The AI Letter + RIP Ryuichi Sakamoto
Steve Jobs and Japan, Substack biz strategy
The Agenda:
Opinion
The AI open letter: Some considerations [AI]
Adam Conover ruins AI [AI]
More AI vs. Jobs [AI]
AI and the environment [AI]
Substack: Business Strategy [Tech, Media]
Should Apple buy Disney? [Tech, IP]
Disney, Marvel, and profitability [Hollywood, IP]
Super Mario shatters box office records [Hollywood, IP, Japan]
Amazon and the struggles of running a studio [Hollywood]
A24: Branding and curation at its finest [Hollywood]
Star Wars returns… but will audiences be there? [IP]
Steve Jobs and Japan [Japan, Tech]
Ryuichi Sakamoto passed away [Japan, Music]
Why fashion is getting into gaming [Fashion/Luxury, Gaming]
Monday Motivation
“Impute.” (Mike Markkula, Apple angel investor)
Thank you for your support of Cross Platform. Please consider subscribing (if you haven’t done so already) and sharing with your colleagues, friends, and family.
AI
The AI Open Letter: Some considerations [AI]
Two weeks ago, a group of influential tech executives and AI researchers released “Pause Giant AI Experiments: An Open Letter”, calling for a six month moratorium on AI development, specifically to stop training AI more powerful than GPT-4, indicating risks that range from impersonation and disinformation to superintelligence. With signatories including such luminaries as Elon Musk and Steve Wozniak, the letter has invited quite some controversy. While some agree with the risks of AI outlined in the letter and call for an even longer moratorium, others have criticized the letter. As many of you know, my bias is against the AI hype cycle. With that in mind, some things I think you should consider:
Some critics point to the letter’s focus on “hypothetical threats” (I’m assuming that means superintelligence, sentience) as not grounded in reality.
Others have also criticized the letter as contributing to the hype cycle.
Even calling this technology “artificial intelligence” is doubling down on the hype.
One more criticism is the “sour grapes” argument: those who signed the letter are behind OpenAI’s progress in the AI field and have to catch up.
The letter is backed by the Future of Life Institute, a nonprofit that counts the Musk Foundation as a main funder. The Institute focuses on existential threats to humanity, with one key focus being the existential threat of AI.
The founder of DeepAI, who signed the letter, was interviewed on Bloomberg Technology. When the hosts brought up the criticisms above, he didn’t seem to give any specific rebuttals, in my view.
Correlation does not necessarily mean causation. VentureBeat published this article which I think should get more attention. Some caution that even the creators of AI don’t exactly know how the AI is thinking, and such proclamations may scare laypeople like you and me. But there is issue of “training data contamination”. As Princeton University Computer Science professor Arvind Narayanan put it: “Language models are trained on essentially all of the text on the internet [Gee, no wonder there’s a hate speech problem - me], so even if the exact test data isn’t in the training corpus, there will be something very close to it… So when we find that an LLM performs well on an exam or a programming challenge, it isn’t clear how much of that performance is because of memorization versus reasoning.”
[Correlation does not necessarily imply causation.]
Adam Conover ruins AI [AI]
Comedian Adam Conover, of Adam Ruins Everything, put out a video (“A.I. is B.S.”) that ruins the AI hype cycle. Hahaha *groan*… anyway, he pointed out several pieces of news of which I hadn’t previously been aware, including:
A human recently beat an AI system at go by utilizing an unorthodox strategy that was not in the AI’s training data. See above writeup on “training data contamination”.
US Marines outsmarted a DARPA robot by… hiding in a cardboard box, giggling, and pretending to be trees. But on a more serious note:
The exploitation of workers who must filter out “toxic content”. Reminds me of similar controversy at Facebook.
Some things we all must think about. In addition to everything else AI-related I’ve talked about in this issue and previously.
More AI vs. Jobs [AI]
Greg Ip, chief economics commentator at the Wall Street Journal and of whom I am a fan, wrote a really good, and IMO even-handed oped about AI. The recent advancements in AI have indeed been massive, with higher productivity (do more with less) looking to be the result. Higher productivity means some human labor will no longer be needed, which has been happening for centuries. But this time it looks like significant white-collar human labor will be replaced. On the other hand, how exactly will AI affect labor markets is up for debate. Ip brought up recent examples of predictions of massive job replacement being flat-out wrong.
“Often, the technology isn’t good enough or human tasks are too complicated to be replaced. Regulation and inertia get in the way, so the impact unfolds over many years and can’t be detected amid countless other forces at work.”
