Sam Mallikarjunan’s Post

This is such a surreal feeling. 😵💫 Something that started as a hackathon by a few HubSpot Alumni just trying to help small business owners survive the pandemic has turned into this. Something we built is still something incredible (and still getting better!) even though I'm not there anymore. Sounds weird but that fills me with incredible joy. ♥️ There's nothing I'm more proud of than knowing this team will continue to change the world regardless of what I do next. Y'all. 🥹 Go OSai Team Go! 🔥🚀📈🌝

Miles said it as well as I could. In fact, I'm surprised that the number of companies who say they're helping people become AI-literate is that *high*. But you don't need to wait for your company. The folks at LinkedIn brought together people like me, Miles, and others and are apparently giving our courses away for free (and, no, none of us made these courses for free so this *is* costing them 😳). 1) Presumably that's not an offer that's going to last long. Take advantage of it while you can. 2) There's a significant sense of urgency here. As Yuval Noah Harari (author of Sapiens) said during his interview on The Late Show recently: "Every generation thinks they experienced rapid technological disruption - but this time it's actually true." (paraphrasing). Learning at least the fundamentals here isn't something any of us can afford to put off until we "have time". I'm not going to try to hard pitch you on this. a) it's free (for now) so there's not much to pitch 🤷♂️ & b) I'm not a "hype cycle" person usually (although if there was ever a time for me to become one it'd be now). But whether your company is or is not already supporting AI literacy for you and your colleagues, you might as well take advantage of this opportunity and invest the time *now* so you don't get left behind. p.s. my course is one of many - and I'm also steadily working my way through the other ones. We all have stuff to learn! p.p.s even if you've already taken these courses (or have just decided you aren't interested) share them with your friends, coworkers, and connections. It's an act of generosity that costs you (and them) nothing. You can reshare this post, you can send them the links directly, or you can just tag people in the comments here that you think might find this interesting. Here's a direct link to my course, and you can find the others using the links that Miles shared in his post: https://lnkd.in/ekkkcuWD

You know who has done a remarkably good job implementing multimedia/multi-modality into their content marketing? The Central Intelligence Agency. Not only are they creating multimedia content that reaches their target audience of potential human intelligence assets (such as the videos they're making on Telegram) but they're producing fairly remarkable content to reach other target audiences such as potential future employees. This podcast they've launched called The Langley Files is objectively entertaining and informative, and they've entrusted it to two fairly junior people (which makes it more relatable and fun IMHO) while giving them access and support at the highest levels (see Episode 1). This post isn't meant to be political, so if you have political opinions about the CIA please keep them off this thread. But if the famously quiet CIA can adapt to the modern era of many different channels, mediums, and modalities in which people need content then there's absolutely no excuse we can't do the same inside our organizations. Who's someone else that creates good content you like that might surprise us? Dan Moyle 🎤 in my head I'm channeling your "Marketing For Boring Industries" talk that you gave one year at INBOUND 🙂 https://lnkd.in/ePARSpqC

There are days where I have to take a moment and appreciate the bizarre times in which we live. My morning is filled with meetings to discuss incredibly advanced applications of *Artificial Intelligence*. Then, late afternoon I have a reminder on my calendar to watch a *moon landing*. If you had told me in 2004 that this is what our lives would be like in 2024, I would have *wanted* to believe you (but I probably wouldn't have). Now I'm 100% confident I'll see humans living on Mars and the birth of AGI during my lifetime. Not to mention all the advancements in material sciences, health tech, quantum computing, fusion energy, etc. etc. Wild. Just wild. Ever have moments like this?

Having a weird moment of anxiety. I've been in Florida since the pandemic, but I'm back in Boston for various meetings this week (I've gotta take a new job eventually!). This is my first time being back in actual corporate offices in years. My anxiety isn't really about the amount of people or anything, more just around making sure I remember how to behave. In-person meetings are different (but better IMHO) in terms of how to act (e.g. I can't let my gaze drift off while I ponder what someone is saying - it's nicer to actually look at someone while they talk to you in person lol). Also, being at home and being in a company's office is different. E.g. in an office - unlike a Zoom call - I have to make *100% sure* I have more than just a shirt on before I roll into a meeting 🙃 So if y'all see me around Boston this week looking dazed and confused just grab my shoulders and steer me towards these "conference room" things. I'm mostly joking, but it is weird. In a good way. Almost nostalgic. I think most of y'all have been back to offices already to some degree. Was it weird for you too? What was the biggest difference? (p.s. if you're in Boston and want to meet up this week let me know!)

