The E-commerce Leader

[00:00:00] Is the car gonna revolutionize everything about the world? Yes. And, and I think to your point, I think it’s absolutely revolutionary. It’s got to the point where, you know, the internal combustion engine was invented in whatever, the 1890s in Germany, and it was a kind of plating for the rich.
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[00:01:16] so ladies and gentlemen, we’re talking AI today. Once again chat. G p t four is out and it’s making huge waves just like it’s, uh, little sister chat. G P three three or was it 3.5? Um, chats, uh, G P T and open AI has become the fastest grown website in the history of the internet. It took two months to get to a hundred million users.
[00:01:36] They’re gonna add some plug-ins now. Um, for example, um, travel plug-ins, like Kayak. We’ll talk more about that. And it is starting to really disrupt Alexa theory because the quality of the language model’s amazing. Although, to be fair, I think Siri puts the path fairly low in my experience. So people are clarifying that this is a huge shift and breakthrough.
[00:01:53] Is it as big as the internet itself, perhaps? So Jason, let’s talk chat. G P T and ai, is it really that big a deal? That’s the first question that we gotta answer. Sure, and I guess we should probably reference that we did an episode set, um, what was it, maybe a month, two months ago, something like that. It was right after chat, g p t 3.5 came out and made its huge kind of debut and huge splash.
[00:02:18] And we did, uh, some episodes at that point. I called it something like speaking to the Oracle of Delph. That’s what it felt like to me. Like in my view back then, I felt after two days of using it, was gonna totally disrupt a Google. Um, and was gonna be an industry game changer. And it’s only become more obvious that that’s true.
[00:02:41] And I guess other people saying it is, uh, kind of reinforced the idea that this is Absolut. A big deal. I joked before we started this conversation, Michael, that the question is for many people, is this as big a deal as Manny chat or as big a deal as the internet itself? And if you’re not familiar with the reference, Manny Chat was a little tool for Facebook Messenger marketers who you know, wanted to automate scripts and do little gimmicky Facebook message.
[00:03:14] Or in, in Messenger. And uh, it is clearly not in the same realm as Manny Chat. It’s clearly in the same realm as the internet itself. Uh, the iPhone that created the app marketplace, maybe mobile, uh, you know, technology. This is absolutely a revolutionary technology and the whole world is starting to wake up to that.
[00:03:39] In short order, and it’s just incredible to see the energy, enthusiasm, and even warnings and concerns and cautions that are starting to emerge around the idea of this, uh, this language model that’s so effective at what it does. People are asking real questions about where this leads to singularity and the idea that the AI tools.
[00:04:05] Become aware and, uh, and, and I, so I think it’s a, this is a little bit high level conversation today. Uh, we will have some practical tacticals, including some references to some resources where you can adapt this to your e-commerce business. So we will get practical, but I think the high level conversation today is probably, uh, worthy.
[00:04:23] It’s worthy of the, uh, the moment here as a brand new thing emerges. That is a big, big. Yeah, I, I think I’m with you on the big deal thing. I, I think, um, the, see, you see humans can’t even operate, you know, streamy yard without screwing it up. Look at me here. Um, I think that, um, chat, G p t may or may not in itself be such a big deal.
[00:04:43] Uh, I suspect it is, um, that I had a very interesting conversation. I know you’re a big fan of the All In podcast and there was an interesting discussion, uh, quite a healthy debate. About whether that first mover advantage actually confers, you know, market share in the long term. They pointed out that, um, Facebook was the, I think the seventh big social media platform and so forth.
[00:05:01] I think that’s missing the point. I think that’s a bit like saying if you’re gonna back one of them, if you’re gonna invest, then of course it’s relevant. Uh, but, or if you’re a venture capitalist or something. But it’s a bit like with the car in, in America in the twenties, you know, which car company is gonna be the big one?
[00:05:12] That, that’s a heck of a question. Is the car gonna revolutionize everything about the world? Yes. And, and I think to your point, I think it’s absolutely revolutionary. It’s got to the point where, you know, the internal combustion engine was invented in whatever, the 1890s in Germany, and it was a kind of plating for the rich.
[00:05:27] But when it became mass market and exploded, like you said, a cambrin explosion was the phrase you used, um, then I think it changed everything. And I think we’ve reached that tipping point with ai. It’s a feeling I get. I’m not an AI specialist. Yeah. But it just feels. Like the quality of the interaction is utterly different.
[00:05:42] So Siri, Alexa, which I haven’t really used much, Siri a lot. Any other things like that, uh, or the chat, the chat bots that people will stick all over their websites, I think hugely and advisedly because they’re just crass and they ask, answer three questions accurately, and then the rest of the time they just, so, they just give you stock answers.
[00:05:58] Um, Well, it’s a nice and day experience, isn’t it? I think that’s, that’s the difference. Yeah. And I think the, the important issue you raise is whether open AI and its chat, G P T product is going to be the first mover in the space that wins. Because I think it’s fair to say nothing has mattered until this, you know, and the question is in terms of, you know, the kind of the AI tools and that kind of thing, it, this was always a, a sideshow for the tech.
[00:06:28] Until chat g b t 3.5. And, and, and you know, that’s true because in two months they have a hundred million users on their platform. So the, the real question to your point is whether that’s the tool itself that’s going to revolutionize everything, or whether it’ll just be, you know, a derivative, uh, you know, competitor that comes.
