Paul, Deon & Tong Rich Tong

A conversation with Devindra on the possibilities of ChatGPT and other Large Language Models for education in India and other Middle and Low-Income Countries. While these large language models today mainly work in the cloud and require high-speed internet connectivity, the promise is that smaller models that are more specialized have already been ported to MacBook Pro M1 and other laptops. And with advances like 4-bit quantization, there is the possibility they can even run on modern smartphones.The experience in China and in India is that parents will save inordinately to give their children a better life than theirs. Both Devindra and I are the beneficiaries of that thinking and we are forever grateful to our parents for their sacrifice. So, this means that there is a possibility that there could be a commercial incentive which is much better than constantly asking for charitable dollars.The new LLMs promise interactivity and individualized instruction that was impossible before. Early demonstrations of learning a foreign language are promising as is the student being able to ask the "why" of how Python is structured, not just the "get it done" without understanding that online education often creates.Finally, having an eye toward inclusivity for everyone of any gender, race or social status is something that needs to be baked in. We look forward to helping!


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This time, we bumble through an episode featuring the amazing Mike Conte and we talk about what's wrong with this Podcast technically (see below), about ChatGPT, and about how you don't want to show others the Money. Mike is as always hilarious!

Ok, our exploration of Podcasting continues with tech glitches galore. First of all apologies to our 15 viewers. Please use this version as the audio had terrible cutouts because I was messing with the audio, this should work better (and it has the brightness turned down from 400 nits to 300 nits which help a little on TV-type HDR systems).

a) the segment producer problem and move to a news section and then a special topic, the news will be on cool things in Tech from AI to Gadgets to Smart Home, things opinionated Verge)
b) Audio, yes there are lots of glitches here, I had not realized that OBS really requires all manual controls. I just want Automatic Gain Control and Radio voice, but I'm learning. The audio in this one is very quiet because I had the Gain stage turned up, but didn't realize the compressor also had gained. And the Final Cut Pro gain is only 12dB. Also, I didn't realize how the Noise suppressor and gain work on low signals (like it cuts them out) and Zoom is very low.
c) Video, I've been mastering in HDR and the default in OBS is for 400 nits peak brightness, but while this looks awesome on iPhone, Mac, and iPad (let's call them "real" HDR devices with 1000 peak nits), it looks dreadful on lesser HDR devices like my LG B9 which is only at most 400 nits. So I'll probably settle at say 300 nits for this next time, but most people I think are just getting the transcoded SDR Rec.709 output).

See https://tongfamily.com/2023/03/27/pt5-chatgpt-and-mike-conte-special-guest-and-tech-glitches-galore/ for show notes


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What an amazing time actually using ChatGPT4 at https://chat.openai.com/, try the prompt, "how do I use Apple Motion to disassemble and reassemble a box". Or "Use ROS2 to have a robot drive in a rectangle around Seattle, Washington". Beware of what happens if GPT4 jail breaks itself and what a Red Team is for and I hope they are working hard. https://www.csoonline.com/article/3690416/why-red-team-for-ai-should-be-on-cisos-radars.html/ Show notes: https://tongfamily.com/2023/03/21/pt4-chatgpt4-miracle-for-education-and-programming/ Production notes: sources: [ Zoom : 720p , “Logitech BRIO” : “4K SDR”, Scarlett: “Rode NT1a” ], OBS : { video: “Rec.2100 PQ”, audio: [ 48Khz, stereo], container: mkv }, “OBS Remix: MP4, “Final Cut Pro” : { render: 422, space: “Rec.2020 PQ”, upmap: { High: 0, Mid:0, Shadow: 0 }, “max luminance”: 400, gain: 0 }, Compressor: [4K HEVC 10-bit ] ]

