Hi! 👋 Welcome to a landmark edition of The Big Y – the 200th issue!
Today marks the 200th Monday that an issue of The Big Y has been released. Not one Monday release has been missed in 200 weeks, equivalent to 3 years and 10 months. Through Covid, a broken leg, vacations and more, writing The Big Y has been a constant in my Sunday afternoons ❤️
Though we feel like AI is progressing by leaps and bounds, I have been writing about a continuous stream of AI improvements that have brought us to where we are today over the past 199 issues. We are surprised each week with AI advances, but in some ways we did see it coming.
GPT was first mentioned back in issue #12, on Monday July 27th, 2020. We might all feel like the excitement about generative AI came with the release of ChatGPT in November 2022, but already in issue #36, the title was “Generative AI Generates Excitement” (Monday, January 11, 2021). This was almost two years before the release of ChatGPT.
Reviewing these 199 newsletters, it becomes evident that progress has not been marked by any single monumental leap, not even the launch of ChatGPT. Instead, it has unfolded through a series of gradual, incremental steps leading us to our current position.
I will continue to cover all the small steps on the journey of AI and look forward to seeing where we go along the way. Thanks to you, my readers, for following along and reaching out when something interesting catches your eye. I’m excited for us to keep this newsletter chugging along.
In honor of this occasion, I fed all 199 issues to an LLM to asked it to characterize the journey from 1 to 199, here is its answer:
“The journey from the first to the 199th newsletter of the Big Y has been a comprehensive exploration of the evolving landscape of AI, touching on diverse applications from environmental conservation to ethical considerations, and the intersection of technology with societal impacts. It has chronicled the advancements in AI technologies and their implications, delved into the challenges of bias and privacy, and highlighted both the potential and the pitfalls of rapidly advancing AI capabilities. Through this journey, the newsletter has offered insights into the complex relationship between AI developments and their broader effects on society, emphasizing the need for responsible innovation and the ethical use of technology.”
Know someone who might enjoy this newsletter? Share it with them and help spread the word!
Thanks for reading! Have a great week! 😁
🎙 The Big Y Podcast: Listen on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Substack