[00:06:48] Uh, that that really gets it right. Um, and I think it’s an interesting question. I mean, you’re right that there’s no question that it’s cha it’s changed the game. And, um, the, the only question is whether they’ll be the, the ultimate, you know, kind of lions share, winner g take all kind of, you know, winner take all type type model.
[00:07:06] Um, and there’s huge debate about that. Um, but I will say that I, I tend to.
[00:07:13] Websites that become the fastest growing website in the history of the internet and do it, you know, do it in two months. Those don’t fall off the cliff and go into obscurity. You know, like think back to using Google. I remember using Google for the very first time and before that I had used the other search tools.
[00:07:31] Dogpile was the one I liked before Google was around and there was AltaVista and there’s other, there was other search. But if you walked up to a, you know, person on the street and said, do you, are you familiar with Dogpile? They’d be like, what? What? Now? You know, or are you familiar with Lycos? No, they, those didn’t have, you know, kind of breakthrough, uh, you know, awareness, like, what’s happening with chat G P T?
[00:07:54] So anyway, all that to say, I think it is going to be a, a primary. Uh, winner, if not the winner, take all, uh, you know, kind of idea. Um, and so, you know, I think that’s, uh, that’s something to think about. Um, I I would also just say that, uh, you know, the, the question as it relates to disruption of other large industry players is important.
[00:08:16] When I think about, you mentioned the, uh, the Alexa and Siri, and I feel the same. I can’t even use Siri using Siri. To me, literally as a joke, I will use Seriously. Seriously. And then the response I get back from Siri, I, I, everybody in the car laughs. It’s literally that bad a tool. And I’m sorry, but. You know, apple just does not know what it’s doing in terms of Yeah.
[00:08:42] Uh, programming a tool to listen to what you ask and then to, uh, respond back intelligently. Maybe the speaker system isn’t properly dialed in. Maybe the, the technology behind it is what’s failing it, but it is a complete clown. Yeah, it, it feels like an early demonstration, as you say, a bit of a joke and a bit of a sort of fun thing.
[00:09:03] I remember my wife and I, the last time I remember using Siri vigorously was when my wife and I got our series to speak to each [00:09:10] other and, and we basically tried to trick them into saying completely stupid things to each other and respond to each. Yeah. I mean, that was the, the most attractive use of it, because there’s a serious tool.
[00:09:18] It is a joke, as you say. I mean, I think that this is an absolutely night and day change. Yeah. Um, and to the point of why I think also, There’s a, it reminds me of the book Simplified by Richard Kosh, who wrote 80 20 Principal and the Star Principal, fantastic business writer, but he really, he’s a very reductionist guy.
[00:09:36] He’s not overly detailed, but I think he’s got a fair, fair point here. And one of them is this book Simplifies, says there’s two ways of simplifying. And I think both of them have a history of causing market dominance or even blowing up an, a nascent market, so forward, simplified production, thus massively, massively reducing the price of a car.
[00:09:54] And suddenly it turns out, if you, if you, um, have to pay 20% of the previous price of a car, or 10%, then the market isn’t just 10 times vigorous, maybe a thousand times bigger, maybe 10,000. Mm-hmm. And, uh, the other one is obviously the, um, talking of iPhones. Siri, uh, is not a great example of apple’s art, the iPhone itself or the smartphone and the swipe ability of, uh, an iPad and anything.
[00:10:16] The amazing engineering that goes into making it very easy to use and very practical and reliable is what gave it dominance in the, you know, created the smartphone market. Gave it dominance over that market. Yeah, and I think Chat U PT has just done the same for what Sirio was failing to do as a joke.
[00:10:31] And so were, you know, those terrible chatbots that, I dunno why, why they ever got famous cuz they were awful. Mm-hmm Like for Facebook, the interactive experience was just awful. And then, I think what they’ve done is make it very simple to use because the machine behind it isn’t doing incredibly sophisticated things, and that’s just, uh, another example of what Apple did or what Google did.
[00:10:52] They took a massive, complicated experience and simplified the heck out of it. I mean, so that’s a very powerful sort of meta lesson for all business creation, I think as well. But that, as you say, I think that gives him a strong starting point. Absolutely. So whether absolutely they dominate, who knows. Um, so just coming back a little bit more towards e-commerce, we’re gonna have to plunge straight into massive practicalities, but I mean, in a way, my, my question, my immediate thought and be very interested in your thoughts on this, is that, is the tail wagging the dog here?
[00:11:20] I mean, is, is AI such a big, uh, revolution that actually it dwarfs e-commerce? Or is it in fact just another tool set that is very powerful but that can be used within e-commerce? You know, should we. Landon are what we’ve got good at over the last 10 or years or whatever it is, and start plunging into ai?
[00:11:38] Or is should it be subsumed within an existing e-commerce business? Or is there something very revolutionary going on here? Well, that’s an interesting question. Yeah, I, I would say that it is a, along the lines of a utility device. You would apply to your business in whatever form that business takes. So, I mean, so if you’re, if you’re a bungee jumping business, launching people off of a bridge somewhere, uh, I wouldn’t stop doing that and get into the, you know, some kind of AI business.
[00:12:06] I, I think it, I think it’s a tool for all of us and it’s a business, um, efficiency. Uh, like no other. That’s just one sliver of its functionality and usage in our industry, you know, for e-commerce operators. And the question is then what utility does it provide? What are the 5, 6, 7 things that are ma gonna be magical that are currently drudgery?
[00:12:28] And we can talk through some of that today. Um, but I think that’s the way to look at it, is this isn’t something to pivot into per se. This is something that makes you superhuman in what you. If, if, you know, if, you know that’s a, that’s a bold statement and you know, is that true? I guess we’ll all be, uh, responsible to implement it.