The article concludes with a comment from Jim Manzi, a partner at Foundry.ai: “As more and more slices of human labor get replaced by machine, the humans have to stay ahead of the machine. Thus far in human history, it has always worked out that way.” I think that’s true. Basically, there’s less room for low-effort, mediocre crap from humans. It looks to be true in fields as diverse as the creative industries to the lawyer industry.
AI and the environment [AI]
One last thing: AI’s carbon footprint is “very high for a single field within tech.” So please consider the environment (and what appears to be exploited workers) when you’re playing around with ChatGPT. It’s like Bill Maher’s observation of the hypocrisy of crypto (though he himself flies private).
Tech
Substack: Business Strategy [Tech, Media]
So! Now I’m on Substack! Several reasons why as I move my startup into the next phase of growth, but the key here is that Substack now provides recommendations, meaning potential network effects to grow my audience.
Interesting time for my move too, as Substack has recently been in the news. Aside from a row with Twitter, the news is that Substack has turned to its writers to fundraise, given the overall challenging environment now for raising money from VCs.
I continue to believe that running a completely-open user-generated content (UGC) platform is difficult. Jason Calacanis even talks about Substack’s take rate of 10% of subscriber payments to writers being low, and I have reservations about whether Substack can meaningfully increase the take rate without causing writers to leave.
But clearly, the product adds value, as some well-known writers have moved over. CEO Chris Best came on to Bloomberg Technology and provided some insight. One thing I would like to highlight: Best thinks the era of the social network as we know it is ending, and all online media is going to turn into either TikTok on one hand, or Substack on the other. Broadly speaking, I think he’s correct - after all, most of you are subscribed to me, right?
[UGC is difficult.]
Should Apple buy Disney? [Tech, IP]
Laura Martin, Needham & Co. Senior Media and Internet Analyst, put out a note about why Apple should buy Disney. It looks like it boils down to exclusive content, or, as I like to say, IP.
Hollywood
Disney, Marvel, and profitability [Hollywood, IP]
The current Disney drama doesn’t appear to be over. Ike Perlmutter gave a rare interview in the WSJ, claiming he was fired from Marvel, not laid off. It was very interesting to hear his side of the story. Interestingly, even though he’s been associated with more conservative types, he has made donations to liberal causes. Also, I think Perlmutter, in his role as a manager, was in his right to consider the bottom line and also make the best use of assets - for example, Perlmutter had been orchestrating Marvel’s move to make its own movies out of its IP since at least 2003.
On the other hand, if your competitor has a startup mindset, I think focusing on profits may not always be ideal near-term. One potential reason why MySpace lost to Facebook was its focus on ROI, for example. So, hard to say.
Super Mario shatters box office records [Hollywood, IP, Japan]
Here are the results so far. Also, the movie isn’t showing in Japan yet, reportedly because audience expectations are insanely high.
I will wait until I have watched the movie to do a full write-up. Nintendo has been a major influence on me as both a businessman and creative, and I have a lot to say.
Amazon and the struggles of running a studio [Hollywood]
The Hollywood Reporter released a lengthy article about Amazon Studios. The Rings of Power reportedly had a 37% US completion rate. All I have to say is, wow, it is extremely difficult to manage something like Amazon Studios. I continue to wonder if Amazon’s data-driven culture can successfully mesh with Hollywood.
[No one has a monopoly on good art.]
A24: Branding and curation at its finest [Hollywood]
Business Insider released an article on A24, the studio behind Everything Everywhere All at Once, shortly before the film won the Oscar for Best Picture. I wanted to highlight a few things from the article:
A24 lets creatives have control.
Regardless of how its films perform, A24 is also known for its particular aesthetic.
The studio largely creates film for cinema, and not for streaming, eschewing the streaming-only model for quite a number of IP in recent years.
As some of you know, for my own IP Business Samurai, I seek to learn from companies that are able to engender love for their product and sell at a premium. Apple, LVMH, Nintendo, and also A24. In particular, I think A24 and LVMH have similarities in that both allow creatives a significant amount of control, all while maintaining brand integrity and effective curation. Is the key to have an adroit manager who can manage creatives?
[Artisanship at scale.]
Star Wars returns… but will audiences be there? [IP]
There’s been a bunch of new Star Wars announced, including three new movies. But recent Star Wars streaming shows seem to be slowing down ratings-wise - you can search the Internet far and wide to get opinions. Remains to be seen how Disney manages the franchise going forward, ideally for the better.
[No one has a monopoly on good art.]
Japan
Steve Jobs and Japan [Japan, Tech]
The NHK released a wonderful 48-minute documentary on Steve Jobs and his relationship with Japan, which goes all the way back to Jobs’ childhood, when he was introduced to Shin-hanga (新版画) art. The documentary then presents, among other things, the inspiration Jobs received from Sony’s Morita Akio, and the influence of Japanese ceramics on Apple’s product design.
