Tuesday, September 2, 2025

Should Amazon Compete in the War for AI Talent?

I don't see #Amazon as needing to compete with #OpenAI, #Meta, #Anthropic, etc. by developing their own #AI #LLM. The Amazon retail experience already has great usability, use of data, and recommendation / search algorithms.


I think they might be better off working agnostically with all model makers:


1. To offer the models in AWS for customers to use.


2. Getting all the model makers to embed APIs so that #chatbots can allow users to purchase products instantly that come up in query answers.


© 2025 Praveen Puri

I'm Increasingly Skeptical About AI Causing Mass Unemployment


I'm increasingly skeptical that #AI will put people out of work. History has shown that life becomes continually complex and new jobs are always created. I always write that the Information Age is gone, and we are now in the Attention Scarcity Age. Change is happening faster than ever, people are drowning in information, and attention / focus are the new scarce resources.


My prediction is that #LLMs and AI might take over basic, repetitive stuff, but human experts will be busy doing things, like evaluating #AIAgents. With all the change happening, to stay competitive, it will take full time people just to keep testing an evaluating which models and agents to use, how to deploy them, and help them cope with change.


We've been here before:

1. Historical - hundreds of thousands of jobs like blacksmiths, elevator operators, stenographers, and typesetters were eliminated, but new jobs were created.


2. McDonalds - They added ordering kiosks in stores and people thought it would eliminate jobs. Instead, the pandemic happened, and people switched to drive-through, and they added mobile ordering / curbside. That created jobs.


© 2025 Praveen Puri

Monday, September 1, 2025

How AI Companies Avoid Commodification


On LinkedIn, someone mentioned how they thought 99% of AI companies are building wrappers (UIs) for LLMs, and that they were just commodities.

I think the opportunity (to avoid being a commodity) for companies like this is that, while the price of tokens (unit pricing for LLMs) are dropping, costs for inquiries are going up because LLMs are doing more "deep thinking" (which burns tokens). 

Not every query needs deep thinking. So the unique value-add for AI wrappers/UI companies is to design for minimizing tokens without sacrificing accuracy.

© 2025 Praveen Puri