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Y Combinator's AI bets

Y Combinator's AI bets

PLUS: OpenAI manifesto

Anthony Castrio & Hilbert Publications
May 24, 2023

Good morning human brains, welcome back to your daily munch of AI news.

Here’s what’s on the menu today:

OpenAI’s AI manifesto 📜
OpenAI highlighted AI safety requirements, made AGI predictions, and solidified its stances on regulation.
YCombinator’s latest AI bets ♠️
Almost a third of YC’s latest batch were AI companies. We looked at every one of them and found the standouts.
Elon Musk talks AI 🔇
A future where AI does our jobs better than us.

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APPETIZER

OpenAI’s manifesto 📜

Last week, we predicted OpenAI will follow Claude’s footsteps and release its own list of AI principles… yesterday, it followed through (sort of). Here’s everything OpenAI thinks about governing AI:

1/ AGI is coming: and it is about to be more powerful than any other technology we have had to contend with before. This means we need special treatment and coordination to mitigate existential risks.

2/ Measures: OpenAI says we need three things to successfully navigate AI development: collaboration amongst all top AI builders, unbiased international regulatory authorities, and the technical capability to make AGI safe.

3/ Government regulation: still a hard yes. OpenAI says the most powerful systems need public oversight. However, companies & open-source projects building weaker models shouldn’t have to go through it.

4/ The future: OpenAI says AGI will lead to a much better world than we can imagine today, and economic growth and the increase in quality of life will be astonishing. The cost to build AI will decrease each year, and the number of actors building it will rapidly increase.

5/ Productivity: within the next decade, AI systems are going to surpass expert skill levels and carry out as much productive activity as one of today's largest corporations.

What this means: not a whole lot just yet (given that AGI is still at least a few years out), but understanding OpenAI’s philosophy makes it easier to predict its next plays.

BUZZWORD OF THE DAY

Y Combinator

YC is the world’s most renowned startup accelerator. It accepts ~1% of all startups that apply, then invests $125k in them and helps them grow by providing access to experienced investors, mentors, and industry experts.

YC helped launch unicorns like Airbnb, Dropbox, Stripe, and Reddit, and its alumni have raised billions of dollars and created thousands of jobs over the years. Formerly headed by Sam Altman, current CEO of OpenAI.

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Y Combinator’s AI bets 🃏

Y Combinator accepted 282 companies (~1% acceptance) in its latest batch. Around a third of them were AI startups. Here are eight of the hottest ones:

1/ Linum: a creative platform for all things animation. These guys are building Midjourney for video, and their first version is impressive.

2/ Type: an AI-first document editor. This is Microsoft Word for marketers and copywriters looking to boost their writing’s speed & efficacy.

3/ Quazel: a conversational language learning tool powered by AI. Picture one-on-one Spanish classes with Siri.

4/ Untether: hate long lines? These guys get it. Untether is using AI to optimize employee count for clinics and minimize your waiting time.

5/ MagicFlow: a no-code platform for building AI workflows that easily integrate into your apps (with simple API calls).

6/ AnarchyAI: these guys are working on creating the platform for building customized chatbots on top of existing LLMs like GPT.

7/ PairaAI: this is Shopify for information products. Paira is empowering creators like you to launch addicting courses designed to be binged on mobile.

8/ Persana: the Sales copilot that hyper-personalizes all messages. The few cold emails and LinkedIn DMs that actually look genuine and well-researched? Down the drain, starting today.