Google Unveils ChatGPT Competitor

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Mark Kennedy & Manuel Olumorin
February 08, 2023

GM, GM, Lootbox here, your friendly neighborhood information dealer. We've got some fire in our digital inventory.

Let's dive in!

  • Drama in DeFi land - Did Hayden of Uniswap rip off this guy?

  • Google reveals it's own ChatGPT competitor.

  • AI wins Destiny 2's art contest.

  • The Sneakies - New AI for video by startup behind Stable Diffusion.

All That Glitters Is Not Gold: The Rise Of Uniswap

It's storytime!

In a series of tweets, @ricburton, the former CEO of Balance.io, spills the beans on how Uniswap "actually" got started.

In spring 2018, during the crypto winter, @ricburton was on a mission to fund dapp developers and explore interfaces on top of Ethereum. He hosted events and gave out money, time, and love to attract builders.

But one builder in particular, Hayden Adams, caught @ricburton's eye with his unwavering passion for Uniswap. All well and good.

They became close, and Ric was excited about the Uniswap project. So he poured more of his time and funds into supporting Hayden. Somewhere along the line, things got sour as Ric claims he was ripped off.

The allegations:

  • @ricburton claims that despite funding and supporting the development of Uniswap, he was not properly recognized or compensated for his contributions.

  • @ricburton alleges that there was an agreement made with Hayden Adams regarding the ownership and recognition of their contributions to the project, but that this agreement was not honored.

  • @ricburton claims that he was shut out of the project and his contributions were overlooked.

Ric revealed that before the $UNI token launch, he had refused a settlement offer from Hayden Adams. Burton claimed that the terms of the agreement were "offensive," as they would have required him to cut ties with the public as a crypto entrepreneur. Despite his previous association with Uniswap and Adams, Burton had to step down as the CEO of Balance before the DeFi exchange rose to prominence and became a leading player in the industry. The lawsuit has garnered significant attention, with both parties providing differing accounts of the situation and its resolution.

The show isn't over...

Hayden Adams has refuted the allegations made by Ric Burton that he was denied the opportunity to invest in Uniswap. Hayden explains in a series of tweets that

  • He provided Ric with a Simple Agreement for Future Equity (SAFE) with a blank investment amount but Ric declined to invest due to concerns about the financial stability of his company, Balance.

  • Additionally, Hayden clarifies that Ric had previously given him a grant, which Ric later declined to convert into an investment in Uniswap.

  • Hayden also offers that he had tried to repay the grant, but Ric declined the offer.

Hayden also denies Ric's claims that he had proposed raising funds from Paradigm. Instead, Hayden explains that he met Dan Robinson, a prominent figure in the crypto community, prior to his relationship with Ric. Dan later introduced Hayden to Paradigm, where the successful funding round occurred.

Our take

Never good to see this happen - the feeling of getting ripped off or having to defend yourself from claims of ripping off someone. Yet, this happens quite often between founders, investors, and people who support founders. Remember Zuck vs. Winklevoss twins?

In this case, we are not an unbiased third party with inside knowledge, so we can't tell you who is right. But here's what we can do...

What's the moral of the story, kids?

When doing something out of goodwill, keep it as that and expect nothing in return. If you are expecting a return, rubber stamp that baby with an airtight agreement. Relationships are too important to be left in ambiguity.

Google Unveil ChatGPT Competitor

It's official. There is an AI arms race happening before our eyes!

Only a few months ago, ChatGPT took the world by storm, opening up AI to all with a simple chat interface. Google, on the other hand, had been integrating it into their existing products to "make our lives easier."

After seeing the success of ChatGPT and the threat to its business, Google decided it would not be outdone. Finally unveiling its own chatbot, Bard, Google has taken up the gauntlet and thrown it down with a vengeance!

Sundar Pichai, the CEO of Google, announced that Bard would put the world's knowledge at your fingertips. And the chatbot is powered by a smaller version of Google's impressive LaMDA, which was announced in May 2021 and resembles OpenAI's ChatGPT.

In addition, Google has plans to avoid the pitfalls the AI community has raised around concerns about the accuracy and reliability of AI products. For example, for questions with no single answer, Google's Bard will synthesize a response that takes into account differing opinions. It also hinted that the technology behind Bard would be available to developers through an API, though the timeline remains unknown.Our take

As a creator in gaming, this is not the moment to be a Luddite. AI isn't going back into pandora's box and you can do more with fewer resources.

Check this out

Google announced MusicLM - tracks for your game.

Google's research on text-to-video, Imagen Video - cut scenes.

Text to 3D models with DreamFusion. Self-explanatory.

This means one of the most important emerging skills in game development would be Prompt Engineering.

Some more AI news...

An AI-generated artwork called "Guardian Rendition" won a slot in Destiny 2's "Art of the Week" contest, which is organized by game developer Bungie. The artwork was uploaded to the community page by the creator who used an AI program and thought the result looked Destiny-ish.

The community managers who picked the AOTW winners selected the artwork without realizing it was AI-generated. Shows how good these things are becoming.

As usual, some artists who believe AI art steals from their craft are pissed, while those who believe it is just another form of art are excited.

This debate about AI art...

Really which artist learned art without stealing another's art style and recreating it into theirs? Even Lootbringer learned by replicating Spiderman art. It's so important that the God of art, Pablo Picasso, is widely quoted as saying that “good artists borrow, great artists steal.”

The Sneakies

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