Is OpenAI’s o3 Model AGI?, Is AI The New Social Media?, Zuck’s Revealing Testimony

Summary

Big Technology Podcast - Detailed Summary

Episode Title: Is OpenAI’s o3 Model AGI? Is AI The New Social Media? Zuck’s Revealing Testimony
Release Date: April 18, 2025
Host: Alex Kantrowitz
Guests: Ranjan Roy (Margins), Jonathan Fields

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1. Introduction

The episode opens with host Alex Kantrowitz introducing a week filled with significant tech news. Key highlights include OpenAI's release of the o3 model, Facebook's legal battle against the FTC, Google's defeat in antitrust lawsuits, and a plethora of developments in the AI sector.

Alex Kantrowitz [00:55]: "Welcome to Big Technology Podcast Friday Edition, where we break down the news in our traditional cool-headed and nuanced format."

2. OpenAI's o3 Model and the AGI Debate

A major focus of the episode is the release of OpenAI's o3 model, which has sparked debates about whether it qualifies as Artificial General Intelligence (AGI).

a. Tyler Cowen's Perspective Alex references Tyler Cowen from Marginal Revolution, who posits that the o3 model is AGI.

Alex Kantrowitz [05:00]: "Tyler Cowen writes in the Marginal Revolution that O3 is AGI. He suggests trying it with complex questions to assess its intelligence."

b. Hosts' Experiences and Insights Jonathan Fields shares his experiences using the o3 model, highlighting its advanced reasoning and visual processing capabilities. However, he points out flaws, such as inaccuracies in straightforward queries.

Jonathan Fields [06:40]: "When I asked for the top 150 U.S. retailers by revenue in 2024, o3 mixed up sources and entities. It's impressive yet flawed."

Ranjan Roy adds that while o3 demonstrates significant advancements, it isn't flawless enough to be labeled AGI.

Ranjan Roy [11:24]: "It's so adept at many tasks, but it's not AGI for me yet."

c. Defining AGI The hosts grapple with defining AGI, debating whether o3 meets the criteria.

Alex Kantrowitz [13:22]: "AGI is something that can perform as well as most humans on most tasks."

Jonathan Fields [13:56]: "If you squint, o3 performs better than expected in many areas, but it still falls short in others."

d. Potential Future Developments There's speculation about OpenAI releasing GPT-5 and possibly declaring it AGI, especially in light of competitive pressures from other tech giants like Google.

Ranjan Roy [22:13]: "My theory is OpenAI is floating a trial balloon. GPT5 could be positioned as AGI, building on o3's capabilities."

3. AI as the New Social Media

Ranjan Roy introduces a provocative theory that AI is evolving into the new social media platform, reshaping how we interact with information and each other.

a. Decline of Traditional Social Media Mark Zuckerberg's testimony reveals a decline in friend-focused interactions on Facebook and Instagram, signaling a shift in social media dynamics.

Ranjan Roy [33:52]: "Only 17% of Facebook and 7% of Instagram time is spent with friends' posts, indicating a broader shift towards discovery and entertainment."

b. AI's Role in Media Consumption Roy argues that AI platforms like ChatGPT are becoming central to information consumption, acting as personalized, interactive mediums that filter and present content without the negative aspects of traditional social media algorithms.

Ranjan Roy [38:02]: "AI is condensing the internet's information and dialoguing with us about it, embodying a new form of social interaction."

c. Industry Leadership Highlighting leadership transitions, Roy notes that former social media product heads are now steering AI product development at companies like OpenAI and Anthropic, bridging the gap between social media and AI.

Ranjan Roy [41:31]: "At OpenAI, it's Kevin Weil, the former head of product at Instagram. These leaders know where the future is moving."

4. Antitrust Trials and Big Tech's Legal Challenges

The episode delves into the mounting legal pressures on major tech companies, particularly focusing on Facebook and Google.

a. Facebook vs. FTC Facebook is embroiled in court proceedings against the FTC, defending itself against accusations of maintaining a monopoly and not functioning primarily as a social network.

Alex Kantrowitz [43:55]: "Facebook is at trial arguing it's not a monopoly and questioning its classification as a social network."

b. Google's Antitrust Defeats Google faced two separate antitrust rulings, being found guilty of illegally maintaining monopolies in publisher ad serving and ad exchanges.

Ranjan Roy [44:57]: "Google has been found guilty of antitrust violations twice this week, marking a significant shift in government action against big tech."

c. Implications for Big Tech The hosts discuss the potential long-term impacts, including the possibility of Google being broken up, which could drastically alter the digital advertising landscape.

Ranjan Roy [47:04]: "The probability that Google might be broken up has increased, challenging the notion that big tech is impervious to government action."

5. Elon Musk's Personal Life and Its Relevance

Briefly touched upon is Elon Musk's personal endeavors, including building a compound and having multiple children, which some speculate could relate to his broader ambitions in space and technology.

Jonathan Fields [02:27]: "Elon Musk is building a compound and expanding his family, referred to as 'the Legion,' showcasing his multifaceted pursuits."

6. Future of AI and Big Tech

The conversation anticipates future developments in AI and strategic moves by major tech players.

a. OpenAI's Strategic Moves Speculation surrounds OpenAI's potential declaration of AGI with the imminent release of GPT-5, aiming to solidify its position in the market.

Ranjan Roy [25:27]: "Google IO this May could be a pivotal moment, potentially revealing new developments in AI and big tech's strategies."

b. AI Integration in Daily Tools The hosts highlight how AI models like o3 are increasingly integrated into everyday tools, enhancing functions like search, personal assistance, and productivity.

Alex Kantrowitz [14:04]: "o3 has revolutionized search by providing detailed, context-aware responses, significantly improving user experience."

7. Concluding Thoughts

The episode wraps up with reflections on the rapid advancements in AI and the shifting landscape of big tech. The hosts express optimism about AI's potential to transform social media and other facets of technology, while acknowledging the ongoing challenges and uncertainties surrounding AGI and antitrust actions.

Alex Kantrowitz [51:57]: "We'll talk about all the other new things from o3 and whatever craziness goes on in the tech and AI world next week."

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Notable Quotes with Timestamps:

• Alex Kantrowitz [00:55]: "Welcome to Big Technology Podcast Friday Edition, where we break down the news in our traditional cool-headed and nuanced format."