[00:12:47] You know, your mileage may vary as they say. Um, but we have the opportunity to use this tool in our businesses to really make headway in exciting ways. Happy to talk through some examples that are top of mind right now for me. So, Excellent, by the way. I love that. The buyer of selling. Well, you know, I’m in super superhuman, but your, your usage may vary, so you are, you are slightly bullish on this, uh, I think, yeah, I, it’s an efficiency tool for creating.
[00:13:13] More of what we do faster. I guess the only thing that that strikes me is a bit like the sort as apprentice idea that, uh, bill Gates said a, you know, a, a really good system or a person will amplify whatever’s there. So if you’re doing a mess, then it will amplify a mess faster. And equally, if you’ve got something great going on, then they’ll amplify that.
[00:13:32] So, um, as you say, it’s a tool and I guess that like all tools, it, it can make you do stupid things quicker if you are already on a bad path and unless you ask it to. Tangle your mass. Well, this is true. This is a very good point. I mean, this is one of, one of the levels of profanity around chat d p t, isn’t it?
[00:13:47] It’s so deep. Alright, well look, let’s, let’s get into some of the, I mean, that’s a more profound question. Let’s do, let’s knock off some of the more tactical, obvious uses of chat, D P T or Indeed related technologies. If you’re listening in years time and something as blown up, all the strangely named things, I think Googles come up with.
[00:14:03] No, what’s it. I can’t remember the names of the people that came up with it, but there’s somebody called, um, Claude and there’s another one, lama, which was released by Meta, a k a Facebook. So, um, you know, whether it’s Claude Lama or G P T mm-hmm. In a year’s time, I think these use cases are gonna be stay the same.
[00:14:18] So, so what are your, what are your use cases for, uh, e-commerce? So, well, I ask it to make an outline for this podcast before we started and it just spit out an outline in, you know, a second or. Uh, and so I won’t read through the whole thing, but, and I’m not sure we’re following it, but I’ll just give you the highlights.
[00:14:33] It immediately said, uh, you know, when I ask it the question, can you make an outline for a podcast conversation? Our audience is e-commerce sellers, and the topic is how to use chat c b T for business success. It said, sure. Title chat, G p t Colon revolutionizing e-commerce for seller. Introduction, briefly introduce chat, G P T and its capability number two, explain the relevance of chat B T G P T for e-commerce.
[00:15:00] Uh, and then big question is chat, G P T A disruptive, um, disruptive or a tool? Um, It’s a tool, you know, exclamation point, efficiency like no other utility. What utilities does it improve? I mean, it just gives me on and on and on. Uh, section one, enhancing product product listings. Uh, section two, streamlining customer support.
[00:15:20] Section three, content marketing and social media. Section four, analyzing customer feedback and reviews. And it gave me bullet points under each one of these sections that we could talk about in this podcast. It did that in like two seconds or less. Just amazing. And it gave me a beautiful conclusion. You know,
[00:15:47] oh, sorry. Let’s skip this bit. I suppose all that’s implying is that it’s great for content creation and, um, I suppose that then pushes us towards the obvious things like product listings. Um, so I have you used pr, Chuck, do you proceed to create any product listings in e-commerce yet? I mean, that’s something that I’m definitely about to embark on quite a big chunk of for a, for a client if this deal comes off, which should be the next couple of weeks.
[00:16:11] Um, not listings. No, I haven’t, no. I, by the way, you used it for an email to your list, because I got that the other day and I thought, well, this is well structured email. I must sell something like this out to my list. Then at the end you said, oh, by the way, this is written by Chuck g p t. I’m like, oh, okay.
[00:16:27] That was quite scary that that sounded like, you know, Jason on a, on a good day. But, and so let me describe it for you. I, uh, I do a weekly Shopify, uh, pro Tips newsletter and. I, I wondered how chat G p t would, um, you know, do that for me. And I asked it to, uh, you know, make me a 500 word, uh, you know, message or blog.
[00:16:49] I don’t remember if I said blog post or newsletter, maybe newsletter. Um, and, uh, and bam, it came back with a beautiful, uh, you know, outline. It was basically offering a site, a free site audit. And it even gave me, All I said was a Shopify site audit, and it said in the body of the content, the site audit will include four vital steps, da, da.
[00:17:10] And I read that and I was like, dang, that’s a really good structure for a site audit. Like it’s giving me suggestions on how to do what I told it I was gonna do, and then yeah. That really I wrote because it’s something, it’s something I’ve been considering doing. And when, when I looked at that I thought, wow, this is really good.
[00:17:26] Jason’s offering much better things than I was thinking. I didn’t come up with that. It was Chas that’s so then at the end I thought, well, how do I make this fun for the readers and how do I point out the fact that it’s written so well? They would know it wasn’t me writing it. And so then I put at the bottom, PS I was really busy this morning, so I a asked chat, g p t to write this newsletter.
[00:17:48] I think she did a great job and I’ve gotten a lot of people who’ve responded, or several people I should say, you know, I mean, people have responded more than to a typical newsletter that I would’ve written because it was an interesting little hook. You know, it was a little surprise because even somebody said to me, you know, your newsletters are usually shorter than that.
[00:18:08] Usually it’s, it is like, you know, kind of one sentence paragraphs and you know, kind of direct copy style, you know, writing. And this one was more. Proper paragraphs and that kind [00:18:20] of thing. And, uh, it caught people’s attention. But my hope with it was not only that people would want a site audit, which it actually worked, people did sign up for site audits.
