The list got me thinking… instead of framing as “AI replaces X job”, I think the actual outcome is more like “AI recreates X job”, in much the same way that ATMs recreated the bank teller’s job, and personal computers recreated the typist’s job, and Photoshop recreated the graphic designer’s job…
Implicit in this, is that change is inevitable and outcomes will favor those who best adapt.
Just some thinking aloud…
Content creator –> after AI –> Human does more editing, curating, and aggregating (eg, across different media types)
Journalist –> AI –> Human does more primary research (developing sources, interviewing), editing
Teacher –> AI –> Human does more coaching (emotional support), planning (what to learn when), problem solving (when students are stuck)
Customer service rep –> AI –> Human does more complex issue resolution, relationship building, sales development
Social media manager –> AI –> Human does more editing and curation, community and relationship building
Translator –> AI –> Human does more fact checking, editing, research
Musician –> AI –> Human does more mixing, curating, multimedia, live performance, inventing new musical styles
Not insignificant, too, that several of the jobs on the list — such as web developer or social media manager — didn’t exist in their current form as recently as a few decades ago, and were also enabled (or transformed) by similar mega waves of technological change (eg, personal computers, smartphones, the internet).
I do think AI has surprised in the following important way: Even as recently as a year ago, most people would have assumed that the creative fields (broadly, activities like making art, writing fiction, composing music) were less at risk than the more repetitive, linear, analytical fields. Today generative art and LLMs have definitively proven otherwise.
Frax milestones in 2022
-only large stablecoin that didn’t break peg (other than DAI)
-launched Frax Ether – an ETH-pegged stablecoin and liquid staking derivative
Products
-Frax stablecoin (Frax USD) has ~$1B TVL
-FPI – CPI pegged stablecoin
-Frax ETH – ETH pegged stablecoin
-Considering a BTC pegged stablecoin
Only 8 employees at Frax, all engineers (!)
Focused only on building stablecoins
Use Curve and FraxSwap for liquidity
Increasing Frax USD collateral ratio to 100% (currently 90%, 10% is FXS) – still more capital efficient than Maker (130+% collateral)
Believes it’s impossible to have a USD pegged stablecoin at scale ($1B+ TVL) without having at least one single real world asset
No one has solved the stablecoin trilemma
Central Banks don’t lend directly to Apple, Tesla – they create money, give it to commercial banks – and the banks lend it
Frax isn’t a commercial bank – “it wants to be the Central Bank of DeFi, the digital economy”
On-chain, closest thing to risk-free asset is USDC – “call a spade a spade” Blackrock manages all USDC treasury assets, in money market fund, buys reverse repos from NY Fed trading desk
Should a stablecoin have ONE or MANY real world assets? Frax believes should just have one – “deposits on the Fed ledger”
Not going to lend to others – too hard to assess that risk
Maker plans to do this – it’s profitable, you take more risk
Goal is:
One entity – Frax DAO
One RWA (Fed deposits), not 50, not many counterparties
Whole stack simple – no intermediaries
Frax ETH – stablecoin pegged 1:1 to ETH, fully backed (100% CR), no interest, like wETH
Can stake in ETH PoS vault to earn interest – separate token from Frax ETH – currently offering 10% yield (but will likely drop as it grows), part of this is because people need to choose between staking Frax ETH or putting into eg Curve pool
Already 4th largest LSD
Frax core teams runs all the PoS validators – commodity hardware, geo-distributed – will eventually allow others to run validators Protocol takes 10% cut of staking yields – 2% put aside for slashing risk
Lido has whitelist – to become a validator, have to ID and KYC – if slashed, losses are socialized
Measure of currency’s usage = amount of spot demand, amount of spot holdings Like USDC, Tether, and Dai – they don’t incentivize any stablecoin holders, only way to measure organic demand for currency
Frax USD goal is to get as close to USDC as possible (100% CR, “risk free”, only one real world asset), but without blacklist
I’m 90% through — no meaningful spoilers below — just highly highly recommended, it’s made me feel some strong emotional things
Stream of thoughts…
The main story is a murder mystery with plenty of action, comedy, fantasy thrown in, and a unique structural device that is the best application I’ve seen since Edge of Tomorrow
Though it was somewhere between episode 5-10 when the story finally “hooked” me, the payoff is really worth it, primarily emotional investment in the characters, all because of how patiently the story is told
The characters are very very well developed — full back stories, interesting and unpredictable arcs, complex relationships
There is a fair amount of fanservice which I can only assume is a “Japanese” thing and perhaps a wish of the author / creator — and now I’m wondering what is the female version of fanservice but as I type this, I already kinda know, it’s the extremely beautiful man who is also an impossible gentleman
I’m convinced childhood flashbacks are a way to “hack” the audience’s emotional involvement — we can’t help but feel both nostalgic of our own memories, and people just care MORE about kids
The art is just GORGE — diverse, detailed, hyper realistic with touches of fantasy, really world building — sometimes the art will suddenly switch to a “horror” or “comedic” style and it’s like a sneak attack you don’t see coming
Did some great tech internships
Cofounder Evan was TA at Brown, most brilliant person he knew
Knew he could learn a lot from Evan even if it was a failure
Got Thiel Fellow – $100K over 2 years – enabled him to focus on Figma – no dilution, helped with network
YC is good for enterprise – sell B2B, get initial customers