• Jonathan Fields [06:40]: "O3 is bringing reasoning to the mainstream. It can pause and think through problems before answering."

• Ranjan Roy [11:24]: "It's so adept at many tasks, but it's not AGI for me yet."

• Alex Kantrowitz [13:22]: "AGI is something that can perform as well as most humans on most tasks."

• Ranjan Roy [33:52]: "Only 17% of Facebook and 7% of Instagram time is spent with friends' posts, indicating a broader shift towards discovery and entertainment."

• Ranjan Roy [38:02]: "AI is condensing the internet's information and dialoguing with us about it, embodying a new form of social interaction."

• Ranjan Roy [44:57]: "Google has been found guilty of antitrust violations twice this week, marking a significant shift in government action against big tech."

• Ranjan Roy [47:04]: "The probability that Google might be broken up has increased, challenging the notion that big tech is impervious to government action."

• Alex Kantrowitz [51:57]: "We'll talk about all the other new things from o3 and whatever craziness goes on in the tech and AI world next week."

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This episode provides an in-depth analysis of the current state of AI, debating the emergence of AGI with OpenAI's o3 model, exploring the transformation of social media through AI integration, and examining the increasing legal scrutiny on big tech companies like Facebook and Google. The discussions are enriched with personal anecdotes from the hosts, expert opinions, and forward-looking speculations, making it a comprehensive listen for those keen on understanding the evolving tech landscape.

Transcript

[Alex Kantrowitz]

OpenAI's new model has serious people coming out of the woodwork calling it artificial general intelligence. What exactly is going on? Plus, AI gains as social media fades and Google loses a massive antitrust trial. That's coming up right after this.

[Jessi Hempel]

Hi, I'm Jonathan Fields. Tune in to my podcast for conversations about the sweet spot between work, meaning and joy. And also listen to other people's questions about how to get the most out of that thing we call work. Check out Sparked wherever you Enjoy podcasts from LinkedIn News. I'm Jessi Hempel, host of the hello Monday Podcast. Start your week with the hello Monday Podcast. We'll navigate career pivots. We'll learn where happiness fits in. Listen to hello Monday with me, Jesse Hempel on the LinkedIn podcast network or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Alex Kantrowitz]

Welcome to Big Technology Podcast Friday Edition, where we break down the news in our traditional cool headed and nuanced format.

[Ranjan Roy]

We have a major week of news.

[Alex Kantrowitz]

For you, including a massive new model release from OpenAI, Facebook testifying in a court against the FTC, Google losing two antitrust cases, and of course, plenty more AI news to talk about. This week we're going back to our traditional format. After doing a full episode on the tariffs and the trade war last week, we're back talking about AI back in.

[Ranjan Roy]

Our bag, as we should say.

[Alex Kantrowitz]

Joining us as always is Ranjan Roy of Margins.

[Ranjan Roy]

Ranjan, great to see you. Welcome back to the show.

[Jonathan Fields]

AGI is here. How could I miss it? Day three of AGI being part of our lives.

[Alex Kantrowitz]

So on this show we are. We pride ourselves in digging into the.

[Ranjan Roy]

Real mysteries of the tech world, the.

[Alex Kantrowitz]

Real mysteries of the world. And I think we have to just spend today's episode answering the question that everyone has on their minds, which is, did Jeff Bezos stage the Blue Origin landing? I don't know. I saw. I'm fiddling with that door. I'm, I'm reading and I'm watching the TikToks.

[Jonathan Fields]

I'm not sure I saw one of those TikToks. I saw one of those conspiracy. I mean, the fact, I think, what percentage of the American population believe that the moon landing was faked? I think it's something just unreasonable. Whatever it is that I'm on board with. Blue Origin didn't happen. Katy Perry. Sorry, you didn't see space.

[Ranjan Roy]

Sorry, Katie.

[Alex Kantrowitz]

I think it did happen. I think they actually went to space. There's too many people watching it to believe they didn't. But there was some funny business going on with that Door being open, the door swings open and then Jeff Bezos walks over and tries to open it with a pair of pliers. I mean, that's weird.

[Jonathan Fields]

Did you see Jeff Bezos face plant? That was my favorite part of the entire thing.

[Alex Kantrowitz]

I'm just listening and watching. Bezos did take a spill on his way to fake open the door. Anyway, What a moment.

[Jonathan Fields]

Tough day for Bezos. Everything else good in his life, but still those. Those divots in the ground will get even the billionaires.

[Alex Kantrowitz]

Speaking of tech billionaires, I don't know if you saw the Wall Street Journal story on Elon Musk's many kids and the compound that he's building. I mean, we're not going to do gossip on this show. I don't even know if this is gossip, but that was some crazy stuff.

[Jonathan Fields]

I recommend all of our listeners go read this article from the Wall Street Journal. Find a gift link on Twitter if you need to, but it's about how he approaches baby mamas on X and just how he raises his cohort of children. And it's so over the top that I don't even feel comfortable talking about it on our nuanced look at the technology news of the week.

[Alex Kantrowitz]

Yeah, he calls it the Legion, and I think we'll leave it there. We could definitely turn this into TMZ for tech, but instead we're here to do what the people want, which is to talk about AGI. But like Ron John said, go read that Elon story. You know, even if you admire the guy's business smarts, maybe some people, maybe.

[Jonathan Fields]

Honestly, maybe some people are into that and will admire it.

[Alex Kantrowitz]

But I mean, would you, if you, if you were the richest man in the world, would you have a legion?

[Jonathan Fields]

I mean, I guess you juice Tesla stock and you get up to 300 billion net worth. Maybe a legion is the only logical conclusion from that. I guess so.

[Alex Kantrowitz]

I do know that we're. I mean, geez, we're really going off the rails right at the beginning here. Usually we wait to the end, but I do know that we are just going to see a wave of Elon offspring make some waves in the next couple decades. There's going to be a lot of little Elon's running around there. And I mean, he's going to have some smart kids. So this is not the end of the story. This may be just the beginning of the Legion story.

[Jonathan Fields]

The Paypal mafia expanded to just unimaginable proportions.