[00:18:29] But my hope was that I would inform my, uh, you know, my, my, um, customers or my, my people who I work with that, that we consult with, that chat, G B T can be used for such purpose. And that was really the gist of it, and I think it did both things very effectively. It was a great example, and I honestly didn’t expect it to be that powerful.
[00:18:50] An example, I just threw it a real quick prompt. Yeah. And kaboom, you know, I, I was so impressed. I’m, um, it struck me afterwards. I hadn’t really realized, I didn’t know how much of an input you’d had into it. And this is part of the art prompt engineering is what they call it, isn’t it? Yes. I think really learning to drive, really, it’s like driving a powerful sports car.
[00:19:07] Doesn’t mean you don’t need to know how to drive. Um, but you need to know how to use the technology. And, um, what’s interesting though is that it automatically came up with some nice sort of structural. Which I have, I saw really good and you haven’t given it. I mean, that’s kind of amazing. So it can I have the, uh, yeah, I have the, uh, it saves all your conversations with it.
[00:19:24] So I have the conversation prompt right here. It was, write me a 500 word email targeting Shopify site owners who have sales of less than $10,000 per month and are frustrated, inviting them to sign up for my free site. And boom, I mean, it just did a masterful job. I tweaked it a tiny bit, uh, a a little bit more personal reference stuff, and then the link of course to, to do the site audit.
[00:19:52] But yeah, that’s, so that’s an example, um, you know, of a practical tactical, if you have an important email that you think your customers need to hear. Um, Let chat g p t take a whack at it. If nothing else, it’ll give you some concepts that you might, you know, cherry pick out. Um, give you another example if you want.
[00:20:10] Yeah, please. We’re doing a, um, a challenge right now for our, um, retail Arbitrage sourcing app. We have a sourcing app called Omni Rockett. Um, the suite of tools is Omni Rockett Pro. We’re doing a challenge right now. Um, Kyle and I the other day, were talking about the fact that we should have basically a product tester for the app here, you know, located at, where I work here in Northern California and, but then have that person doing retail arbitrage for us.
[00:20:37] Uh, just not really for the money of it. Not to generate income through retail arbitrage, but just to be the, our super user for the app and maybe find somebody who could do some training videos and be sort of an on. Person as well. And we mentioned that idea two or three times to each other. So then literally, you know, two minutes before I was about to start the, the challenge website, I just typed in the chat, G b T, please write me a job description for an app, um, you know, mobile app product tester who, um, you know, needs to do, you know, I could redo the prompt, but anyways, something like that, it gave me this beautiful job description.
[00:21:15] Am I looking at it right? Absolutely flawless. It looks like we’re a legit, big business, and it’s just wonderfully constructed job overview responsibilities, requirements, you know, our, uh, our statement con, you know, conforming to, you know, not discriminatory the language appropriate for California, blah, blah, blah.
[00:21:40] It’s just, just perfect. So I showed it to Kyle and he was like, nice, you know, so job description writing is a thing of the past, and I used to do that in my career. In 1994, I started as a, a job description writer, uh, compensation analyst. So I know a good job description when I see one. Yeah. And, uh, here it is beautifully done in just literally two seconds, two seconds.
[00:22:04] I had a, and it’s not quite a chat, chat, g p t, but just to, to remind us that it goes beyond just, uh, text. There was a, I’m a big fan and I’m not gonna tell you who it is big. I’m gonna do a bit of a teaser to try and drive people back to the website, just shamelessly. So the e-commerce leader.com is where you’ll find our show notes, and I will put the answer into the show notes and you can go and link to this person and listen back.
[00:22:24] But here’s what happened. I, um, this very famous marketer said that he’d asked Chuck g p t, um, he or they had asked Chuck G p t. Write a, a thing about, um, uh, what was it? The they to write about AI from the perspective of Isaac Kassoff, the famous writer. He read through lots of robotics, which are becoming suddenly very practical question.
[00:22:43] Um, and he read this out and, uh, the end of the podcast, he said, by the way, I didn’t read this out. This was whatever it is, I can’t remember what it is. We’ll put it in the show notes. Technology is reading it and I was like, oh my goodness. I’ve listened to probably 50 podcasts by this person I’ve read, listened to their audio books.
[00:22:59] I’ve listened to them on YouTube doing their presentations that have been filmed, and I didn’t have any clue that was AI doing it. That was a jaw drop moment for me. I’m like, wow. And he kept it at the end, which was super smart. So if you listened to that podcast, I’ve now spoiled it for you, but I just, I listened back this morning, I was thinking, no, I still can’t tell the difference.
[00:23:18] It was quite frightening. But also, um, just goes to show that that suddenly the idea of personal content communication from Jason to me or to. Or even the voice of Jason, you know, this is me and Jason live, by the way. Mm-hmm. In case you’re listening. Yeah. And wondering, but it’s suddenly up for, it’s an open question now whether that’s actually happening.
[00:23:37] Yeah. So, yeah, what are your thoughts on this? Oh, there’s a million use cases for this. Um, basically any business writing research analysis, um, there, there’s an, uh, in essence, Deepest imaginable, well is available to us now in terms of those issues or, or, you know, job duties. Uh, if that’s a metaphor, and you can go down that well, as deep as you want.
