The a16z Show
00:18:57 · Anish Acharya, David Pawlan, Josh Elman
[00:18:57] S2: And then [00:18:58] S1: I think a few days later, it it came out. That's right. By and large, most people I talk to still are not using it as their preference of the 300... I did a survey of, you know, AI power users, 354 people. Only 3% were actually using it as as their primary agent. However, it does have this kind of added value of the the main thing that people pointed to as to why they really preferred it and why they liked it and why they wanted to try it was because it has all this building context. Yeah. A view just from your chat threads. People are using ChatGPT as a therapist, and so it has so much context on you. [00:19:29] S2: Interesting. [00:19:30] S1: Where it's gonna know that when you say, well, I'm not cheap. It knows it's like [00:19:33] S2: You're a little cheap. A [00:19:35] S1: little bit. A little bit. [00:19:35] S0: I'm curious why people think that ChatGPT has this great set of preferences from... On them. Did you actually get any sense if they said they really like dots, like, what they had been giving to ChatGPT over the years? And do you think they think that's replicable? Or do you think it's like, hey. Once it's already been a few years, we're now in this point where, like, my memory's there. Why would I switch?
00:19:35 · Josh Elman, David Pawlan
[00:19:35] S0: I'm curious why people think that ChatGPT has this great set of preferences from... On them. Did you actually get any sense if they said they really like dots, like, what they had been giving to ChatGPT over the years? And do you think they think that's replicable? Or do you think it's like, hey. Once it's already been a few years, we're now in this point where, like, my memory's there. Why would I switch? [00:19:56] S1: It's totally replicable. It... It's it's just the matter of fact that they've been using it the longest, and so it has the most context on them. But then that brings up another good point of the the friction to switch. Yeah. And I I ran the test across the top 15 agents on the benchmark of which ones can you actually pull context from and say, like, hey. I wanna switch to another one. Give me an empty of all of my memory that you have so I can switch easily. All but one we're at... We're actually willing to do it. And so you could just get a memory file, everything you need, submit it to the next one. [00:20:24] S0: And was it good, or was it uncanny? [00:20:26] S1: It's it's pretty solid. I mean, it's... Obviously, I'm sure they're they're caging some some of some of the fruits of of your labor. Yeah. But by and large, it it did really break everything down.
00:20:26 · David Pawlan, Anish Acharya, Josh Elman
[00:20:26] S1: It's it's pretty solid. I mean, it's... Obviously, I'm sure they're they're caging some some of some of the fruits of of your labor. Yeah. But by and large, it it did really break everything down. [00:20:35] S2: I'm not sure if you've ever looked at any of those markdown files, but it's a little... Terrifying is the wrong word, but it's like, wow, you really got your finger on me. Yeah. Kinda like chafe against me. Like, may... I don't want you to know me as well as you seem to think you know me. [00:20:49] S1: Yeah. After the first few, I just... I decided to stop reading them. [00:20:51] S2: Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. It's actually a really interesting and now common onboarding pattern where it will say, hey. Go and paste this prompt into ChatGPT. Download the file. Upload it to me. Yep. We'll see how long that lasts. [00:21:03] S1: Totally. Another cool onboarding thing I've seen is you jump on... Like, it asks you to jump on a call. Yeah. And it's like, hey. Let's just just talk to me for a few minutes. Yeah. Yeah. Ask some questions. And it's it's really interesting to see what context it can it can pull from those questions. [00:21:18] S0: And they're very disarming. Like, they just get you Like, it's kinda crazy. [00:21:21] S1: Totally. But I think I think it brings up another variable of context, which is photos. Right? Like, this this new paradigm of using photos to pull an incredible amount of context on you in ways that you wouldn't even think to describe. Yeah. I mean, I
00:21:21 · David Pawlan, Josh Elman, Anish Acharya
[00:21:21] S1: Totally. But I think I think it brings up another variable of context, which is photos. Right? Like, this this new paradigm of using photos to pull an incredible amount of context on you in ways that you wouldn't even think to describe. Yeah. I mean, I [00:21:36] S0: think have you you tried Dazzle? Has Dazzle gotten into your benchmark set yet? That's from Marissa Mayer's new company. [00:21:41] S2: Yeah. [00:21:41] S0: And I think the idea of, like, looking over your entire life that you've captured, that have been moments that are important enough to you to actually save or screenshots or other things [00:21:49] S2: Yeah. [00:21:50] S0: Tell so much about somebody. [00:21:51] S1: An incredible amount. It it hasn't been added to the benchmark yet. It is quickly on the the top of the list to test through. I'm still manually testing all these, so I actually get the personal experience and and understand what the feeling is with each one. But what I really like about how she's approached it is they put a lot of emphasis on this trust layer, and because I think it's a huge variable is I'm giving you all my photos. [00:22:13] S0: That's Yeah.
00:22:13 · Josh Elman, David Pawlan, Anish Acharya
[00:22:13] S0: That's Yeah. [00:22:13] S1: It's pretty it's pretty terrifying. But they they have this one thesis that, you know, if you don't need it, they're gonna forget about it. And so if a photo seems as though it it has context that it doesn't necessarily need or things that you probably wouldn't want it to know, they're they're going to try to get ahead of that and just forget it and not even include it in the set. So it's gonna be interesting to see how these these different players do approach the the photo context and how that actually does then influence the behavior of the agent and how well it knows you. [00:22:39] S2: It'll be interesting to see. I'm a tiny bit more skeptical. You know, I built an app because I've always been fascinated by screenshots because screenshots are sort of the only way on the mobile phone Yeah. To be able to capture context across every app. [00:22:51] S1: Right. [00:22:52] S2: So it's actually a really interesting kind of data asset, and you go back and look at your screenshots, and it gives you a little view in your work and your world at the time and and also your interests and preferences. So I built an app that just extracts key information from all the screenshots on my phone. And it was fine, but I didn't find myself coming back to it. Like, the value of the information sort of decayed quickly over time. [00:23:13] S0: Mhmm. [00:23:14] S2: Now it will be really fascinating if people start to then take more screenshots [00:23:17] S1: That's what was gonna [00:23:18] S0: say. Yeah.
00:23:18 · Josh Elman, Anish Acharya, David Pawlan
[00:23:18] S0: say. Yeah. [00:23:19] S2: Right. Knowing that it will feed the model and the agent. [00:23:21] S0: I mean, I think that's actually the idea is that if you actually get used to capturing information you wanna retain and being able to then loop it back in your life, that's great. I talked to one founder who's building something. He's calling it taste for now. That actually takes all the screenshots and things you save. You can actually then organize them, like, on Pinterest mood boards. Then And whenever you go to actually go code and build an app, you're like, hey. Use, you know, the examples that I saved here. So it's actually... You're building your, like, real fun flavor profile. Mhmm. So it actually is actually able to use your styles. And so as you navigate the world, the web, apps on your phone, it can actually create this kind of really cool, you know, reservoir of stuff that you like and actually organize it in a way that you can then use it later. And so that'll actually make you create a lot more content in that loop. [00:24:02] S1: Right. And I'm... So I'm curious with the app that you built in in this context for it. So in this same survey of what people are purchasing, the second most popular category was Amazon retail, 35%, saying that they're doing some form of shopping. And so, this context that you're gathering [00:24:18] S2: Sorry, Amazon shopping or just some form of shopping? [00:24:21] S1: Amazon plus retail. [00:24:22] S2: I see. Yeah. Got