Is AI a Hoax? Here’s How You Can Determine the Truth

Is AI a Hoax? Here's How You Can Determine the Truth

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Even as tech leaders like Bill Gates, Reid Hoffman, Sundar Pichai, Mark Zuckerberg, Jodi Baxter, Debashree D., and others have highlighted the world-changing potential of generative AI, everyday users remain skeptical. Recently, skeptics have had more to support their doubts. For instance, Perplexity has been accused by WIRED Magazine of scraping content from the magazine’s website, despite a directive in the magazine’s robot.txt file that explicitly opted out.

Additionally, OpenAI has been under scrutiny for not only aiming to disrupt current business norms but also for seemingly prioritizing attractive new products over AI safety. This criticism likely influenced the departure of OpenAI’s co-founder and former chief scientist, Ilya Sutskever, who left to start Safe Superintelligence Inc. (SSI). SSI’s single mission is to secure superintelligent AI models that surpass artificial general intelligence (AGI), which can outperform humans in most economically valuable tasks.

Even with the criticisms and doubts, AI companies and developers continue to push out groundbreaking innovations. This week, Runway revealed its new generative AI video model Gen-3 Alpha, which could potentially outshine OpenAI’s Sora and the newly released Luma AI Dream Machine in producing realistic, Hollywood-quality videos within seconds or minutes.

Furthermore, Anthropic recently overtook OpenAI’s position with Claude 3.5 Sonnet, the world’s most powerful AI model, according to third-party benchmarks. Some advanced users even say it shows “sparks of AGI.”

AI is currently experiencing what the Gartner Hype Cycle describes as the “trough of disillusionment.” Many AI companies showcase impressive technology demos, but skeptics criticize these companies for scraping online data and content without permission or compensation. They also highlight AI’s public failures and question the optimistic claims of executives, noting the technology still has many rough edges and unclear benefits.

However, this does not mean generative AI is a passing trend like NFTs or the Metaverse, which have struggled to find mainstream adoption. On the contrary, many businesses—from startups such as Color to major enterprises like Walmart—are already leveraging AI to achieve tangible results in various fields.

Discover how these companies are using generative AI, the benefits for them and their customers, and the specific products, tools, and workflows they employ at our biggest annual conference, VB Transform 2024, from July 9-11 at the Terra Gallery & Event Venue in San Francisco.

The event will feature leaders from significant, influential, and sometimes controversial generative AI companies, including:

– Aravind Srinivas, CEO of Perplexity
– Jonathan Ross, CEO and founder of Groq
– Olivier Godement, Head of Product at OpenAI
– Jieliang Hao, Head of Business at Pika
– Desirée Gosby, VP of Emerging Technology at Walmart
– Kari Ann Briski, Vice President of AI Models, Software, and Service at NVIDIA
– Zac Maufe, Global Head of Regulated Industries at Google Cloud
– Colette Stallbaumer, WorkLab Cofounder and Copilot GM at Microsoft

And many more, with over 70 speakers expected. I’ll be moderating panels and breakout sessions and look forward to connecting with more than 400 enterprise decision-makers and entrepreneurs.

A few tickets are still available, so grab them while you can.