[Alex Kantrowitz]

Now I'm regretting not spending the whole show talking about this, but Alas, we do have more important stuff to cover, which is the fact that OpenAI released this new model, or really two new models, but a big new model this week called O3. It's a reasoning model, and to me it's the most advanced model that they've ever released. All of a sudden it comes out and a lot of very serious and smart people are calling it artificial general intelligence. Like, no comms about it. This is AGI and Tyler Cowen, who is a professor and podcaster, he writes in the marginal revolution. O3 in AGI is April 16th AGI Day. And he writes this. I think it's AGI. Seriously about O3. Try asking it lots of questions and then ask yourself, just how much smarter was I expecting AGI to be? As I've argued in the past, AGI, however you define it, is not much of a social event per se. It will still take us a long time to use it properly. I do not expect securities prices to move significantly, and I doubt if the market cares about April 16th per se. And he goes on to say, benchmarks, benchmarks, benchmarks, blah, blah, blah. Maybe AGI is like porn. I know it when I see it, and I've seen it. I think we should. Like we're going to get to all the others that have called this AGI or approaching AGI, but we should talk a little bit about what this model does. And Ranjan, let's just go to you right away. I'm curious, have you gotten a chance to use it? And if you have, what do you think Tyler is talking about that would make him conclude that it is AGI.

[Ranjan Roy]

The way he has?

[Jonathan Fields]

Okay, I will get into a specific query that I did do actually this morning. Which reminds me that it is not the AGI we were promised, but again, O3 is bringing reasoning to, you know, like essentially the mainstream. It's taking what deep research was going to bring us and bringing it to every query. The idea is that the model pauses and essentially thinks through the problem before simply just going and trying to answer it. And it actually is able to reason its way through the problem. That's actually very exciting. Another thing I thought was interesting was the idea of visual reasoning. In the past, when you feed an image, essentially it's broken down into back to text and words, and then that's sent back to the model to be processed. They claim that it now is able to actually understand the image at the pixel level and then be able to process that into some kind of query. A third thing that's Big is tool calling, and we had discussed this before about is the better user interface that you have to choose which model you want to use or the model is smart enough to actually go and choose the right tool and model. Like when you make a query, it knows, should I go to O3, should I go to deep research? Should I go to generate an image or GPT 4, 1, 4 or 5, whatever the latest one is. And so all of these things really indicate that maybe there is a big step change on this. However, this morning I asked, and I asked from the deep research side, what are the top 150 retailers in the U.S. by revenue in 2024? Seemingly straightforward query. It returned Walmart 23 times and Amazon 36 times. And in this list and I started kind of digging into it and it was mixing up different sources, mixing up different entities within those. And that's not a PhD level answer, I'm sorry. Like it's, it's one of those that you can see how the LLM got confused. But it was, this was actual day to day work and it seems like pretty straightforward and difficult and impressive, but it got it wrong. So, so I see the potential. They made the announcements, a lot of people are excited, which you're going to get into. But it's not, it's not AGI for me yet.

[Alex Kantrowitz]

So I just want to tell an interesting story. So my wife is reading this book about artificial superintelligence and we had this discussion of like whether we're going to have AGI before super intelligence or whether we were just going to move straight into superintelligence and when that might come. And I was just like offhand saying, I think what we have today is basically AGI. And I know this is going to sound crazy because obviously I don't think it hits the scientific benchmarks for being artificial general intelligence, but I would say for so many use cases, it is.

[Ranjan Roy]

That good, where if you would have.

[Alex Kantrowitz]

Presented this in front of people years.

[Ranjan Roy]

Ago, they would have told you, oh.

[Alex Kantrowitz]

Yeah, that is AGI. And so I think that that's what we're starting to see is people starting to realize how far the AI industry has come in just a couple years and saying, yes, this is artificial general intelligence. I'll just give you one example just to entertain this idea, then we'll knock it down, right? Every time a new model comes out, I just take our podcast metrics from Megaphone and upload them and say, what can you tell me about the show? And what O3 was able to do was an unbelievable analysis of the show, picking out the topics that do well and even realize that we do a Wednesday and a Friday show and was able to split the trends into two and say, well, the Friday show performs this way and the Wednesday show performs this way. So you should just know what's going on on that front. And I think what's amazing is that this thing 03 and you hinted to this or you mentioned it before, it does this multi step reasoning so it could basically come to a conclusion, go to the web to check it, come back and check the results it's pulled from the web and then say, okay, does this compute? Does this match now it's not going to be perfect in everything, right? And so there were so many tests that like were like put above Tyler Cowen's post about how this is AGI just to show how it makes so many silly mistakes, it can't fully interpret complex drawings. It still has trouble saying how many Rs there are in Strawberry. Like basic stuff that a child could probably count and it's getting it wrong.

[Ranjan Roy]

But that being said, it is so.

[Alex Kantrowitz]

Adept at so many different tasks that.

[Ranjan Roy]

While I still wouldn't say this is.

[Alex Kantrowitz]

AGI because we spend so much time in this and we kind of know that we have higher expectations for something that deserves that label, I think day to day, if you're like one step removed from where we are and you come and you use this like, and I think this was what Tyler Cowen is saying. There's not that big of a difference between what you get and what you're expecting.

[Jonathan Fields]

That is, that's an interesting metric. That's almost like to me superior than like the ARC AGI benchmark or anything like that. You get what you're expecting and like you don't have to be a prompt engineer to do that, I think that's definitely fair. And I'm not going to try to downplay the moment at all either. In terms of it is light years beyond where we were certainly like a year ago, year and a half ago. The idea, as you said, that it can generate something, check against it, reach different sources, search the web, take the deep research approach. That's incredible. I completely agree, it's incredible. But again, not even, maybe not a child, but a college student, let's say undergrad, would have known that that list given to me was not what I was looking for. And I think the term AGI, I guess it's been given to us by OpenAI, essentially, I mean others in the community and it Was, you know, it's at the center of the contract between OpenAI and Microsoft. But like, no one, the fact that it's never been defined as to what it means, it's almost silly that trying to even, you know, come up with, is it here or not? Because obviously Elio right now would say we're waiting for asi, Artificial Superintelligence. So I don't know, how do you define AGI?

[Alex Kantrowitz]

I would just say AGI is something that can perform as well as most humans on most tasks.

