About AI That Sings, Codes, and Scales - and the Coming AI Culture War
Welcome to my inklings—random things that I find in the pursuit of “interestingness.” Grab a coffee and dive in! I’ll share them whenever I have ten to send.
AI feature development is really speeding up. Replit’s code generation tool, which used to just fix bugs, now builds entire services in minutes! It wrote code for a business idea I had. It’s not perfect, but it’s evolving at a breakneck pace. If you haven’t tried it, give it a shot. Here’s a quick demo I shared about building a bot to detect trademark violations. Imagine where this tech will be in a year.
Think AI is only for coding now? Another AI tool Suno just dropped this new feature. You give it a melody, and it spits out a fully produced track. Here is an example. Other good music AI services are Fadr and Lalals.
As screen-time concerns grow, real-world experiences are bouncing back. Lovevery makes beautifully designed toys for kids, and non-screen activities are gaining momentum. Retail spaces are being transformed into immersive experiences, like Camp the Museum of Ice Cream or the Slime Institute. (All are great!) Will we see more of this trend shaping the future of in-person experiences?
Jeremy and I recently interviewed Jenny for our Beyond the Prompt podcast, and she made a great case for why creatives should embrace AI. However, there seem to be a growing backlash—I seen several comments that argue that creatives won’t use AI because they don’t need to, or that they shouldn’t, as AI tools rely on copyrighted material. This debate is fueling what feels like a brewing “AI culture war.” Jenny’s perspective is both timely and compelling. Listen to her take here (Spotify) (Apple).
Two apps I can’t stop using: Readwise Reader for seamlessly forwarding all my newsletters and articles into one reading hub, and Snipd, an AI podcast app that lets you see key points from episodes so you can pick the most interesting ones. Great for curating your media diet.
I’ve almost entirely swapped Google for Perplexity when searching. It’s faster and often more insightful. I wonder what this shift means for the future of search and Google Ads—and how quickly such a move might happen.
We’ve been launching quite a few companies via Audos the last few months. (Audos is our platform that help people start companies via AI) We’ve had about a thousand entrepreneurs working on new ventures—about 10-15% of those show some signal from customers, and roughly 1/3 will soon be generating revenue. It’s still early, but an interesting theme is emerging. We see a new form of ventures that look less like a “product” as we know it—and more like headless AI agents that allow a single founder to scale interactions with their users.I quickly made HenrikGPT with Audos - and it is one example that lives across web, email, and WhatsApp (Text: +1 (646) 480‑2429). Another (not an Audos company) is is Chessvision.ai.
Speaking of HenrikGPT—a chatbot trained on transcripts from my interviews, blogs, and podcasts. What surprises me most? When doing these personal bots for others, I actually enjoy the voice-cloned replies more! There’s something about hearing the output in their own words that makes them feel more valuable than pure text outputs. Could voice finally break through as a frequently used interface? Siri, Google Home, and Alexa missed the mark, but AI might push us toward a voice-first future. I certainly spend much more time talking to ChatGPT than I ever did with other apps.
For frequent travelers, offline AI tools are a game-changer. On this flight back from Melbourne, I used Ollama and Msty to run AI models without the internet (to help me write this newsletter). I’ve been using Gemma 2b and Llama 3.1—this is also pretty helpful when working with sensitive data you’d rather not send to the cloud.
“Specialization is for insects.” This Heinlein quote came up while discussing the skills students will need in a post-AI world. As automation handles more specialized tasks, being versatile and adaptive may become the ultimate advantage.
Tell me what works and what doesn’t - or just drop me a line. You can reply to this, start a chat on the Substack app, or catch me on Linkedin. I also publish a podcast about AI, make dogs and their people happy, and help 10,000 entrepreneurs launch companies.
I hope you find any of the inklings useful. If you did, kindly share the newsletter with this link:
. Good vibes.
