WTF is Auto-GPT, A Good Week for Web3 & Crypto, 5 Things to Do, & More
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WTF is Auto-GPT, A Good Week for Web3 & Crypto, 5 Things to Do, & More
FUTURE OF THE WORLD - Edition 31
Hey everyone,
It’s been another head-spinning week. I will do my best to get you the key events and takeaways.
Have an awesome weekend!
Misha
Here’s what you’re getting today:
This week in AI - incl WTF is Auto-GPT and how to create a personal AI.
This week in Web3 - incl a16zcrypto’s State of Crypto and Ethereum’s Shapella update.
5 Things to Do
This Week in AI:
AI news of the week.
A summary from Kris Kashtanova:
WTF is Auto-GPT?
AutoGPT is an experimental open-source application showcasing the capabilities of the GPT-4 language model. The program, driven by GPT-4, chains together LLM "thoughts", to autonomously achieve whatever goal you set. As one of the first examples of GPT-4 running fully autonomously, Auto-GPT pushes the boundaries of what is possible with AI.
GitHub - Torantulino/Auto-GPT: An experimental open-source attempt to make GPT-4 fully autonomous.
Here’s a thread of threads that will get you caught up on the latest AI craze.
You Can Install a ChatGPT-like Personal AI On Your Own Computer.
This article is designed with the goal in mind for anyone to install this software. It’s a simple step-by-step instruction to install a Personal AI for an extreme novice.
But why have Personal AI? Here are some reasons:
Data Privacy: Many companies want to have control over data. It is important for them as they don’t want any third-party to have access to their data.
Customization: It allows developers to train large language models with their own data and some filtering on some topics if they want to apply
Affordability: Open source GPT models let you train sophisticated large language models without worrying about expensive hardware.
Democratizing AI: It opens room for further research which can be used for solving real-world problems.
Freedom: AI is rapidly becoming the target of censorship, regulation and worse. This may be the last chance to own your own AI. Italy already has banned ChatGPT, so be advised.
Personalized Training: After the base model is downloaded, you may be able to train the model to retain your personal data for it to analyze and build neurons with.
Read the full article here: HOW YOU CAN INSTALL A CHATGPT-LIKE PERSONAL AI ON YOUR OWN COMPUTER AND RUN IT WITH NO INTERNET.
How Generative AI Could Disrupt Creative Work.
Generative AI could be the biggest change in the cost structure of information production since the creation of the printing press in 1439. The centuries that followed featured rapid innovation, socio-political volatility, and economic disruption across a swathe of industries as the cost of acquiring knowledge and information fell precipitously. We are in the very early stages of the generative AI revolution. We expect the near future therefore to be more volatile than the recent past.
Here’s how to respond.
Prepare for disruption, and not only to your job.
Invest in your ontology.
Get comfortable talking to AI.
Be prepared to invest significant time and effort to master the art of creativity in a world dominated by generative AI.
Read the full article from Harvard Business Review: How Generative AI Could Disrupt Creative Work
This Week in Web3:
A16ZCRYPTO dropped their 2023 State of Crypto Report.
I will be unpacking various components over the next few weeks.
In the meantime, here are the key takeaways:
Blockchains have more active users, and more ways to engage. Active addresses hit an all-time high last month – 15 million – doubling over the last two years.
DeFi and NFT activity appear to be rising again as promising new uses and applications emerge. After a frenetic speculative period and subsequent cooldown, more people seem to be buying NFTs in recent months.
The number of active developers in the crypto industry has held steady. Builders drawn in by the 2020 bull run are sticking around. Almost 30K developers contributed to, or built on, crypto projects last month – steadily increasing over 60% in the last three years.
Blockchains are scaling through promising new paths. A proliferation of protocols and projects are working to scale blockchains, facilitating more transactions using a number of different approaches and technologies.
New technologies, once practically impossible, are becoming very real. We’re seeing decades-in-the-making work on “zero knowledge” systems advance at a staggering pace, which will unlock further blockchain scalability and a new category of privacy-protecting applications (not to mention applications in AI).
The U.S. is losing its lead in web3. Between 2018 and 2022, the proportion of crypto developers based in the U.S. vs. the rest of the world fell 26%. Thoughtful regulation can encourage crypto builders to innovate and grow these technologies safely in the U.S.
Zooming out shows progress across key indicators. Market cap, developer activity, and funding activity have all increased steadily over the last decade. Stepping back from short-term volatility reveals a more predictable pattern: a price-innovation cycle where price swings propel new ideas forward.
So, what is the state of crypto and web3?
We’re still early in web3, but we’re no longer at the beginning. Stepping back from short-term volatility reveals a more predictable pattern: a steady product cycle that is distinctly different from the financial cycles that saturate media attention.
The market has undergone four cycles, each bigger than the last.
Over time, these cycles move the industry forward in technological waves. We may be in the middle of the fourth such cycle since Bitcoin’s inception in 2009.
Taking a longer view suggests many indicators appear to be trending steadily upward.
Today, the a16zcrypto team held a Twitter Spaces to discuss the report.
Dive into the full convo here:
You can read the full report here: 2023 State of Crypto Report
Ethereum’s Shapella update is a cryptocurrency game changer.
On Wednesday, Ethereum carried out a critical upgrade to The Merge, known as Shapella, which will further drive the use of the cryptocurrency as a decentralized ecosystem.
The merge has meant that many miners have gone out of business; now, Shapella means virtually anyone can have a node — simply a computer with Linux installed, with no special power requirements — where they can validate transactions and make some money, which should lead to a more decentralized ecosystem. Before Shapella, most nodes were in the hands of large exchanges and centralized services; now ethers held there can be withdrawn and either kept in a wallet or in a node of their own, or in services like Rocket Pool or others.
The net result:
The price of Ethereum has risen by 12.91% in the past 7 days. The price increased by 4.03% in the last 24 hours. In just the past hour, the price grew by 0.09%.
It’s been a good week for the decentralization movement.
5 Things to Do:
TRY: Netflix Games
Your Netflix subscription includes ad-free mobile games for both Apple and Android devices.
READ: The Technium: Dreams are the Default for Intelligence by Kevin Kelly
WATCH: The friendship recession - Big Think
Americans without friends have increased 400% in recent years.
Factors likely have contributed to the decline in friendships in the 21st-century U.S., including geographical mobility, parenting demands, workism, and relationship breakdowns.
One of the necessary steps to making a friend is to admit that you want to make a friend, to being open to that. That requires a certain vulnerability. It requires you, in some ways, to reveal a need, a desire. And I think as we get older, there's sometimes a sense of shame that comes along with not having enough friends and actually saying, "I need a friend," is maybe one of the hardest sentences that any human being can utter.
PRACTICE: TAOISM | The Philosophy of Flow
A well-known concept that has emerged from Taoist philosophy is wu wei, that can be translated as “non-action”, “effortless action”, or the paradoxical “action of non-action”.
Finding your flow is a crucial practice in the exponential age.
POLL: Which technology will impact the future more?
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