[00:24:01] I mean, you can get incredibly high quality work done now instantly. You just have to prompt the work, um, appropriately. And, um, and that’s just kind of the. Forms, but to your point, there’s many, many other, you know, toolkits coming available. Um, written speech is gonna be absolutely amazing. Um, yeah, it’s, it’s a, it’s a brave new world.
[00:24:23] This is, Literally like, I don’t know what that song, the Age of Aquarius in the seventies even meant, but welcome to the Age of Aquarius. This is some funky stuff we’re into man. And this, this is the kind of, this is the kind of deal where you will look back and you’ll say the kids who grew up before there were AI tools, had one life, had one life, and kids that grew up after AI tools had a different life.
[00:24:49] It’s that to me, this is that kind of watershed. I’m with you on that. I think, um, for better or worse, and, uh, I used to read a log on Isaac aov, so that particularly caught my attention when I heard that podcast describing it, you know, the three laws of robotics. But what struck me is that actually, and we also do some specifics for e-commerce in a sec, but another sort of ethical point is, is this that, not really to my surprise, but I think that, um, The whole question of making robots safe around humans was solved by azimov.
[00:25:18] Having the three laws of robotics, which if I remember rightly, the first law is, um, you know, make sure you do no harm to humans. The second one is do what humans tell you. And the third one is, uh, you know, unless it conflicts with the first law. And then the third one is preserve yourself as an expensive robot unless it conflicts with the first or the second law.
[00:25:33] That does not seem to have been built into anyone’s thinking so far. No. What’s happened in chat a PT is that they’ve actually, sorry. No, I was gonna ask, is that the basis of that movie iRobot? Yeah. Amongst other things? Yes. Okay. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. So tho those, those sort of, uh, fundamental moral drivers that drive a lot of mm-hmm.
[00:25:51] Stories, Same with human life, right? I mean, you don’t, you know, Macbeth wouldn’t be a big deal if murdering kings was not against the law and against morality, right? I mean, like any Greek dramas go back. They, they imply a certain moral framework without which there’s no drama. And, um, so the weird thing that I’m seeing happening with Chap G P T, which is a bit different from, uh, the, I think it’s this Claude thing, I can’t remember who created it now, but some.
[00:26:11] Very highly backed startup, but nevertheless, startup is that the, the chat, g p t seems to be training at, um, very specific humans of saying no. Oh, oh, no, no. You shouldn’t tell people how to create, there’s an actual list given by AI OpenAI of what they made it do and then what they’ve made sure it can’t do.
[00:26:27] Like, for example, create poisonous substances from normally household substances around the house or, um, you know, say racist things. Of course. Yeah. Yeah. Um, and what else did they ask it to do? I think they asked somebody to, to, um, They asked it to fall on Airtasker human being, to get around the capture, and it just lied because it was the most efficient way of getting the job done.
[00:26:44] And they got the job done. It got round the capture. So that’s kind of a strange way. It’s, it’s a bit like you’ve created a monster and then you put a fence around it. I mean, what the Isaac Kamo idea, I think is more like the, the claw, as I understand it, the Claude, um, computer, sorry, AI system has got, which is they’re trying to build it around a constitution.
[00:27:01] So rather like a good, uh, American citizen. Sorry, I dunno what I’ve done to my camera now. A good American citizen. Um, the, God, I can’t even work a camera. And there we are talking about AI and the humans can’t even get cameras to work. Let me try again. Oh my goodness. Sorry. Ancient computer not working.
[00:27:20] This is a lose for apple and a win for chatbot here. Um, here we go. Alright, let me try that all again. There we’re there we’re, yep. Yep. So the Claude idea is quite a different concept, [00:27:30] which to me feels more like the Azimov idea, which is, uh, they’re gonna build a constitution. So rather like in, in American knows unconstitutional, it’s get in the way of free speech unless you have an amendment that makes it, you know, more important for some other reason.
[00:27:41] And so there’s a sort of value system which is guided by, which feels more like the Azimov idea, but it’s quite interesting that that’s coming. I said Johnny come lately that the first one is we create a monster and then we just kind of take the fang off a little. Which is, I think this is highlighted by the fact that earlier this week, Elon Musk and Steve Wazniak, and I guess 1100 important signatories, wrote a letter, an open letter to open AI into AI researchers, basically asking them to pause or, you know, kind of put a moratorium on new releases of, of, of, of increasingly powerful, uh, AI tools for six.
[00:28:21] Which is really not that long, long, but just six months to allow society to basically understand what’s happening and get its orientation right, about how to approach the issue. Um, I saw a tweet like Elon Musk basically that said, uh, something to the effect of, at least we made the statement, but this will not be listened to.
[00:28:41] You know? So I don’t think he has any hope that the AI researchers around the world will. Uh, I don’t think anybody has that hope, nor will they inject any kind of asimov, uh, type more code or, or, or, or safety code of any type. And I think that’s what’s really, really rattled people with chat. G p T four is the, the absolute power.
[00:29:04] Um, and, uh, if you, if you want to do a couple additional podcasts, um, Sam Alt. Was, um, interviewed by Lex Friedman. It’s episode 360 7 on the Lex Friedman podcast. He’s the c e o of, uh, chat of Open ai, Sam Altman, he used to be the c e o, uh, leader at Y Combinator, and when I went through the Y Combinator Startup School, I watched a lot of the video and training materials from.
[00:29:30] And, uh, he had a typical Silicon Valley background. You know, I mean, he had done, you know, uh, startup stuff and was involved in Silicon Valley industry. And then when I heard he was a c e O of open ai, um, I, and he left Y Combinator. I was kind of interested by that. I’ll be really honest, I didn’t see it going near as hyperbolic as it has gone.