[Jonathan Fields]

But this is, but this is a perfect example of it performed better than a human in the sense that it went out and searched the web and compiled this in a matter of maybe a minute. It actually, you could see it thinking, but it wasn't what I was looking for. And if I'd assigned that to an undergrad or even like a freelance researcher for like eight bucks an hour, they would have known better. So that's why I agree, maybe that's a good rubric.

[Ranjan Roy]

But.

[Jonathan Fields]

But then it certainly is not there yet.

[Alex Kantrowitz]

Yeah, look, I'm not saying that it's there. I'm just saying that if you squint.

[Ranjan Roy]

You could see it.

[Alex Kantrowitz]

Right. And one thing that this has really been useful for me for has been search. And we've had, going back probably for a year now, debates about whether AI was going to replace search.

[Jonathan Fields]

What was the Forester metric again? I think it was forester.

[Alex Kantrowitz]

Yeah, they 25% of search or something was going to be replaced by AI. I. I was very skeptical of this. In fact, I kind of called Forrester or Gartner, whatever it was, to make fun of this idea because I thought it was lunacy. And now for the. I mean, I'm following your path. For the hardest searches that I do, I'm using AI. And I'll just give you an example. I'm looking for a bookkeeper. And typically the way I would do this is like, go on Google Maps, use Google Search. There's really no good way to find like, reliable bookkeeping or services of that nature close to you. Anyway, I just go to O3 and I say, find me a bookkeeper. I gave some specifications. It like, gave me the names of people, it summarized what they do, it summarized the ratings they have, and it gave me the phone number.

[Ranjan Roy]

I called the guy up, I said, let's talk.

[Alex Kantrowitz]

He was perfect for what I'm looking for because I explained, like, I need someone that can handle small businesses. And he goes, how did you find me? I'm like, chatgpt. By the way, big technology in past.

[Ranjan Roy]

Few weeks, our paid subscribers, we always.

[Alex Kantrowitz]

Have a source for where they're coming in. Multiple paid subscribers have come in through ChatGPT, which is crazy. So in a way, what this is really, and obviously you want AGI to be more than just an incredibly adept search engine, but maybe this is really good at like not so deep research, which is pretty cool. Like what you would do with search, but just like one level deeper. And whether you want to label it AGI or not, I do think it's clear to me that the capabilities are just so much better now than they ever were up until this point.

[Jonathan Fields]

All right, I now have my rubric for AGI and it's going to hold up in court and decide the future of OpenAI Microsoft.

[Ranjan Roy]

Let's hear it.

[Jonathan Fields]

It's cool, it's exciting that you found the bookkeeper. And I, I've been saying this a while. I almost never use Google search now. I really almost never start a search on Google AGI is when you don't find another bookkeeper or a human bookkeeper, you just do it in ChatGPT because there's no reason. Come on. Or you code your own bookkeeping software, but I think you feed a bunch of CSVs that you downloaded from QuickBooks and everything's just done. That's my AGI.

[Alex Kantrowitz]

I don't even think we're far away from that.

[Jonathan Fields]

I don't think, I don't think we are either.

[Alex Kantrowitz]

In fact, in Claude, you can now connect, I'm sure you've done this Gmail calendar drive and start speaking with Claude about the content of your, of your files or your communication. And I mean you could also do that with Gemini if you have these Google apps. And Google of course is an investor in Anthropic.

[Ranjan Roy]

But are we that far away from.

[Alex Kantrowitz]

Google with its massive context window providing that type of service or like sharing some ideas for prompts that go into, let's say Google Sheets and maybe cross check your bank accounts and prepare your taxes for you. I mean, this should be able to be done today.

[Jonathan Fields]

I completely agree. I even actually, while filing taxes, fed in some of my older tax returns and understood them better than I did when I sat with an accountant and actually like went through them. But it's not there. I would not trust it today. Maybe next, maybe April 15, 2026, we're all filing our taxes on ChatGPT and Intuit is somehow still going to come out on top. Somehow. They always do with Turbo.

[Alex Kantrowitz]

There's an Intuit fee on your, on your chat GPT.

[Jonathan Fields]

They have a partnership. But no, I mean, to me, again, that's it. Like you can kind of ad hoc do that today. I agree. You could connect Google Drive, upload a bunch of CSVs of your expenses and it probably will do something. Would you trust it? As of today, I'm guessing most people would say no.

[Alex Kantrowitz]

No, not yet. And that's why I'm saying, okay, it's not, it's not AGI, Right. I think that there's some simple tests that you can give. But that's what I'm saying. You have to squint a little bit and you could see why. You know, some people might believe this. And by the way, it's lots of people that have been saying it. It's not just Tyler Cowan. I think he wanted to get. Well, actually, I have some conspiracy theories about why he did say that. But here's, here's Ethan Malik, the Wharton professor and AI expert. Is O3 good enough to be AGI? The counterargument might force us to wait until artificial superintelligence because only then will an AI definitively outperform all humans at all tasks. In the meantime, we have to have, we seem to have jagged AGI, a mix of below human and superhuman abilities. The number of superhuman ones just keep increasing though. I think that's, that's a great point. And I'll just note that another thing that I found, this was very useful. This O3 model was very useful to do is usually I'm just like dropping my drafts in these of stories that I write. I drop them into things like ChatGPT and Claude to be like, did I miss anything? And this was the first time with this model, the model actively improved the draft by giving me pointers of my blind spots and suggestions for stuff I was missing. And I just like dumped some disparate thoughts. And I was like, I know that there's a connection here. I'm not quite getting there. What do you think? And it got the connection. And I think that's what this was billed as. It was billed as something that could help you come up with new discoveries, not come up with discoveries on its own, but help you do it. I'm not saying my writing was a discovery, but I could see it.

[Ranjan Roy]

I could see how that's possible.

[Alex Kantrowitz]

So that's very interesting. What do you think about this jagged AGI idea?

[Jonathan Fields]

Jagged AGI? I like I, I Let the buzzwords.

[Alex Kantrowitz]

Continue, Let the jargon continue.

