🍕 The last slice of Tech Pizza

Hi guys,

I’ve already teased that I’m planning to change Tech Pizza soon. Well, that will happen from next week.

I want to give you the story of why I made this decision and what will happen next. If you’re short on time, scroll to the “What happens now” section.

I started Tech Pizza almost 2 years ago to help people understand what’s happening in tech. The world has changed a lot in the meantime. To name a few changes:

• So many tech trends (NFTs, Crypto, Metaverse) have become less relevant

• AI has reached a tipping point and started a new industrial revolution

• AI is not just technology anymore: it’s business, politics, culture, economy, etc.

So much has changed for me too. Sticking to the professional side:

• my company AI Academy went from 2 to 6 people and revenues grew 300% in one year

• I started a new startup (still a bit of a secret, can’t wait to share more).

• Well, Tech Pizza’s audience has grown 400% too

Long story short: everything has changed, and Tech Pizza has to change too if I want to fulfill the same mission of helping people take part in the world of tech.

Given what I’ve said above, these are my goals:

• I believe that we’re at a pivotal moment in AI, and I want to help people take part. This means abandoning other tech topics and focusing 100% on AI.

• I want to leverage the AI Academy team to experiment with how AI can turbocharge information and media, and build something more than “just a newsletter”. Example: we’ve already run some early tests on AI-generated podcasts.

• I want to have a space to express more personal takes. I want to share with you the daily highs and lows of running an AI startup, from fundraising to hiring to selling to building and anything in between.

I don’t think Tech Pizza in its current form can fulfill all these goals, but I think I know how to change it to succeed. And I’m SO excited to share it with you.

What happens next

From next week you’ll be receiving two different newsletters.

The news section will be covered in the AI Academy newsletter, out every Wednesday. We’ll start by moving there the “Pizza Bytes” format of Tech Pizza, and expand with educational pills like tutorials, demos of AI tools, and more. This is also where we’ll experiment with new AI experiments like AI-generated podcasts and more.

The long “opinion piece” I write at the beginning of Tech Pizza will become my personal newsletter, which I’ll call “Diaries of an AI troublemaker”. This will allow me to feel more free to express my thoughts and share my experiences as an AI entrepreneur running 2 fast-growing AI companies in the middle of the AI revolution. It won’t come out every week, but rather every time I have something worthwhile to share. This will not only ensure that I won’t go crazy trying to push something every week, but also that each email is dense and valuable.

Tech Pizza as a brand will disappear. I picked this name after maybe too many beers (and pizza, ofc) with a friend. I thought it was fun, and I still love how informal and chill it feels. However, we need to accept that we’ve grown out of it and the new formats are a better fit for where we are and where we want to go.

When I lived in Silicon Valley someone told me “Fall in love with the problem, not the solution”. While I’m moving away from Tech Pizza as a “solution”, I’m more in love than ever with the problem I want to solve: help you and all the other readers take part in the crazy, exciting world of technology.

With love,

Gian

p.s.: if you don’t like this change and don’t want to hear back from me, I’m sorry about it 😞 You’ll be able to unsubscribe from both the AI Academy newsletter and from my personal one next week when you’ll receive the first editions.

p.p.s.: Saturday 18th I’ll host a 3-hour practical workshop on how to use ChatGPT at its best for productivity, creativity and more. You should join here.

Pizza Bytes (last ones) 🥲🍕

• President Biden has issued an Executive Order aimed at establishing new standards for AI safety and security, protecting privacy, advancing equity and civil rights, promoting innovation, and ensuring responsible government use of AI. The order builds on previous actions and seeks to position the US as a leader in responsible AI innovation.

• Some AI thought leaders like Andrew NG are against heavy AI regulation, stating that overblown concerns of human extinction are causing harm by scaring students away from AI careers. Andrew also warns against ill-advised regulations that could impede progress and innovation.

• Anthropic’s Claude 2, a rival chatbot to OpenAI's ChatGPT, has received a $500 million upfront investment from Google, with an additional $1.5 billion to be invested over time. Claude 2 has the ability to summarize up to 75,000 words, making it highly reliable in terms of "self-awareness" and accurate responses based on training data.

• In our last edition, we discussed Amazon's use of AI to enhance merchant images. Now, Google has launched a new set of AI tools enhancing its Product Studio, enabling advertisers to upgrade product images without additional shoots. This improvement assists in creating professional ad images by enhancing quality and creating backgrounds. As this tool becomes more user-friendly, it's likely to boost advertising spend, further increasing Google's revenue.

• A federal judge dismissed copyright infringement claims brought by artists against AI art generators, citing issues with the artists' allegations of unauthorized use of their images to train AI systems. However, claims against one company, Stability AI, for direct infringement have been allowed to proceed, pending further clarification on the use of copyrighted images in their AI system.

• LinkedIn has introduced an AI-powered chatbot called the "job seeker coach," which uses OpenAI's GPT-4 to help users determine if a job application is worth their time. The chatbot analyzes users' LinkedIn profiles and provides feedback to improve their chances of success. It can boost engagement and deliver a continuous stream of user data that can help LinkedIn fine-tune its algorithms.

• Has OpenAI's recent update to ChatGPT put several startups out of business? OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has allowed startups to build ChatGPT plugins, creating opportunities for businesses to offer services that weren't previously available. This enables startups to compete with larger players in the market.

• Microsoft's Windows 11 last update introduces the AI-powered virtual assistant, Copilot, which can generate human-like text and perform various actions in Windows. Copilot aims to enhance productivity and provide assistance to users in tasks such as composing emails, summarizing web pages, and performing system actions. This might be a game-changer for all Microsoft users.

• Microsoft's decision to increase the use of automation and AI in curating news on its homepage, MSN.com, rather than humans has led to the amplification of false and bizarre stories. Is Microsoft getting carried away with automation?

• OpenAI formed a new team last week to assess the ‘catastrophic risks’ of AI. OpenAI’s new preparedness team will address the potential dangers associated with AI, including nuclear threats, AI’s ability to trick humans, as well as cybersecurity threats.

• Alibaba has upgraded Tongyi Qianwen 2.0, its latest language model with improved capabilities in understanding instructions, copywriting, reasoning, and preventing AI-generated misinformation. The competition between the US and China is happening especially in the tech world.

You reached the end of this last edition 😢

Ciao 👋