Gm. It's AI SZN folks.

FRESH POWDER

Looking at three funds that recently topped up their coffers.

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

ChatGPT is a Hit

ChatGPT, the latest release by OpenAI, is apparently incredible. I have no idea because the servers have been so busy I haven't been able to use it.

But fortunately, a lot of others have gotten access.

Apparently it's better than StackOverflow and Google for answering coding questions. It not only answers questions; it fixes the code.

ChatGPT Use Cases

So far people have used ChatGPT to:

• Solve coding problems

• Create prompts for DALL-E 2

• Explain the bubble sort algorithm in the style of a wise talkin fast guy

• Write a conversation between Jerry Seinfeld and George Costanza about the bubble sort algorithm.

Ok, yea the last 2 were by the same guy, a data scientist named Riley Goodside.

In honor of this brilliant data scientist, I've come up with 5 requests I have for ChatGPT.

1. Write a 3-verse rap in the style of 2 Chainz about the PayPal mafia.

2. Write an essay about Silicon Valley in the style of Hunter S. Thompson.

3. Write a dialogue in the style of Romeo and Juliet about Pete Davidson and Kim Kardashian.

4. Write a TV pilot about venture capital as if it was a TV show written by Tina Fey.

5. Write a Twitter thread in the style of Balaji Srinivasan about why creating content is important to startups and venture capital firms.

— Jason Levin (@iamjasonlevin)

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

Stable Diffusion 2 Garners Controversy

The reaction was universally positive when Stability.ai released the open-source generative AI image generator Stable Diffusion.

With 33,000 Github stars in less than two months, it was a true watershed moment for generative AI.

A tough act to follow for sure, but it was fair to assume that Stable Diffusion 2 would receive a similar reaction.

Yeah, about that…

Missed Expectations

One thing that nobody disputes is that Stable Diffusion 2 is a technological improvement over the original version, with v2 having:

• 4x better image resolution

• Better structure and coherence

• The ability to semantically replace parts of the original image

The controversy lies in changes to the text/image encoder, which is the tool that actually determines how the text is turned into an image.

Stable Diffusion 1 used OpenAI’s Clip as an encoder. It’s a familiar model and one that users are comfortable with, as it’s the encoder that other text-to-image tools like DALL-E use.

In Stable Diffusion 2, Stability.ai decided to go in a different direction and use a new encoder known as OpenCLIP, which is trained on a different public dataset than Clip.

This changes the UX in two ways:

1. Because OpenCLIP and Clip are trained differently, the prompts that users used for Stable Diffusion 1 might not work for Stable Diffusion 2.

2. Because Stability.ai purposefully trained OpenCLIP on a dataset without celebrity images, NSFW content, and famous artists names, you can no longer type “in the style of Greg Rutkowski” and get an image that looks like Greg drew it.

Obviously, these changes have annoyed people.

AI vs. Artists

In my eyes, Stable Diffusion 2 shows that generative AI will be an augmenter of human creativity, not a replacement.

What do I mean by this?

Many people believe that AI will replace humans. This couldn’t be further from the truth, and if you need proof, just look at the reaction to Stable Diffusion 2.

People are literally losing their minds over not being able to copy human artists. Human artists aren't losing their jobs anytime soon. Not a chance.

In reality, generative AI will enhance the lives and content of already creative people.

The creative get creativer.

— Stephen Flanders (SteveFlanders22)

QUICK HITS

Seed Round

Stat: $400,000: The price of the Metaverse party the European Union threw that only 6 people showed up to. Major highschool flashbacks, minus the $400,000 part of course.

Story we’re watching: The EU is warning Elon that Twitter has ‘huge work ahead’ to comply with it’s strict new Digital Services Act. Commissioner Thierry Bretton posted the specifics on his Mastodon account, which although an all-time act of pettiness, is pretty damn funny.

Rabbit hole: A Few Good Stories (Collab Fund)

WHAT ELSE IS GOING ON

• In a major shocker, Salesforce Co-CEO Bret Taylor has stepped down to pursue new companies.

• SBF spoke at the New York Times Dealbook Summit, telling listeners he’s “had a bad month”. Same bro.

• Fed Chairman Jerome Powell signaled that smaller interest rate hikes could begin in December. Time to run it up turbo.

• Apple blocked the Coinbase Wallet app's latest release until they get rid of the ability to send NFTs claiming that 30% of gas fees should go to them. Somebody's jealous they picked the wrong monkey JPEG.

FUNDRAISING FRIDAY

Contrary Capital started a new essay series about the foundations and frontiers.

Let the innovation begin.

LAYOFFS TRACKER

Notable layoffs this week:

Elastic: 400 people (13%)

Kraken: 1,100 people (30%)

DoorDash: 1,250 people (6%)

FOUNDERS CORNER

The best resources we came across this week that will help you become a better founder, builder, or investor.

📕 Just started reading Lying for Money, a witty non-fiction book about famous frauds. Been excellent to get historical perspective with all the SBF stuff going on.

🤖 Discord launched a creator portal for creators and builders to make money on the platform. New business idea machine go brrrr.

📆 Sitting at the top of Product Hunt is a PR Calendar for startups working on attracting VC money