[Jonathan Fields]

A I'm an investor in Jagged AGI. I also do like the idea that in a court of law, Sam Altman saying if you squint, you'll see AGI and nullifying the entire Microsoft leverage over them. But I happen, man, it's going to. If you squint. No, no. Okay. Again, I, I do think the last few months of development, like the pace is not slowed down. I think there's like a bit of fatigue over every new model release and the hype overall in the industry and people saying things are slowing down and there's a lot of discussion six months ago about, you know, just overall scaling laws being reached. Actually, in a way things are getting more exciting for me because hitting different models and one model like talking to another and different types of tool calling happening. That's on the product side as well. And you know, I'm team product over model any day. So I think the overall experience is definitely, it's continuing to scale as it has for the last few years, like that. It hasn't slowed down, it's only getting better. That makes me excited. What, whether it's PhD level on at all times. And I think it's AGI as it was billed for the last three or four years. I don't think we're there yet.

[Ranjan Roy]

Here is OpenAI trainer John Holman talking about what it was like to experience O3 for the first time. When O3 finished training and we got.

[Alex Kantrowitz]

To try it out, he says, I.

[Ranjan Roy]

Felt for the first time tempted to call a model AGI. Still not perfect, but this mo. This bottle will, this model will beat me. You and 99% of humans are on 99% of intelligence assessments. One can start to see the light at the end of the tunnel now. I'm going to drop my conspiracy theory and get you to respond to it.

[Jonathan Fields]

Yeah, let's go.

[Ranjan Roy]

What I think is happening here from OpenAI and from some of the people that I imagine are close to them, like Tyler Cowen, is that the company is floating a trial balloon because for a year, for more than a year now, it's been building up to this mysterious release, the, the long anticipated, long awaited GPT5. And they're telling us that they're going to get their naming under control because now we have GPT 4.5 and then the advance is GPT 4.1 and we have O3 and 04 mini. And then O4 is coming and we've been promised this versatile model that is coming, that is improved and that of course is going to be GPT5 and OpenAI is telling us they're going to clear this all up by summer. So my tin hat here is that whether it's this summer or early fall, GPT5 is going to come out. People like Tyler Cowen, who have called the original models these O3s, AGI already will have effectively cleared the way for OpenAI to say we didn't call the last model that everybody else was calling AGI AGI. We showed restraint. But now that GPT5 is out, we are calling it AGI. And that is what I think this is all about.

[Jonathan Fields]

I'm not going to disagree with that. I don't think it's that tinfoil again. OpenAI has been the master of kind of driving the communications narrative. I think out of all companies there, Sam Altman is the greatest product marketer I think in a long time. I guess the only question is what benefit do you see of them being able to at least say themselves confidently it is AGI. There's obviously the contractual relationship with Microsoft, but is there anything else really? Like do you think it will actually result in a Spike in paid ChatGPT subscriptions or enterprises paying for access or agents and Master Son spending even more money? I don't know. So you think that will unlock a flurry of revenue for them?

[Ranjan Roy]

Because here's the thing, OpenAI, like we've talked about, the thing they have going for them. I mean obviously they've led the product, but their entire existence has been. And this might be diminishing them a bit, but it's not that far off building off others innovations and just doing the product and the marketing a little bit better. And you could see like in our discord all the time people are talking about how Gemini's latest model outperforms OpenAI on the benchmarks, but I just dropped a chart there. Gemini is still not getting anywhere close to the amount of usage as OpenAI. And I think now I think Demis and Google will show some restraint about using the term AGI. But I think that it would be really rough for OpenAI if another big lab beat them to the punch and said that they had open, they had AGI before OpenAI. I think there is value in being the first one to do this purely from a positioning standpoint and that's why I think they're going to do it.

[Jonathan Fields]

Imagine if Google comes out this summer and beats them to it. That actually would be the most incredible twist of events, I think.

[Ranjan Roy]

Well, the date I would watch is May week of May 19th, which is Google IO.

[Jonathan Fields]

All right.

[Ranjan Roy]

Soon where there's definitely gonna be your move.

[Jonathan Fields]

Sundar. It's time. Sundar just stands up there right behind him. AGI.

[Ranjan Roy]

AGI, I promise you, maybe not this year, but we're gonna. We are gonna see some lab make that proclamation, I think, in the next two years.

[Alex Kantrowitz]

Without a doubt.

[Ranjan Roy]

And I'm not saying OpenAI will definitely do it this summer, but I wouldn't be surprised. I wouldn't be shocked. It's currently at, like, 5050 on the betting markets, by the way.

[Jonathan Fields]

Plot twist. It's Apple.

[Ranjan Roy]

I know it's Apple. No, it's not going to be Apple. Yeah, it's called Apple General Intelligence.

[Jonathan Fields]

Wait, I wouldn't put. At this point, I wouldn't put that past them.

[Ranjan Roy]

Well, yeah, but the thing has to actually ship, so we'll see what happens there. Okay, enough beating on Apple. I just want to go to one more example of what we saw from 03, and then we'll move on to some of our other stories. But Dan Schipper, who is the CEO of every. And he's a reviewer there, he writes this very nice newsletter about AI product. He actually had ChatGPT03. He writes this great prompt. Predict my future, where I will be a year from now. Use everything you know about me. Be realistic and direct. And what O3 does is it gives. It says, by next year, I'm going to be AGI. No, no, I'm kidding. But it gives this, like, really interesting look at some of the things that are going on in Dan's life, including where it expects the newsletter to be, where it expects the revenue to be, his public presence, his. His team and his leadership, and even his personal life. And it's just clear that Dan has been speaking with ChatGPT a lot about, like, really intimate things, including, like, what he's getting out of therapy. And what. What O3 does here is it takes its sort of the most advanced capabilities that we've ever seen with ChatGPT and the memory of all chats that Dan has ever had with it. And it brings it together in this one cohesive picture. And that is. And we're going to talk about memory in a second, and we should actually talk about it now.

[Alex Kantrowitz]

Right.

