🫧 AI's euphoric bubble

🧵 In today's edition:

• 👀 How will AI change the publishing world?

• 🤲 AI therapy

• 🫧 The AI bubble is entering euphoria

• 🛠️ AI Tools to Check Out

• 🤑 AI Fundraising News

• 🐦 Tweet Post of the Day

👀 How will AI change the publishing world?

Axios CEO Jim VandeHei recently said that he believes AI will profoundly disrupt the media industry and "eviscerate the weak, the ordinary, and the unprepared." 

Given that, Axios is pivoting its strategy to focus on delivering premium journalistic expertise and trusted content that AI can't replicate.

The key changes include:

• Investing more in live events, which grew 60% in 2023. These events will offer the human connection and expertise that AI can't match (yet).

• Launching $1,000/year membership programs built around star journalists like Eleanor Hawkins, Sara Fischer, and Dan Primack. Members will get exclusive reporting, events, and networking, which a chatbot can't provide.

• Expanding Axios Pro's high-end ($599+/year) subscription newsletters into more specialized policy areas like defense.

As VandeHei stated, "The premium for people who can tell you things you do not know will only grow in importance, and no machine will do that."

While not currently profitable due to these investments, Axios believes doubling down on human expertise is the key to thriving as "a couple of players in the media space offering smart, sane content" in an "AI-dominated virtual world."

Read more: NY Times

🤲 AI therapy

The research team at Dartmouth College has initiated the first clinical trial for Therabot, an innovative therapy app powered by AI, involving 210 participants.

What does it do? Well, Therabot utilizes a GenAI model that's been trained on bespoke therapy transcripts to assist users in coping with challenges such as anxiety, depression, and eating disorders.

The app's creators believe Therabot could potentially be the first GenAI therapy app specifically designed for digital mental health treatment that has undergone clinical testing. Unlike some existing therapy apps that employ rules-based AI with pre-determined scripts, Therabot strives to offer more personalized and adaptive responses.

After several years of training the AI model, the Dartmouth team reported that over 95% of Therabot's responses align with a desired "gold standard." Should the clinical trial prove successful, they intend to pursue FDA approval.

Overall: The employment of AI in mental health has sparked debates about the potential risks of inappropriate or harmful responses.

However, the research team believes that tools like Therabot, which uses GenAI for therapy, could potentially help alleviate the intensifying mental health crisis and the shortage of human therapists in the U.S.

Read more: NBC

🫧 The AI bubble is entering euphoria

The AI industry is undoubtedly amid a classic speculative bubble, which follows the well-known five stages: displacement, boom, euphoria, profit-taking, and panic.

Let's run it down: 

• Displacement: The introduction of ChatGPT in November 2022 revealed the potential of GenAI models to the world.

• Boom: Major tech corporations, such as Microsoft, rushed to keep pace, capitalizing on their investment in OpenAI to gain an advantage over competitors like Google.

• Euphoria: At present, we are in the euphoria phase where caution is being sidelined. Companies are investing billions in developing increasingly advanced AI models and startups. Irrational enthusiasm is prevalent as OpenAI's Sam Altman explores a $7 trillion fundraising for an "AI push" towards AGI.

• Profit-taking: This phase is still in its infancy, as GenAI hasn't produced significant profits outside of hardware manufacturers like Nvidia.

• Panic: As the hype cycle reaches its peak, insiders who maintain a level of rationality will likely begin to cash out.

Inevitably, the bust and panic stage awaits, where the bubble bursts and investments dry up. 

What could trigger this? Government intervention, shareholder concerns, or the realization that today's AI models are an environmental disaster requiring unsustainable computing power.

Read more: The Guardian

🛠️ AI Tools to Check Out

• Rask: Accelerated audio & video production for creators, 
educators, and global businesses – all in one platform. Check it out!

• Lastmile: Prototype and production of GenAI apps. Built for engineers, not just ML practitioners. Check it out!

• Superdash: Automate and abstract data entry using AI. Check it out!

_{Have anything you’d like to share with over 40k AI enthusiasts? Sponsor Not A Bot}

🤑 AI Fundraising News

• Knostic raises $3.3M in Pre-Seed funding to provide need-to-know-based access controls for LLMs.

• Udio raises $10M in Seed funding to develop tech that leverages proprietary AI to make it easy for anyone to create and share music.

🐦 Tweet Post of the Day

In the market for a new job? This thread could help you 💼