🍪 Why everyone's hyped on ChatGPT

Season’s greetings, friends. In case you’re wondering, this newsletter isn’t written by ChatGPT, but…. could it be?

Let’s find out.

In the oven this week:

  • 🤖 Everyone’s on the ChatGPT hype train

  • 👮🏻 Why SBF hasn’t been hauled to jail

  • 🍪 Cookie crumbs: top headlines from the week

  • 🍫 Chocolate chips: our 5 favorite finds

  • 😂 Snickerdoodles: memes for the weekend

FRESHLY BAKED

ALL THE HYPE ABOUT CHATGPT

If you’ve touched the internet at all this week, you’ve probably heard about ChatGPT.

Tech Twitter is ablaze, and not because it's Christmas.

The VCs are practically swimming in their own drool.

And if you have no idea what I'm talking about, congrats, you probably actually do stuff in the outside world.

You're probably ripped. And probably not complaining about why the tomatoes in the micro kitchen are cut the short way and not the long way.

So what’s all the hype with ChatGPT?

Let's run it back.

ChatGPT was created by OpenAI, an AI company founded by a group of tech veterans, including Sam Altman and Elon. OpenAI creates machine learning models and slots them into different applications.

Their most famous ML model so far is called GPT3, a model that can understand and write natural language. A version of this model is the foundation for ChatGPT, an AI chatbot trained on a blend of text and code.

And it’s mind-bending.

Here's a preview of what it can do:

Write a biblical verse about how to remove a peanut butter sandwich from a VCR

Create a text video game in the theme of Harry Potter

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

Draft commercial real estate leases

Find and explain bugs in code

It's also built to be as benign and politically neutral as possible. It won’t provide solutions to questions like, “how to make a bomb,” but still, it can be tricked:

As the AI continues to improve, it seems inevitable that a lot of popular products and jobs are gonna get replaced.

Hang onto your seats, folks. It’s about to be a wild ride.

FROM THE COOKIE JAR

WHY IS SBF STILL A FREE MAN?

If you're like us, you're probably wondering how Sam Bankman-Fried (aka Scam Bankman-Fraud) is still running around the Bahamas on a press tour instead of making wine in the toilet in the slammer.

Well luckily, NYMag put together a good, but long explainer. Here’s the TLDR:

  1. SBF hasn’t actually admitted to any criminal misconduct. He says that the whole thing was the result of sloppiness, poor accounting, and unintentional mistakes

  2. The Department of Justice now has to conduct an investigation to confirm whether it was actually fraud

So? What does this mean? WHEN’S HE GOIN’ TO JAIL?

It’s probably gonna be awhile. Just look at Elizabeth Holmes, who didn’t even go to trial until 2021 after the whole Theranos story first broke in 2015.

Looks like SBF’s got a few more years to party.

COOKIE CRUMBS

BITE SIZED TREATS

What happened in tech this week:

More layoffs: Doordash laid off 1.3K employees (6% of workforce), Morgan Stanley announced it's cutting 1.6K employees (2% of workforce), and Buzzfeed is cutting 12% of its workforce.

Apple's "fully self-driving car," originally slated to launch in 2025, is being delayed another year. And it's not self-driving. So really it's just an oversized iPad with wheels.

SF building inspectors are investigating Twitter HQ after Elon Musk reportedly converted parts of the company headquarters into employee bedrooms. He’s making a full on employee dorm, with 4-8 bedrooms per floor.

Stewart Butterfield (Slack CEO & co-founder) is leaving Salesforce, which acquired Slack in 2021. Coincidence that it's been almost exactly 2 years since the acquisition was announced? Guess everyone’s waiting for that one last vest.

Imagine spending $400K to throw a metaverse party that only 6 people showed up to. Yeah that was the European Union this week. I’m getting secondhand embarrassment just thinking about it.

Apoorva Mehta (cofounder of Instacart) is working on a new healthcare startup and just raised $30M in fresh funding. He's looking for engineers and wants the hustlers out there to email him directly (and ya dawg, lunch is included).

CHOCOLATE CHIPS

OUR PICKS OF THE WEEK

Bite-sized treats for living life:

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SNICKERDOODLES

THURSDAY MEMES

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That's all we got for ya this week, folks. See ya next Thursday!

If you enjoyed this, we'd love it if you'd fwd to a friend! Spread some of that holiday cheer for us. 🙏🏾

 

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