This Week in Startups
00:01:54 · Lon Harris, Alex Wilhelm, Jonathan Siddarth
[00:01:54] S2: We have three incredible, amazing Twist 500 interviews coming up right now that Alex did all week. Don't move from that seat. But first, I do think we've gotta talk about GPT five a little bit, Alex. [00:02:05] S1: Yes. Yes. GPT five. So this has gotten a lot of play, but Sam Altman, one of the founders of OpenAI and kind of what you might call the face of AI from the software side, Jensen being the hardware face, if you will, went on a podcast with a man named Theo Vaughn, and they were having a a pretty candid conversation about what they're building. And Sam says, you know, I was playing with GPT five, and I gave it a challenge, and it did it very quickly. And he talks about how it set him back and, like, made him think about what they're building. And the quote that really went viral was he was like, you know, there are moments in time, in science, when people sit back and go, what have we done? And, you know, on one hand, Lon, both... I have three things here. First of all, Sam Altman loves to hype things up and then get mad at everyone when they get a little overhyped. He's a master at PR. So for part one. Two, if you go back in time to GPT-three, even maybe even GPT-two, there was a lot of worries that as this technology advanced and progressed and got better, it would be misused. And we're seeing that now when people are using voice cloning to trick elders out of [00:03:07] S0: their money, and AI is being used in more and more nefarious circumstances.
00:03:07 · Jonathan Siddarth, Alex Wilhelm
[00:03:07] S0: their money, and AI is being used in more and more nefarious circumstances. [00:03:12] S1: But we also, at the time, had a lot of people thinking that there was gonna be a lot of improvement and things were gonna get much better more quickly. So when I when I think about his GPT five comments, they don't actually feel that different to me than what we've seen with GPT four, GPT three, GPT two. So that... That's... To me, this probably does feel that impressive to him as he felt blown away before. So to me, I don't think he's being cynical. I don't think he's overhyping here. I think we're just seeing improvement, and I don't think we know exactly where it's all going.
00:03:12 · Alex Wilhelm, Lon Harris
[00:03:12] S1: But we also, at the time, had a lot of people thinking that there was gonna be a lot of improvement and things were gonna get much better more quickly. So when I when I think about his GPT five comments, they don't actually feel that different to me than what we've seen with GPT four, GPT three, GPT two. So that... That's... To me, this probably does feel that impressive to him as he felt blown away before. So to me, I don't think he's being cynical. I don't think he's overhyping here. I think we're just seeing improvement, and I don't think we know exactly where it's all going. [00:03:43] S2: I mean, I I think that sounds reasonable enough. And and look. I... I'm sure he's playing around with GPT five and is genuinely impressed at what it can do. Like, I think there's two levels here. Like, even... Like, I was very cynical about AI early on. Even I have had experiences like that where I'm impressed by what it can do, and it sort of raises the bar on what I thought was possible. I'm not discounting that experience at all. I'm sure he does have that experience. But I also think this is a weird and unfortunate narrative that we've sort of fallen in. Like... And Jason has talked about this many times that, like, real science and real technology kind of chases sci fi. And I feel like sci fi introduced this idea that AI is scary and that AI is gonna be thinking for itself and all of those things, like, from Skynet in Terminator to Scarlett Johansson and her evolving beyond Joaquin Phoenix and wanting to go off on her own. Like, I think that's
00:03:43 · Lon Harris, Alex Wilhelm
[00:03:43] S2: I mean, I I think that sounds reasonable enough. And and look. I... I'm sure he's playing around with GPT five and is genuinely impressed at what it can do. Like, I think there's two levels here. Like, even... Like, I was very cynical about AI early on. Even I have had experiences like that where I'm impressed by what it can do, and it sort of raises the bar on what I thought was possible. I'm not discounting that experience at all. I'm sure he does have that experience. But I also think this is a weird and unfortunate narrative that we've sort of fallen in. Like... And Jason has talked about this many times that, like, real science and real technology kind of chases sci fi. And I feel like sci fi introduced this idea that AI is scary and that AI is gonna be thinking for itself and all of those things, like, from Skynet in Terminator to Scarlett Johansson and her evolving beyond Joaquin Phoenix and wanting to go off on her own. Like, I think that's [00:04:38] S1: always Spoilers. [00:04:39] S2: So spoilers for her. Sorry, everybody. I feel like that's always the fictional narrative around AI, and I do feel like that has an impact on real world AI CEOs, and they're trying to be part of that narrative and play into that narrative because it's a helpful narrative for them. We're creating iconic, legendary, history shaping technology that's akin to the atomic bomb or the discovery of electricity. And I mean, like, it plays into a friendly narrative if you're the CEO of an AI company.
00:04:39 · Lon Harris, Alex Wilhelm
[00:04:39] S2: So spoilers for her. Sorry, everybody. I feel like that's always the fictional narrative around AI, and I do feel like that has an impact on real world AI CEOs, and they're trying to be part of that narrative and play into that narrative because it's a helpful narrative for them. We're creating iconic, legendary, history shaping technology that's akin to the atomic bomb or the discovery of electricity. And I mean, like, it plays into a friendly narrative if you're the CEO of an AI company. [00:05:11] S1: That's absolutely true. No, you're not wrong. I just think that AI has put up enough in terms of real results, real progress, real products, real services, that to me, we're just talking about how correct they are versus how incorrect they are when they make those large pronouncements. But I do think the context here is that OpenAI is expected to release their open weights model, their kind of open source ish project sometime soon. And then GPT-five is anticipated, we think, sometime in August, which means that we're gonna get past the hype and more into the testing. So, you know, will GBT5 be as good as it's expected to be? Well, we're gonna have to find out pretty soon, and that's encouraging. [00:05:49] S2: Pretty soon. In fact, the media is sort of saying, you know, early August or sometime in August, the Sharps at Polymarket, of course. [00:05:58] S1: Yeah. Yeah. We were looking at this.
00:05:58 · Alex Wilhelm, Lon Harris, Jonathan Siddarth
[00:05:58] S1: Yeah. Yeah. We were looking at this. [00:06:00] S2: Yeah. Not content to wait, and see what happens. There's already, of course, wagering going on. There's already a market going on for this. 25% are betting that by August 5, which is early next week. That would be... We are right on the verge of GPT five being here. [00:06:17] S0: Yeah. [00:06:18] S2: One in four. [00:06:20] S1: Yeah. One in four chance. And then by by August 15, people think it's a two thirds chance that it's out. So I... My read of this line is that, basically, middle August is kind of the over under, and that after that will be a surprise. Earlier than that will be a surprise, but we're only a couple weeks away. That's what's exciting to me. That's the cool thing. Remember how exciting it was when x AI dropped Grok four, and they talked about Grok four heavy and then the Grok four coding? Then we got the Kimi k two family of models from Moonshot. Then we got the z dot ai. Mhmm. I forget. The GLM 4.5 series. It is... The point is it's been a flurry of models, and Alibaba's Quinn models are improving. [00:06:54] S2: Yeah. We're in the middle of that meme that you are here, the world's greatest AI model. Like, we're we're right in the middle of another cycle. Yeah.