I was lukewarm on the "Custom GPTs" thing when I first heard about it (it's really just pre-built instructions that go into the context window, is it really that different from a regular chat session and/or building an Assistant?). Buuuut Kieran Flanagan has changed my perspective in the latest MATG podcast (which, if you don't already subscribe to you should - one of the few I still watch). Basically, the near-term future is going to see us all having AI Agents that serve as an orchestration layer for other AI Agents, being able to tag custom GPTs into a session and use those custom instructions to execute specific work without cluttering up the overall context window is going to be a significant game changer. He compares it to Slack and it does have that sort of feel. You can @ people (or @ AI Agents in this case) for help. For the foreseeable future - at least until "AGI" becomes a thing in which case none of this matters because we'll collectively retire as a species - "Artificial Expert Intelligence" (for lack of a better term) will be what we use. You'll have your AEI that you use for shopping (probably powered by Amazon), your AEI that you use for planning travel, your AEI for mental/physical health coaching, etc. that will all be invoked by a "Super Agent" or "orchestration layer AEI" whose "expertise" is just knowing *you* really well and knowing when to call what other AI Agents for help. For example - I *never* want you to send me a deck (he uses Canva as an example). I like to read things. So for Kieran it might invoke the Canva AI Agent (like he does manually in his video) to make him a deck, but for me the same prompts might invoke the "Write An Unnecessarily Long Explanation Essay" AI Agent 🤓 This is my theory, anyways. And this #ChatGPT development seems to continue the trend in that direction. Watch here: https://lnkd.in/g9mEVgKr p.s. while I abhor the invention of jargon terms for no good reason - especially acronyms - I think "AEI" is an important distinction for both practical reasons (we need to build this "Internet of AI Agents") as well as philosophical reasons (if we judge AEI based on how it compares to our idea of AGI we'll end up with AISI - Artificial Imposter Syndrome Intelligence 🙃 ) What do you think about: 1) The Custom GPTs thing (especially the @ feature) 2) The near-term future of Super Agents (a term I'm stealing from "Super Apps") or "AEIs" (whatever you want to call them) being the new way we're going to interact with technology?

I still think most of the LLMs (AI tools like #ChatGPT etc which you've likely heard about recently) have poison pills baked in. I think #OpenAI may be to the future of AI what Napster was to the future of streaming audio. Napster and Spotify offered essentially the same functionality, but Spotify did it in a clarified regulatory environment. 1) We're already seeing lawsuits about using copyrighted content (e.g. the NYT lawsuit etc). 2) Even if somehow foundational AI companies manage to successfully claim that's "fair use" in the US, I think the EU's regulations around things like the "right to be forgotten" might offer additional challenges. How could you possibly prove your AI is no longer using anything I've written on the internet? 3) Not for nothing, but the lawsuits we're seeing today + the rapid adoption of tools like this clearly show that content creators *want* control and compensation for their work. At HubSpot back in the day we spent years convincing businesses to invest in creating content and #inboundmarketing by telling them they'd be rewarded for their efforts with customers and revenue. Removing that incentive, both for artists as well as marketers, will do bad things to the ecosystem of educational content (as well as simple art for art's sake). I don't know if there's a corresponding way to "poison" text training data like they're doing with images (I don't know one, anyways). But if 20+ years in sales & marketing has taught me anything it's that you probably don't want to bank on things that society doesn't want (e.g. ad blockers, spam blockers, hell even my phone screens sales calls now). I half joke in the course on Generative AI I created that if you care about ethically sourced products, you should consider if you care about ethically sourced data in choosing AI products. Half joked. But for real :) Should we care? Ignoring whether it's legal or not - the courts will sort that out - do you think we should consider whether the AI tools we're using are built on top of ethically sourced data or not? Or do we have no choice since our competitors may not care and we have to keep up? I don't have a perfect answer here. What do you think? https://lnkd.in/e24z7TkS

I can't say enough good things about working with the team at LinkedIn Learning. I took a dozen or so other #LinkedInLearning courses to prepare for filming my own, and realized that I've been missing out on an *incredibly* valuable resource. What started as "just get a feel for the format" became a daily learning habit. Over a thousand people took our #GenerativeAI course since we launched a month ago. So far, feedback and ratings have been great (yeah, like *you* wouldn't refresh those stats every morning! 😂 ). You can check out the course here: https://lnkd.in/evRqxu2x Use the Q&A feature if you want to discuss anything else in greater detail! I try not to leave any questions unanswered (although you may get a very long response - I'm not known for my brevity, at least without Lauren Habib and her fantastic team to help me!). Have you taken any LinkedIn Learning courses? What else should I be checking out? p.s. I'm used to webinars looking into a webcam, but these people are TRUE professionals. I was irrationally excited when they'd say things like "cut" - and they graciously let me hold the clapper thing and took a photo with me 🤓

PSA: You literally can't waste my time. I get sad when people worry about that, especially if it means I miss out on being able to help them when they really need it. I set aside blocks of time every day specifically to do whatever I can mentoring startups, small businesses, or just professionals who need a sympathetic ear. My calendar link literally won't let you waste my time. If there's an open spot, it's because I have time to help but no one else needs it. If you do, then book it! If I can ever help you, just let me know. Well, as long as helping you doesn't mean buying what you're selling - which is like 99% of LinkedIn messages I get 😅 I'm not running a company anymore so I don't have budget anyways 😉 The same is probably true for lots of other people in your life. Old colleagues, teachers, mentors, etc. are probably more willing to help you than you think they are. People care about you. And no one is ALWAYS busy. Can't hurt to ask for help when you need it. Worst case, someone says they can't help and you're stuck in the same position you were before! To prove it to you, I've attached this very scientific poll so you can see that I'm not the only one ❤️