about how perceptions of and interest in culture from different decades evolve over time, so I smashed the download button on this report comparing attitudes toward nostalgia across Gen X, Gen Z, and millennials. Unfortunately the report is a bit fuzzy in parts, but there are great charts on pages 7, 10, and 11 if you’re into how cultural preferences and attitudes shift over time.

Helpful to take a look at where brands went wrong. Although readers of this newsletter will note that the “good jeans” controversy, which was mentioned in the article as a brand fail, was intentionally controversial, and, by that measure, not a brand fail.

They made their platforms too addictive, with infinite scroll, notifications, and auto-play.

Have not tried it, but the Music app on macs is pretty grim. Maybe worth a peek.

Musk sought to convince investors that XAI was Space X’s biggest strength, but it’s gasping for air. Space X promised employees bonuses if they uploaded their tax returns to train Grok, then they did not pay the bonuses. They fired people without telling them. People with no experience are managing hundreds of employees.

Cool!