I attended Celesta Capital’s TechSurge Summit on February 13, 2023 at the Computer History Museum. In this piece I will talk about interview with Nic Brathwaite Founder and Managing Partner of Celesta Capital as well as Sriram Viswanathan (Founding General Manager of Celesta and heavily involved in venture investments in India), and a panel discussion by John Hennessy (Chairman of Alphabet).

In a companion article I will talk about my interview with John Hennessy, Chairman of Alphabet (Google’s parent company) and Vint Cerf, also with Google, during the TechSurge Summit.

He also said that the current cost of inference is too high and that Chat GBT is too often busy. He thought that there were opportunities to build AI systems trained and focused on particular uses, which would lead to smaller models and they would be more practical. He thought we are 1–2 years away from useful products, particularly in business intelligence. He also said that the use of AI allows us to program with data rather than lots of lines of code. Google was hesitant to produce something like Chat GBT, they didn’t want the system to say wrong or toxic things. He said that the tech industry needs to be more careful to encourage a civil society and that many tools, such as the Internet, were not anticipated to be used to do evil things.

John said that AI can be an amplifier of human intelligence. It could be used to help teach kids in a classroom with customized instruction to match their rate and type of learning. He said that the chance of making a true general AI is much more likely than it was in the past. He also made comments on defensive technologies, blockchain, fighting climate change, the future of semiconductor technology in the US and medical innovations.

Celesta’s TechSurge Summit covered investment trends in deep technology and included insights on data growth and demand. John Hennessy, CEO of Alphabet, covered many topics, including how AI can be an amplifier of human intelligence.