[00:29:52] I mean, it’s just has gone incredible. But, uh, there’s another conversation that Lex Friedman had right after that interview with Sam Altman, and it’s with a guy named Eli Aer, ed Kowski. And the episode is, uh, 360 8 on his show, and that is titled Dangers of AI and The End of Human Civilization. And, uh, the, the Uher guy basically is I what I would call a NIS at this.
[00:30:23] It is absolutely the darkest of outcomes and how AI can kill us all and will kill us all, and he doesn’t see, literally, he is at the point of, it’s it. You can hear it in his voice, like the point of despair where he feels like he’s been talking about this topic for 20 years and no one’s listened and no one will listen.
[00:30:43] No one will. The competitive drive to have a better tool, better product, better. You know, system is entrenched in many, many, you know, tech cultures. So much so that there’s funding, there’s engineering talent, and there’s literally no, you know, no breaks will be applied to this. And he sees it as literally apocalyptic.
[00:31:07] I guess what you’re implying is, is a, as a metaphor in arms race, but I mean literal arms races mm-hmm. Has been what’s often driven human technological. Progress in the broader sense of progress. Right. May not be good or bad, but it’s moved. Um, and that’s probably been true since the Iron Age. I guess if you’re coming up against somebody with bronze swords and you’ve got iron swords or, or bronze shields and you’ve got iron shields, you can probably, you know, get through them.
[00:31:32] Yeah. I’m not sure that this is new to humanity. I’m not saying it’s It’s okay and cool and, and lovely, like war generally, uh, is horrific, but I do think that we’re likely to survive just in a more. In a moderated form. But to that point, I mean the, the interesting thing about the Isaac OV is such an idealistic science, sort of pure scientist view of advance of humanity, that that robots would have moral laws built into them from the beginning, of course.
[00:31:56] And the reality is that one of the bigger users of. Fairly low-ish grade artificial intelligence, but for a specific purpose, probably quite good in that context is things like predator, drones and other sort of war fighting instruments of which the, the Americans are a global leader. Um, again, for better or or worse, another discussion.
[00:32:13] But, uh, I don’t think that in a way this is the darkest use of AI yet, because it, it’s scary and. Possibly put a lot of, uh, insight marketers out out of business if they’re mediocre email writers. No offense to your previous emails, but, um, I do think that, uh, yeah, it’s not as bad as literally using them to kill people.
[00:32:31] And, uh, here’s how I would, what we’re looking at next in, in Amer, in Russia, for example. Yeah. Here’s how I would frame this. Um, chat, g p t 3.5 and chat G p t four have demonstrated that basically, Knowledge base available to any average person of average intelligence, cuz all things being equal, people are average.
[00:32:54] Uh, the knowledge base available to us has just become what you might call God-like. And I don’t mean that casually, uh, the ability to synthesize all of the information on the. And to reduce it to a discrete list of whatever you want is the kind of thing that would’ve taken, you know, like that’s, you know, do a PhD in one field and you might have that skillset.
[00:33:24] To have that skillset literally on your phone at your fingertips when you’re a ninth grader or when you’re, you know, a disgruntled 22 year old means that you basically have superhuman. Potential to go in the direction you want. We’re applying this to e-commerce, and I’m not trying to get this all weird and dark and everything like that, but, but we get, we’ll get back to e-commerce in a moment.
[00:33:50] But just saying that, I think the big fear, the big intent, uh, along the lines of Elon and Steve Wazniak asking for a halt is that they realize, These tools can be used by anyone for any malicious intent, and it will not be capped off by, uh, you know, smart code writer at Open AI to say, sorry, I can’t produce a result.
[00:34:13] That won’t, you know, that will, that will do harm that they’ll just fork the tools. They’ll, they’ll, they’ll, somebody else will have a tool that doesn’t have governing, uh, scripts on it like that, and you will. Basically the recipe book for a lot of, lot of stuff. Both good e-commerce work to move more units and to improve our, uh, you know, our e-commerce, uh, efforts and also people who have malicious intent.
[00:34:39] And I think that’s the real harm in where people see this going. And, uh, if you have that kind of the oracle that will tell you any. And you, then it really does come down to the intent of the human heart that’s asking those questions and applying that knowledge to the the desire we want. And that is a really weird place for us to be talking about, but it’s not even, that’s not even the singularity where AI takes over.
[00:35:07] Forget AI taking over anything. Do you want a ninth grader to take over? Who, who is slightly more scary. Yeah, yeah. Right. I mean having, yeah, with a bit of having taught the odd ninth grader occasionally. Mostly just the piano. It’s a very specific skillset. But yeah. Um, I. Um, it never That gives you pause.
[00:35:27] Yeah. It gives me more than pause. I’m like, the, the fact they can’t sort of really put up the consequences of more than, you know, one, one and a half steps ahead. I mean, they’re, they’re not the opposite of a grand master chess player. So I would say that worries me more. I’m really, you know, I’m really in a bad mood with some so and so, and I’m gonna do X and they don’t think about the second, third, or fourth order of consequences.
[00:35:47] Even the idea of that might be alien to them. That would worry me even more in some ways than a slightly malicious ai. But in the end, these are calls created by humans. Though I think of this is the point, isn’t it? It depends whose hands it’s in. How are the powers in? Yeah. But here, here’s the thing about it.