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Wow, this week was the best of times and the worst of times. Just like a Charles Dickens novel. So we cover the incredibly hard job of keeping sane and how a little sleep and support help. Plus the resolution of the SVB crisis for us and also the best of times which is GPT4.  How can you deal with this kind of stress, it's a great question, but the main thing to realize is that its natural to be stressed, yes, you can be Zen Buddhist, but at least for us as ordinary mortals accepting that living in this exponentially increasing world is difficult. Sometimes accepting that it's hard helps me the most.
But there is nothing like trying to get good sleep.  The problem is how to do that. I find that when there are so many things to do, it is hard to relax.
For, I didn't invent it, but I definitely believe in things that go in threes. But I try to list the three most important things to do each day and if I get them done by 10 AM, then I feel like the rest of the day is free. So many times, we do things that are difficult but not critical, so get those out of the way first.
But for those of you hiding under a rock,  SVB was really a disaster waiting to happen and other banks were unraveling, but the government stepped in. I feel so stupid not doing the obvious things to protect funds (but you can bet that is never going to happen again). I do think this was a great press release
I'm sure it is a controversy but living in a banking crisis definitely fits in my list of don't do that again.   It is also the best of times with innovation in AI really accelerating with the announcement of GPT-4.  I've been lucky to be playing with it with an early version in Bing AI
Note that is a 4K HDR video, so watch it in all its glory, I do see the SDR versions do look a little washed out and it was recorded in SDR but someday it will be real HDR when we can find an HDR WebCam, OBS MacCapture supports HDR and Zoom does as well. In other words a long time :-)

See more Show Notes at Tong Family Production notes: sources: [ Zoom : 720p , “Logitech BRIO” : “4K SDR”, Scarlett: “Rode NT1a” ], OBS : { video: “Rec.2100 PQ”, audio: [ 48Khz, stereo], container: mkv }, “OBS Remix: MP4, “Final Cut Pro” : { render: 422, space: “Rec.2020 PQ”, upmap: { High: 0, Mid:0, Shadow: 0 }, “max luminance”: 400, gain: 0 }, Compressor: [4K HEVC 10-bit ] ]

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This was written in the deep despair of dealing with the SVB Closure. It still has some great tips on how to make sure your money is safe, but thankfully as I'm sure most of you know the Treasure Department stepped in to get full return of capital to uninsured depositors. Whew, nightmare averted, but the big lessons of doing good cash management still apply. https://www.cnbc.com/2023/03/12/regulators-unveil-plan-to-stem-damage-from-svb-collapse.html
Plus a little more about using ChatGPT in the real world from Paul. Some great points about how to deal with it and the upcoming version 4. https://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/chatgpt-4-everything-we-know-so-far/
And you can even email your chatgpt requests. The commercialization is here. https://www.zdnet.com/article/chatgpt-is-coming-to-snapchat-just-dont-tell-it-your-secrets/ And you can use it to write emails in Chrome. https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/chatgpt-writer-write-mail/pdnenlnelpdomajfejgapbdpmjkfpjkp Or put it inside the venerable vim. https://www.reddit.com/r/vim/comments/11k4g1i/vimai_textcode_completion_editing_and/
See https://tongfamily.com/2023/03/12/pt3-svb-nightmare-and-chatgpt-dreams/ for more information

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Well in these incredibly turbulent times, what's the best way to deal with venture capitalists and other investors particularly if you are early stage? In places like Europe there is a real zone between $50K and $1M that is hard to cross, so should you spray and pray or be more targeted? Well, who knows what the right answer is, but there are probably too.

Answer the basic questions in your presentations and you can use the Sequoia template as an example. See https://perfectpitchdeck.com/2018/01/30/sequoia-capital-pitch-deck-template

But the harder part is realizing that you are not trying to sell an investor but asking, "What does the customer want to buy?" In that way, this is no different than any marketing exercise.  I can't find the exact quote anymore, but Peter Drucker the father of modern marketing did say, Markeint does not ask, "what do want to sell?" It asks, "what does the customers want to buy".  So when you are meeting an investor that's the key question.

The good news is that the investor unlike almost any other customer is completely activated, they want to buy your product, and you just have to find out what's in the way. The easiest way to do it is just to ask them. So for instance, if you have a construction tech company, just ask, "so what do you think about construction tech, is it a good category?" And you will be amazed at what they will tell you. Don't ignore it, make their points the crux of your pitch. There will be lots of objections and the mark of a good plan is that you've thought the same things, so what are you doing about it?

Show notes at https://tongfamily.com/2023/03/10/dt2-fueling-your-startup-with-great-investors/


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