// Elad – early YC Demo Days – only 10-15 angels in audience – had program to help educate angels
Useful to ask “why now” when you start a company
For Figma, in 2012, WebGL arrived, initially experimented with computational photography, then went into design
Thought it would only take 1 year, but took 2 – could have moved faster if they hired faster
Microsoft told them they had to start charging so they could spread it internally (at Microsoft) – knew then they had product market fit
Customer wrote 12 page document telling them what they should go build – another moment of product market fit – the market was there, was trying to pull product out of them
Never managed before Figma, it was tough as they scaled
Bringing first manager was catalytic – meant he could learn from the manager
// Elad: Bill Gates would hire COO, learn from him, then fire him and hire another one, learn from him, etc
Interesting areas
-people move in herds a lot – right now people excited about AI
-look for different under explored areas
-lots of good ideas out there – more important is find personal passion, if you’re 3 years into an idea you hate, you’ll burn out, happened with his friends
Thought he was late to crypto, but people tell him now he was early
Got emails in 2009 talking about bitcoin
In Thiel Fellowship – people were very excited about it (first bubble in 2013-ish)
Got more interested in Ethereum’s technology
Wife started crypto company Ironfish
They talked about crypto collectibles at time (digital items fascinated him) He really liked to play NeoPets – virtual economy – felt exact same as Ethereum and NFTs Buy things you’ll want to keep forever – only sold 2 NFTs in his life
Problems in crypto
-privacy very important – holding crypto is big security risk
-scalability taking off now
-regulation desperately needed – lack of it is blocking crypto’s advancement – especially in the US, crypto will move elsewhere if we don’t solve regulation
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Every industry will be touched by AI
Pace is staggering
Completely new tooling method Already world changing tech even if it stops improving
AGI is difficult to define – AI will make fundamental research contributions By 2030, there will be AI co-author for pure math research journal
New version of Turing test – multiplayer AI – bunch of humans and AIs
// Elad – already happened with Cicero the strategy game
How will AI impact education
AI tutors and therapists will happen – but make it local not cloud based
Colleges are scared of ChatGPT – but if it’s copying essays and hurting education, isn’t that a deeper issue? You can already hire someone to write essays
University is multiple components – mating system, credentialing system, social club
As AI proliferates, credentialing decreases in value, social club aspect increases in value
// Elad – similar to what internet did to media – mid-tier outlets got hurt, big brands thrive
Wants online universities that are better than YouTube, more structured, more social
Don’t ignore power of a well-written cold email
Communities that were on Twitter are now going private
But find those communities, learn norms, be helpful
// Elad – help open source communities
Thiel Fellowship
Haven’t seen similar programs Even Thiel applications, sometimes it’s hard to fill a class (of fellows)
Not enough people who are risk on, willing to drop out and commit
Doesn’t believe standardized testing is correlated with IQ as much as most of Silicon Valley thinks
Access to tutors, prep programs – equity component to this
// Elad – people who drop out to do startups, you gain an additional cycle of technology (eg, a few years of school, plus a few years of the first job), which is powerful experience
Still very focused on Figma
Interested in data visualization / doesn’t feel it’s done quite right
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My friend and I started a crypto podcast called Two Degens. We talk about markets and share interesting links and sometimes invite guests. You can listen to it here.
A thought provoking post from Venkatesh Rao (@vgr / Ribbonfarm) on AI:
Yes, there’s still superhuman-ness on display — I can’t paint like Van Gogh as Stable Diffusion can (with or without extra fingers) or command as much information at my finger-tips as the bots — but it’s the humanizing mediocrity and fallibility that seems to be alarming people. We already knew that computers are very good at being better than us in any domain where we can measure better. What’s new is that they’re starting to be good at being ineffectual neurotic sadsacks like us in domains where “better” is not even wrong as a way to assess the nature of a performance.
There are, by definition, only a handful of humans whose identity revolves around being the world’s best Go player. The average human can at best be mildly vicariously threatened by a computer wiping the floor with those few humans. But there are billions whose identity revolves around, for instance, holding some banal views about television shows, sophomoric and shallow opinions about politics and philosophy, the ability to write pedestrian essays, do slow, error-prone arithmetic, write buggy code, and perhaps most importantly, agonize endlessly about relationships with each other, creating our heavens and hells of mutualism.
I don’t think humans are all that special. Yes, each human is special in some limited way, and together as a species we have built some very special things.
But it’s increasingly clear that some of those very special things we have built — such as AI and coming soon, smart robots — will expose our own flaws and imperfections, a kind of inverse magic mirror, and there is and will be a deepening divide between those who use or even love the magic mirror, and those who want to look away or smash it.
This divide is already a driver of the world’s growing income inequality (though I think the generational divide has been a much larger cause of this, at least in developed economies), and I think it will become *the* driver in the coming decades.