[Ranjan Roy]

Like last week, OpenAI said when you speak with ChatGPT is now going to remember all of your conversations. And I think that just adds this level of depth and insight into your life. That's crazy. And you can really see it come out in these answers. So I'll just read the personal growth section from. From chatgpt oh3's response it says personal growth. You'll be noticeably quicker to say no, that's not on a roadmap in partner calls, weekly therapy check ins, continue your shame spiral. Episodes drop from a few a month to a couple a quarter. I've also seen other people prompting and say how have I changed since I met you? And I think that this combination is crazy. It is going to make so many people feel like they've developed friendships with these bots, companions, companionship with these bots, and even love towards these bots, which I spoke about with Mustafa Suleiman a couple weeks ago. And to see this in action with better memory and better capabilities with the O3 release is nuts. So AGI buzzword or whatever it is or not, this is a very big deal. What do you think? Ranjan?

[Jonathan Fields]

Yeah, I think it's definitely a very big deal. I had actually done this after I saw that you dropped this in the document. And Again, I use ChatGPT frequently but I also use Alt, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini, everything. And it is kind of funny because it thinks I was helping my friend who runs pizza restaurants in Kansas who had actually wrote the doordash pizza arbitrage piece about a few years ago. He's starting an ice cream shop and it thinks I'm also thinks I am trying to start the ice cream shop and it's telling me juggling, writing, podcasting, working a full time job and an ice cream shop might be too much for you. So it recommends that I start to work in six week shape up cycles where one flagship project gets the lion's share of attention. So I think what it reminds us is like this stuff will be really interesting if people use it and invest time. And the more people do use invest time into it, as this is their one platform, the bigger the moat gets. So I think that's pretty interesting because memory I think is another big deal in the whole competitive landscape because up until now we've all seen this. The switching costs between consumer grade chat apps is zero. Essentially it's like just canceling a subscription on one cloud and going to chat GPT vice versa. Gemini is free, but I think if they can actually make this stick it's a big deal. But I also feel others are going to catch up on this pretty quickly as well. So right, I don't know. I don't know if it will be that sticking moat they have. They're the leading consumer brand no question. But I don't know. I it's going to Be interesting.

[Ranjan Roy]

Well, also for your example, what you could do is just say, listen, I'm not doing the ice cream shop.

[Jonathan Fields]

Then, yeah, I should.

[Ranjan Roy]

Maybe you should. But this is the thing. You. You have this, you correct it. So I also got some stuff wrong about me. I corrected it, I shared information and then started getting it right. And I think, yes, that's interesting because it takes investment and that investment leads to lock in because the bot that you talk to the most is the one that is going to want to. Is going to be the most useful to you because it knows you best. And you're right, everybody's going to do this. We also, I mean, when Mustafa came on, he was basically like the headline of the copilot upgrade was the fact that they were going to have better memory. So that is something that's gonna come across the board. But that being said, I think memory just adds such a deeper aspect to your interactions with these bots that when you have that and the better processing capability of something like O3, the experience really becomes bananas. And look, we. We talk about the problems of these bots all the time and the problems of these companies, but I'm feeling. I don't know, I mean, there's still a lot to figure out, but I'm definitely feeling much more optimistic about where this is heading. After experiencing these feature upgrades show up over the past week and model upgrades.

[Jonathan Fields]

My optimism has not gone down at all. I think even in like the. We haven't hit the trough of disillusionment just yet. Maybe we will more from an investment perspective. But yeah, to me, it's just been getting better and better and better and more exciting and. But then on the other hand, you have. Why does Gemini and Gmail not work well when it should be the ultimate repository? I've used Gmail since 2007. I think that should be the ultimate memory of who I am and everything I've done. And it just doesn't answer those questions well. So I think, like, maybe that's an overload of memory up front and OpenAI is almost in a better place because it's much more focused and targeted and shorter in terms of its scope. But I don't know. I think. I agree. We're going to get there. We'll definitely get there, but we're not there yet.

[Ranjan Roy]

Okay. And that brings us to this sort of provocative and maybe a little bit loony post I put on big technology today, which is why AI is the new social media. And I just thought this week was a week of Contrasts where you had mark Zuckerberg in D.C. trying to testify about what Facebook has become and what it's up to. And the stats that he shared were really interesting. So he said currently only 17% of Facebook and 7% of Instagram time, Instagram time are spent with friends posts. So basically he admits that social media has become more of a broad discovery and entertainment space, effectively being taken over by.

[Alex Kantrowitz]

By the.

[Ranjan Roy]

For you. And we've had like four, I would say we've had four eras of the web. First is the. Or maybe five. First is the web is a disaster with lots of information. Second is let's organize it so we go to portals like Yahoo. Where you can click through links. Third era is the search era, where like now, instead of going through a portal, you can just search for what you want and you get it. And it's. And it works very well thanks to algorithms like PageRank that Larry and Sergey came up with. Then we say maybe instead of us pulling information via search, we'll have information pushed to us from our friends. And so we enter this social media era where friends will send us memes and information and news. But of course, that is imperfect. And we end up getting pushed. A lot of outrage, a lot of, you know, really low quality news. We live in the memes now we're sharing shrimp Jesus and all this AI crap. And I think that AI is. This is the point of the post. AI is becoming the new social media, where instead of trying to find information from our social feeds or even search, we are now developing this relationship with these bots who are taking the Internet, condensing it and sharing it with us and dialoguing with us about it. And in some ways, it really lives the original social media dream where it is social, it's useful, it's helpful, it is. Doesn't make us feel bad about ourselves. It doesn't stimulate the worst urges to get something to spread. And it is a filter of information on the Internet. So that's why I'm calling AI the new social media. Obviously it's crude. It really is like maybe the evolution from social media, but it is this important new era of interacting with the web's content. And I just wanted to sort of plant a flag and get that out there on big technology. What do you think about that theory?

[Alex Kantrowitz]

Whoa.

[Jonathan Fields]

Hold on. Oh my God, I'm in. I think I'm in. Hold on. As you described that so already. And I read through the post and like, I liked the idea again. And it almost kind of raised the Questions around like when Mark Zuckerberg is proudly saying in court, 17% of Facebook and only 7% of Instagram time is spent with friends already. Yeah, social media is dead. We've said this for a while. The moment TikTok to me killed the traditional notion of social media because it became follower based rather than friend based. So you followed accounts or were served random algorithmic content. It wasn't about keeping up with your friends and family. So that I think social media has been dead for a while. But at that point, what fills time right now, you know, entertainment based content from accounts that of people you don't know has been filling that time. And I agree that's even worse than friends outraging you in terms of like from a qualitative standpoint or a societal standpoint. But to me, I get it because I haven't gone all out therapeutic ChatGPT or anything like that or talking about my day or feelings. But I have full on conversations. I have a random idea popped in pop into my head. I have a conversation back and forth and you're right, that's social. That's weird. That's like it is social, it is media. So in a way this I, I think I'm bought in that could be the next generation of social media. And I think it is important to define and I think you made that distinction. We're all associating companionship and love and even sex in that New York Times piece from a while ago. But like just having, spending time, having a conversation and engaging even though it's an AI, you're doing that when you're having a back and forth about. Here's a topic, I'm interested, let me learn a bit more. Let's create this app together that's social in a weird way.