[00:36:01] I think what we are realizing is, you know, since December or so, uh, 2022 or the, you know, first part of 2023, we’ve had a toolkit that include. What you might call the summation of all information on the internet. Um, that toolkit doesn’t have its hands in the real world. It’s not connected to a million 3D printers or the power grid or whatever.
[00:36:22] And, you know, so the, so it’s really informational and when you have information asymmetry, you have massive potential for differentiated outcome. You know, I mean, like, if, if one person knows, you know, all of the. And the other person doesn’t [00:36:40] know how to do that. The first person is gonna win. And, but then that’s just, that’s where we’re at right now.
[00:36:46] Where are we gonna be at in a year or two when these things can boot up 3D printers or whatever, whatever. Uh, you know, take control in the physical world of, of things. I think that’s where people see this going in a really, really apocalyptic way. So, anyway, that’s enough of that. Let’s get back to the basics of the show.
[00:37:05] E eCommerce, we haven’t got very long time. I mean, the, the, we can knock off the, the list from J G P T, which does seem like a imminently sensible one fairly quickly. I mean, I think that. Um, yeah, so we all, let’s just get through through your list then. So we, first of all, we talked about product listings and then got distracted by the fact that, you know, possibly quite reasonably, um, if you’re talking about the apocalypse, then maybe that’s more of an important point than can we enhance product listings.
[00:37:27] But anyway, so product listings, um, I guess. You know, for me it would be everyone’s obsessed with generative AI as a, as an Amazon seller or somebody who’s selling an e-commerce. Generally, whether you’re dealing with Google or Amazon, you’ve gotta deal with a lot of data created by another AI system, obviously.
[00:37:42] Mm-hmm. So it kind of makes sense for me to use an AI system to crunch the numbers and details from an AI system and come out with answers for things like, you know, what should I sell? Or what keyword should I focus on? I think those are for me. Very, um, inhuman tasks anyway, that takes a certain kind of brain to do in the first place.
[00:38:00] Yeah. So for me, that would be something that would, would take a lot of labor away, uh, like an enhanced version of Helium 10 if you’re an Amazon seller. Um, so I’m hopeful that that’s gonna be possible. I’ve already poked around a little bit in that regard as it relates to Shopify Analytics that might be available on the internet.
[00:38:16] You know, you’ve got tools out there like Sim Rush, similar. SpyFu, you know, tools that basically Ana analyze websites with information that you would find interesting. I’ve asked chat g p t four to summarize, synthesize, put together, you know, kind of, um, you mine that data cuz I guess you could say, uh, for additional research.
[00:38:39] And it doesn’t seem able to do that, which is very interesting to me. So I’m not sure so much on the analysis. Of realtime date. Of course, it’s, it’s capped at August, 2020, uh, one, I guess is that right? 2021. Um, so it’s, it’s not real current in terms of its ability to, you know, uh, to, to respond or harvest data.
[00:39:03] But, but the, uh, but it, but I don’t think it really has the analytical tools quite yet either. Now, maybe that’s chat gbd five or. Or whatever. Um, but that’s the, uh, that’s the state of it in my, my view, uh, right now. Yeah, August, 2021. Data is the most current, but, um, but there are other use cases obviously that we could talk about.
[00:39:22] Um, having it be able to extend itself in customer service response would radically alter the chatbots that you mentioned are so horrible. Um, obviously writing is in every form. It’s kind of go-to trade. This thing can write better than anything you generally could do yourself. And that means for things like I already described, job descriptions or uh, you know, email marketing or uh, product listings, you know, this, this tool is gonna revolutionize.
[00:39:52] It also is doing that for code for those who were developers. It is, uh, it is becoming the go-to source. Quality code. Um, but there are, I think, other, you know, uses beyond that. Um, you know, process improvement would be an interesting space to begin to explore. You mentioned Bill Gates’ famous quote, technology applied to a, you know, inferior system or process makes it worse.
[00:40:18] Uh, you know, I think having AI tools that can help you create a streamlined. Is very interesting. I think data, like financial analysis is very, very interesting as well. I heard someone talk about a demo not long ago where they basically had, uh, a very, very complicated Excel spreadsheet and they had chat G p t plugged into it or a different AI tool like it, and basically you could ask it any questions you wanted to about the foundational concepts.
[00:40:50] In the big giant Excel spreadsheet and ask it questions like, almost like a proforma, you know, like you would ask a whole team of accountants what would happen if we increased, you know, output by 22% over, you know, the following nine quarters. You know, ask it complicated questions. And these AI tools could immediately split, split back responses.
[00:41:11] So, you know, for us business operators that are struggling to keep. QuickBooks updated, you know, and keep our credit card, uh, info up to date in, in QuickBooks and, and reconcile those kind of, that’s the struggle where we’re at. You know, that’s the reality of it, is we can barely keep the data put together so we understand what our business is doing.
[00:41:32] Um, these tools could provide real revolution and real amazing insight into the operation of a. I see that, that this going that way, um, in short order, I, I think there will be tools that make QuickBooks, um, seem like, uh, drudgery and fifth grade, you know, mask problems. And these tools will yeah, be like the oracle of Delphi telling you about the profitability, sales expense and information about your own business, but also about, uh, other businesses and best practices.
[00:42:02] You know, how cool would. Yeah, and I think you’re absolutely right. Having seen a, a bit of a taste of how powerful chat G p T is. Um, and that was just the three version. I, I, I’ve got this, um, I’m literally, before we came on the show, I’m looking over here is Little button. Um, good for all AI fans of apocalyptic fans everywhere, like.
