Matisyahu's Blog

I find it funny when the hype cycle eventually goes through the steps of 1) New product launched 2) Ram it into every product regardless of whether or not it makes sense then hype up to the ceiling and beyond 3) People wake up, realise it isn’t God’s gift to humanity and only use it in products where it makes sense.

This is why I think that Apple is taking the right approach particularly when you remember some of the embarrasing generative AI stories that have come out recently. I think you’ll see generative AI being used for art in games which will reduce the amount of work required to be done by the artists, helping improve productivity by learning from your style of writing and offer suggestions based on what you’ve already written etc. In other words it is a move from novelty and hype to delivering functionality that actually benefits end users rather than simply wowing shareholders.

In the short term I can see Microsoft and Google charging for ‘AI Functionality’ but what I think in the long term will be that both Microsoft and Google will invest in dedicated hardware that’ll make LLM cheap enough that it they’ll make available a model that is available to every but then maybe keep a pro version specifically for those who are happy to pay. In the case of Google they may even have a three tier offering (link) with Nano being for everyone, Pro being for Workspace customers and Ultra being something you pay extra for on top of your existing Workspace subscription.

On the topic of Google Podcasts, as of 2 April 2024 the service is no longer available in the United States according to this article (link) however for the rest of the world the migration is occurring later on this year. Having used the YouTube Music, there is still a lot of work that needs to be done because when I was using an Android phone I bought Poweramp Music Player because it is the only one that can handle a large sized music library – in my case my library is 35GB in size. It’ll be interesting to see how they will develop and encourage content producers to leverage the YouTube platform to distribute their podcast content.