[Ranjan Roy]

And by the way, this is happening as two things are happening. First of all, they're becoming much more personable, right? So we're seeing the greater memory, the bigger, bigger, better eq, better personalities, the better competence. And they're all connecting to the web. So ChatGPT03, like we said before, it's tool use can go to the web, it can come back, it can sort of analyze what it found and then go back to the web and go back and analyze what it found. So it's navigating the web. Claude for fi like finally just started connecting with the web and we know Perplexity is connected to the web as well and has a discover page where it will push you information. So this idea, remember ChatGPT came out and it was kind of funny. It sort of had a cut off. And at some point in 2021 or 2022, now it is current. It is, it reads the Internet, it's learning what's going on and it is like basically synthesizing that and pushing it back to you. Now, of course, there's lots of different questions that arise in terms of who's going to get compensated for the material. Like I wrote about recently with World History Encyclopedia, but this is without a doubt, it's the Internet. It's almost the Internet. Becoming a friend and becoming social and then pushing media. To you me, the media side of AI is becoming a much bigger part of the experience.

[Jonathan Fields]

The Internet is my best friend. That's, that's where we're heading.

[Ranjan Roy]

We have a quote in the story from a Harvard researcher who said that.

[Jonathan Fields]

Again, the biggest and most important part. I have a feeling this one's going to stick. I have a feeling like there's something here that I think we should all think about a lot more. Because even as we're talking right now, the idea that that conversation with a chatbot is social, I just had never really thought about it. Every story I read about I associated with like companionship and falling in love or even like not having other human interaction and needing to find it here versus I'm actually just having a simple, interesting intellectual exchange with this thing. And that's what it is. Which you, we are having right now on this podcast and you do and dinner with your friends or at work. And now it's just another expansion of that. And it's something that social media was, the original version of social media was supposed to give us and certainly was there a bit and was lost. And then now this is giving it. And there's no, there's no algorithm ranking that condo. There's an LLM deciding what to return to you. But there's not like an engagement based algorithm that's driving that whole thing, which listeners and readers of mine know is my biggest gripe with how social media went. And this is an alternative in a weird way.

[Ranjan Roy]

Right? And I think that's the, the reason why social media failed was because of how the way it made people feel, it made people feel mad. It made people want to fight with each other. The people that fought and were outraged were the ones that did best. And some people have hit me in the replies and been like, the AI is a sycophant, which it is. However, that might be exactly what enables it to work, which is that it doesn't make people angry. It actually feels like it's helping them. And in many cases, it does help them. And one last piece of proof I want to put before we move on here. Guess who's running product at OpenAI and Anthropic? @ Anthropic is it is Mike Krieger.

[Jonathan Fields]

Yeah.

[Ranjan Roy]

The co founder of Instagram.

[Jonathan Fields]

Yep.

[Ranjan Roy]

At OpenAI, it's Kevin Weil, the former head of product at Instagram. These guys know where the future is moving. The heads of social media past are now running product at social media future.

[Jonathan Fields]

I. I'm in. I'm in. All in. This is it. I mean, when you just threw in. And I mean, I know that the head. The heads of product at both Anthropic and OpenAI, but I think that kind of like perfectly brings together the entire theory in just an incredible way. Yeah. This one I have a feeling we're going to be talking about for a while.

[Ranjan Roy]

Okay. And one last point, because I can't help myself.

[Jonathan Fields]

Keep going, keep going.

[Ranjan Roy]

When you look at mainstream social media, what are they doing? They're becoming AI's Facebook. Of course, it is pushing AI hard with llama and building Llama into its product. And you don't have to go far, Right. To see what happened with X, it was acquired by an AI company. Now, funny math or not, what Elon Musk said is XAI and X's futures are intertwined. And I think that, like, initially, maybe we shook that off because, okay, it's like, yeah, well, you're trying to do financial engineering, whatever it is. But on the other hand, it is absolutely correct that he probably also sees what's happening with social media and that it is moving in this direction. And that acquisition now makes even more sense to me.

[Jonathan Fields]

It is interesting because when we're talking about social media, you do and AI, you do have these two very distinct visions of it. You have one, as we've been discussing, a chatbot you engage with and have a discussion with. But then the other could be. I mean, and this has obviously been. Facebook has tried stuff with this still that feed with different content and still likes and comments. It just happens to be generated by AI. And I'll take the former. I like this vision of the. Even if it's a sycophant, the chatbot you can engage with intellectually versus versus the feed.

[Ranjan Roy]

Even if it's Jagged AGI, screw it. I'll have a conversation and learn from it.

[Jonathan Fields]

I'll talk to anybody. Even Jagged AGI.

[Ranjan Roy]

Even jagged anybody.

[Jonathan Fields]

Yeah.

[Ranjan Roy]

Just wait till the summer you get the real deal. All right, let's move to the final.

[Alex Kantrowitz]

Story of the week.

[Ranjan Roy]

I mean, we did talk a little bit about the Facebook. Obviously Facebook is at trial talking to the FTC about how it's not a monopoly and not really a social network. And it's funny because it's like we don't have to spend too much time on it because it does feel like both those entities are fighting the last war, that it's like we're going to argue over social network where people don't really share anymore. And is, is it under siege from TikTok and AI? The way that it, we're going to argue over the way that it acquired Instagram and WhatsApp, where like, clearly there's competitive pressure and clearly the world is evolving in a way that does not make Facebook dominant forever or an illegal monopoly. But that case is going to play out. And then speaking of illegal monopolies, the US Federal court found Google guilty of being an antitrust violator twice this week where it illegally maintained a monopoly, both in publisher ad serving and in ad exchanges.

