Comment by ano-ther
8 months ago
So what is the appropriate course of action if you are a founder? Just wait until the models inevitably get better, or help a customer with their problem now?
Computer power has been increasing all the time, but that hasn't kept people from experimenting with the limited power of their time (which ultimately led to better solutions) rather than waiting for the more powerful machines.
Find a real problem and solve it cheaply, or solve it so much better than anyone else that your high price is worthwhile to enough people.
Don't focus on the method of solving the problem until you have identified the problem and all the current solutions and avoidances.
You can help the customer now, but you should keep in mind that the people working on the more general solutions will at some point take your moat.
E.g. you can build a drawing program where you can tell it in natural language to apply certain effects and make some changes. But another company might be working on a OS assistant that can help the user in any program currently running on the computer.
Or you can build a robot that can pick bolts from an assembly line, but at some point there will be a company building a cheap robot that can do anything from folding t-shirts to knitting a sweater.
This was my takeaway from the article too.