But what really blew my mind was the documentary’s access to none other than John Sculley. Yes, the John Sculley, responsible for the Pepsi Challenge, and then hired by Jobs to run Apple (“Do you want to sell sugared water for the rest of your life? Or do you want to come with me and change the world?”). History may paint him as the bad guy who fired the guy who hired him, but if you read Walter Isaacson’s bio on Jobs, the picture isn’t black and white. Though, per Sculley’s own admission, Jobs never forgave him. BTW, I was taking audio notes while watching the documentary, and Siri (intentionally?) kept misspelling Sculley’s name.
Anyway. Some tidbits from Sculley:
Sony co-founder Morita Akio was a tremendous influence on Jobs. Jobs asked how involved Morita-san was in the development of the walkman, and it turns out, very. Jobs even took apart one of the walkmen that Morita-san gifted him and Sculley, and had Apple engineers examine it. I wonder if this was in the back of Jobs’ head during the development of the iPod?
At the time, no one in the electronics industry was paying attention to the details, except Apple and Sony.
Apple’s philosophy of “simplification is the greatest sophistication” - Jobs admired that in Japan.
Sculley emphasizes a shared approach by both Apple and Japan, which I would summarize as a focus craftsmanship, even if it’s not always efficient.
The documentary ends poignantly, with Sculley, who is clearly an art lover, bringing the crew into his home office, wherein rests a diorama Jobs created for him, featuring Apple, IBM, and the Japanese flag. It’s almost like there are two stories being told, one being a retrospective of Jobs’ relationship with Japan, and another being a subtle and melancholic story of a broken friendship.
Things are now coming full circle with both Apple and Sony moving further and further into entertainment, meaning they are moving further and further into art. I wonder what Sculley thinks of this.
[Artisanship at scale.]
Ryuichi Sakamoto passed away [Japan, Music]
So deeply sad to hear that the supremely talented and influential musician Ryuichi Sakamoto (Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence, The Last Emperor) passed away. What amazing body of work, that spans various media, from film to even gaming and anime.
Listen to how talented Sakamoto-san was. Here is my curated playlist:
“Kitto Ieru” (“I'm Sure You Can Say”) - After the success of the anime Macross, which featured IMO the greatest seven minutes in the entire history of animation, Mari Iijima (Lynn Minmay) became a bonafide J-pop star, and Sakamoto produced her first album, Rosé. It’s pop music, but sophisticated pop music. Also check out the live performance of the track “Kitto Ieru”.
“Loess Plateau” - Beautiful instrumental, also became another pop collaboration with Mari Iijima, “Distant Smile”. Someone even did a really good mash-up of the two.
“Ballet Mécanique” - Also adopted into two other J-pop songs, “Wonder Trip Lover” and “Chronic Love”.
Fashion/Luxury
Why fashion is getting into gaming [Fashion/Luxury, Gaming]
Via The Guardian, reasons include, among others, the fact that TV is fragmenting, and the possibilities of dressing up in a virtual world with specific rules are interesting. Also, here’s a writeup that includes what to consider, via Layer Licensing.
Monday Motivation
“Impute.” (Mike Markkula, Apple angel investor)
Want to know something that could help you succeed? Read books about successful people. Your mind will categorize the key things to keep in your memory, and summon it when you need it.
An example: After I read the first portion of Walter Isaacson’s biography on Steve Jobs, one thing from the book that stuck out to me burrowed itself deep into the recesses of my mind. Mike Markkula, Apple’s first angel investor, taught Jobs to “impute”. It was one of the three principles of “The Apple Marketing Philosophy”:
“People DO judge a book by its cover. We may have the best product, the highest quality, the most useful software etc.; if we present them in a slipshod manner, they will be perceived as slipshod; if we present them in a creative, professional manner, we will impute the desired qualities.”
Unfortunately, people judge by what they see. We can and must mitigate this behavior, but when it comes to business, appearances matter. See the writeup on Jobs and Japan above. See writeup on A24 above. See the writeup on Ryuichi Sakamoto above.
“Impute” has always guided me as an entrepreneur. Clearly, I’ve taken a very specific approach to presentation, now that I am on Substack and I can customize a bit.
Applying the “impute” principle to my readers: broadly speaking, we’re talking about personal brand. Whatever it is that you’re doing, act in accordance with your values and conduct yourself professionally. You may be polarizing, but at least the world will know you’re genuine.
GO FOR IT! REACH YOUR GOAL!