[john_b]

I think that was clear from the article. What jenius, I think, was saying is that you don't offer much support for this claim. How, for example, can startups get on the AI-as-a-service bandwagon without having the resources and experience of a company like Apple?

[jenius]

Exactly right john_b... the author's follow-up comment addressed nothing that I said, just made another baseless claim - that "I think it's like the apple II of computers". Why? What makes it like the apple II? You have to back yourself up. I personally think they are nothing alike, and here's why:

The Apple II was a revolution of personal computing. It brought the personal computer to the masses, and made it infinitely more accessible in both form and function. The form and parts for the Apple II became the base for all other computers. Nobody had ever made anything like the Apple II before. The Apple II on its own sold like crazy, and brought the entire company to success. Siri is a small piece of software on an already successful device (which is significantly more 'revolutionary' that siri on its own). The idea for siri has been come up with and implemented many times before, in the exact same manner (see the many android comments). Apple just worked really hard on it and they allegedly did a good job.

[yalimgerger]

Hey the author again. :-). It is true that in the article, I did not explain why I think that the era of A.I. started on October 4th. The article starts with the assertion that it has begun and moves on from there. I guess more than anything, the article is a call for action. I wanted the discussion to start and it did.

If I can present my chain of thoughts leading up to my decision in an interesting way I may write another article called "Why I think Siri is the Next Big Thing".

But here is my chain of thought for the curious mind in a very crude way:

What I did was to observe the moves of Apple and try to figure out their strategy. I put together the information that is available on the Internet. I connected the dots.

I knew Apple bought Siri for about $200 mil. I knew about Siri's history. You don't buy voice recognition software for this price. I watched the Mossberg-Jobs interview where Mossberg keeps insisting that Siri is in the search area and Jobs keep correcting him saying no Siri is in the A.I. area. I watched how the critical question "What are you going to do with it?" got lost during the conversation. When Mossberg said that the iPad is great for consumption but not for creation, it was very clear that Jobs did not see it like that at all. I also watched some Apple videos from late 80's which depicts a professor talking to his computer and getting his daily business done. It seemed to me that they had this vision all along and now they were implementing it.

Then I realized how iCloud fits in to this all. With the introduction of Siri it was clear to me that the next frontier the competition is moving to is A.I. Apple is going all in. IBM is pushing hard. Apparently, Google is baking some stuff.

While I was thinking about all these and trying to find its meaning, the interview between Fred Wilson and Carlota Perez helped me to put it all in context.

I think this is the time to invest in A.I. If a VC expects huge returns from his investment in 5-7 years, I think A.I. is the right way to go. If an entrepreneur wants to do something amazing, I think A.I. is the right way to go. My speculation is in 1-2 years this is going to be all we talk about.

I think A.I. is where the puck is going now. I might be wrong, I might be right. We will know soon enough.

[yalimgerger]

I have thoughts on the particular question you asked too. But I cannot cram every bit Of thought I have to one blog post. It would make a terrible article. This article makes a prediction baldly. It asserts a threshold in A.I. is crossed and it's implications will be big. Diverging into startup funding in this area would just not fit in well. That deserves its own post. :-)