[00:42:21] Can I click the upgrade plan button and then chat GBT four takes over the world like Skynet. I did, I did that. Yeah. Yeah. So I, but to your point, I mean, it’s, it’s incredibly powerful, isn’t it? I mean, it, you can be used more like a management consultant than just some kind of drudgery. I, I idiot kind of assistant.
[00:42:38] I think to your point. I think you’re right. That’s right. Yeah. That’s a good way to frame it. Management consultant. Mm. Um, I did upgrade to get access to chat p t four. I think it’s important to point out that open. Even in December or January was just sort of a novel act. They just had a prompt. It was like, you know, ask this tool a question.
[00:42:57] But the people who were looking into it and knew who Sam Altman was, they, they all pointed out, these guys don’t have a business plan. They don’t have, you know, they barely had any, you know, funding sorted out. I mean, they were on their way as a, you know, Silicon Valley company. All that’s resolved. I mean, they’ve got a business model now with the addition of these plugins where you can actually have chat, g p t functionally, tap into other important tools and databases like for example, uh, you know, booking, um, you know, restaurant reservations or, or airplane tickets or, you know, that kind of stuff.
[00:43:34] This gives it a whole new layer. Uh, potential engagement for customers. I think for those reasons, I see OpenAI not going away. I mean, it’s got, it’s got a lead and it’s got a lightning fast lead over. Its competitors, and of course Google is huge. Of course, you’d, you’d expect Google to really, you know, come after this thing and try to beat it, but that’s not the nature of business rollouts, the nature of business rollouts.
[00:44:01] Generally speaking, once somebody wins a market, there is a avalanche of support and energy that reinforces them as the, the, you know, the leader and, and so it’ll be interesting to see how these plugins affect the whole ecosystem on shopping and research. And, customer engagement, but it’s, um, it, it’s definitely interesting.
[00:44:25] Okay, so, um, let’s just mention a few other practical, tactical things here before we wrap up. Um, here’s what I would suggest people do. First of all, realize this is not Manny Chatt. This is a seed change in history of the internet. And so you definitely want to begin to consume and learn, uh, the All-In Podcast.
[00:44:44] Just did another episode, um, released on Friday. Open ai very worth listening to. Um, you wanna learn as much as you can about this. There’s a book that’s already been published on Amazon that has hundreds of reviews and, um, it’s called the Chat. G p t Millionaire. Making Money Online has never been Easier Updated for chat G P T four.
[00:45:04] I was skeptical when I first saw it, but then I looked at all the reviews and people say it’s a really good book. Uh, so that’s out there and available to you. We’ll have a link in the show. Um, I think that you wanna start to find applications for this tool in your own business and with your own workflow.
[00:45:20] You know, what are you doing that’s taking you three hours that this thing could do for you in two seconds? And start to make your own list so that you modify your own behavior, you know, become that super operator in your space so that you know the job description. It would take you a week to. You don’t have to, you know, sit around and futs over, um, and other applications for your team.
[00:45:41] You know, if you’ve got a team, uh, ask them the same questions. What are they doing that’s taken them a long time that this thing could do for you? [00:45:50] And, you know, in terms of efficiency at the individual and at the company level, I think that’s an important next step. And I would say document those learnings, test, play, learn, learn about, add.
[00:46:04] AI tools beyond Chat, g p t, that will give you benefits for expanding your business. Um, along the lines we’ve talked about today, I think those are some practical tactical steps that any of us who are, um, interested in growing our business can, uh, can lean into and really start to explore where this can go for our.
[00:46:25] You know, success. Yeah, I like it. That’s brilliant advice. And I think what’s nice about it is that we’re not getting too caught up in tactical things. You know? It’s not just. That can improve your listings in a minute when it took you a bit of time. You’ve gotta stand back and, you know, absorb what’s going on.
[00:46:41] And as you say, it’s early days. I mean, so what’s available now is gonna be profoundly changing and I think that almost it’s an accelerant to accelerants is what strikes me. Is that what. The, the sort of wave of SaaS products that came out on the back of this sort of Amazon popularity, for example, and saying with Shopify, right, the, the plugins and so forth, um, were kind of in a lot of places, somewhat sophisticated spreadsheets.
[00:47:04] I mean, in some cases there were better than that, but they weren’t that sophisticated. I mean, this is a whole base on which to build very much more sophisticated things. So what’s possible now is gonna be. You know, dwarf by what’s possible in six months I suspect. So it’s gonna be, watch this space, isn’t it, in a lot of ways suspect as well.
[00:47:21] Absolutely. Yep. Right. Well you got a nice little summary here, I dunno if you wrote it or chat, g p t, but, um, tell us this summary here, your job as a business owner here. I wrote this myself. Excellent. Let me give you the summary. Your job as a business owner is to stay aware of massive society transforming moves in business and te.
[00:47:42] This absolutely is one of those, and now’s the time to tune in, learn and apply the lessons of how AI can make a difference in your business. Stay ahead of the curve and see where this goes for your success. Beautiful, that, that’s vintage Jason Miles proper speed. That doesn’t sound like chat, g p t. It has more of a, you’ve got your unique style and that.
[00:48:06] So, um, folks, if you want to keep listening to humans telling you human responses to the world around you and how to navigate it, uh, and increasingly, uh, complex, but also exciting times, then don’t forget to subscribe to the show as well. I’m the podcast player of your choice, nei. Jason, it’s been fantastic discussion as ever.
[00:48:22] Thank you, ma’am, for your thoughts and insights.