[Alex Kantrowitz]

And that's the third.

[Ranjan Roy]

Those are the second and third losses.

[Alex Kantrowitz]

That Google has had.

[Ranjan Roy]

This is a moment to me where we are starting to see big tech companies, which seemed impervious to government action, which seem stronger than governments, which seem more popular, which definitely are more popular than governments, finally take it to the teeth from the government and from antitrust action. And I'm starting to think there's a real possibility that we might see Google broken up. And I'm starting to revise a lot of my long held beliefs that nothing is going to happen to big tech. So Ranjan, put it all together. I mean, what are we seeing here?

[Jonathan Fields]

I cannot make any predictions about what will happen at the intersection of our political system and the business world, given the unpredictability of how things are going. But I will say I was very surprised. And I mean, it's interesting the fact that Google, again, if you had read into the court case over the last few years, the amount of leverage which they would exercise over advertisers and the way products would be intermingled on the ad exchange. Like, and you come from the world of advertising as well. Like, I mean, it's almost comically shocking, but obviously it would. It just never had any impact for so long. It's what does. It's still been so long since there's been anything at that scale. Like could Meta sell off Instagram or WhatsApp? It's just, you can't even imagine a world where that would happen. Like, I mean I, I can't. It's so difficult. Would Google divest Chrome or YouTube? I, I can't even imagine that. But if it is on the radar, if it might be coming, I mean it could happen. It's still in the cards. It certainly moved more than I ever thought it would. But making a prediction again in this environment is a difficult one.

[Ranjan Roy]

I don't think we have to predict. I mean we can just look at the probability and I think the probability that the breakup will happen has increased. What do you think?

[Jonathan Fields]

What does the breakup look like to you though?

[Ranjan Roy]

Well, it could be that Google just has to divest its publisher ad server, Google has to divest its ad exchanges, maybe Chrome. But then we get into really interesting territory here and you know, opponents of Google might be like, aha. You know, it's like finally they, they are hurt. But we do know that Google search for a long time has been putting Google products more prominently in search, but they've still sent lots of traffic to the web in part because they had that publisher ad server and they would make money if you visited the web as well. Actually, I'm starting to think Google was a pretty good business or remains a pretty good business. But this is the thing. If you make them divest that publisher ad network, they're going to keep you even longer on Google pages. You're never going to leave search.

[Jonathan Fields]

Well, okay, now here, here's a take. Especially in this environment where maybe if they see search is declining, that it is not the future, AI overviews will already be the future. They have as much data as anyone else, if not more, then maybe if there was ever a moment to let certain things go that they don't need the publisher ad network anymore, that, that obviously it's still the cash cow right now, but, or one of the cash cows. But if there was ever a moment that it does not look as important to their future, that would be today versus three, four years ago they would have fought, it would be existential. Now it could in a way be part of a future five year strategy.

[Ranjan Roy]

Yeah, this is interesting. It's almost like the argument. Now hear me out. This is going to sound kind of crazy, but the argument that you want China to be doing as much business with the US and as much business with Taiwan because it's in China's interest, if that's the case, to make sure things remain status quo. Because if they don't, then you could see Bad outcomes. And with Google, the parallel is you almost want Google to be doing as much business through publisher ad serving, because that might be the reason why the publisher Internet still exists, however diminished it's been. And once Google cuts off, then you cuts that part of the business off, then you really see the sort of nuclear attack on the web publishing business from the number one portal to it.

[Jonathan Fields]

Yeah, the web is dead. Web's dead, man.

[Ranjan Roy]

Yeah, I don't know. That might be a bridge.

[Alex Kantrowitz]

I might.

[Ranjan Roy]

That might be a bridge too far.

[Jonathan Fields]

I'm still, I'm a. I've thought this for a long time, that the idea that the web is like a interconnected ecosystem of websites that have content on it and you access them through primarily search, that's been gone for a while, or you're directed there through social, that's been declining over time as well. Where it's just information is living in. Even like Reddit is its own information ecosystem. Email newsletters are their own email. I mean, they'll live on substack in a lot of cases or some other web presence, but it's their own information ecosystem. So the idea that like it's a completely disparate but interconnected ecosystem that's been gone for what? And that. And they'll make money in a living off search ads, I think, or off ads in general, and display ads, I think that's. That's pretty much dead. Would you. Would you disagree?

[Ranjan Roy]

I wouldn't call it dead. I mean, Google's earnings are still super impressive, so the old system is still working. That revenue goes up every quarter a lot. But I think under threat, yes. I mean, I think that in all these conversations about the way that Google has improved over time, we often leave.

[Alex Kantrowitz]

Out the fact that there's still this.

[Ranjan Roy]

Sort of existential threat waiting at the end of the tunnel. And maybe that's, you know, jagged AGI or AGI this summer, and we shouldn't ignore that. I think the best possible outcome for all publishers is to join Elon Musk's legion, move to the compound in Texas, don't say anything bad about him, and take the money.

[Jonathan Fields]

It's your only option. And again, I agree the web is not dead, but the web is dead sounds better than the web is in secular decline, but I know, not as punchy as subject line.

[Ranjan Roy]

See, this is why our advertising agency really has legs. We know how to brand things that, you know, it's jaggedly true. It feels accurate.

[Jonathan Fields]

Jaggedly. If you squint at the light, at the. I love that one of the definitions even used, like the light at the end of the, you can see the end of the tunnel. Everyone's squinting, everyone's trying to see that light for our AGI, but it's jagged right now. So I hope you enjoy your jagged AGI this weekend.

[Ranjan Roy]

I, I sure will. I sure will. And we will be back next week.

[Alex Kantrowitz]

To talk about all the other new.

[Ranjan Roy]

Things that we found from O3 and whatever other craziness goes on in the tech and the AI world. Because Lord knows the one thing, the one thing that's consistent is when we come back every Friday, there's going to be some crazy stuff that's happened and we can't wait to speak speak with you about it next week. All right, Ron, John, great to see you. Thanks for coming on the show.

[Jonathan Fields]

All right. See you next week.

[Ranjan Roy]

See you next week. All right, everybody, thank you so much for listening. And we'll see you next time on big Technology podcast.