E23: Emad Mostaque and Sam Lessin Debate Whether AI is a Good Investment for VC

In this episode of Upstream, Emad Mostaque, founder of Stability AI, and Sam Lessin, GP of Slow Ventures and former VP Product at Facebook, discuss how paradigm shifting AI will be for different sectors of the global economy, whether startups or incumbents have the edge, and whether AI is actually a good investment for Venture Capital. Topics covered in this debate span: the attention and information economy, SaaS markets, how AI-created entertainment will impact society and our relationships, porn, and AI disruption of highly-regulated industries. Erik Torenberg and The Cognitive Revolution AI podcast host Nathan Labenz serve as moderators, asking questions towards the end. We're proudly sponsored by Vanta. Get $1000 off Vanta with https://www.vanta.com/zen

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TOPICS DISCUSSED:

(01:00) Episode Preview

(03:20) AI as an extender rather than a deck shuffler

(07:45) Is AI a disruptive or sustaining innovation? 

(09:13) What is intelligence?

(11:47) The attention and information economy

(16:43) Storytelling, the stock market, and the economy

(18:13) Sponsors: Mercury, Vanta, NetSuite

(25:30) Startups vs incumbents

(27:40) Disrupting highly-regulated industries

(28:47) AI in education: an AI tutor for every child

(31:40) AI as StackOverflow 2.0 for engineers

(33:45) Regulatory Arbitrage

(36:20) The oracle problem

(38:00) Apple as the weakest live player in AI

(42:15) AI in communities and the future of social media

(43:00) Replika on Valentine’s Day and AI-generated porn

(50:10) How does the market for inference shape up? Inference vs. cloud

(52:30) What are the most likely incumbents to be disrupted?

(53:25) Will big tech continue to opensource? 

(55:30) Birth rate in US in the future given AI

(57:00) Can any AI leader sustain high gross margins in the future?

(58:00) Stability’s business model

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