Zero Shot

• One-human unicorns, Suno’s musical future, ‘back to the age of research’

  Welcome back to Zero Shot, where Praveen, Brady, and Rohin discuss the biggest moves in artificial intelligence.This week, Brady mulls over the possibility of running a one-human unicorn—an idea whose most vocal proponent is Sam Altman, OpenAI’s CEO. He references the second season of Shell Game, a podcast where the host is experimenting with building a startup involving AI agent co-founders and colleagues. This brings about larger ethical and philosophical questions, such as whether humans always need to maintain a sense of community and companionship when they’re tackling big goals.Rohin points to Suno’s $250 million fundraise and the platform’s strategy to create, engage, and monetise in the long run. Besides, when it comes to music that is generated from prompts, ownership and intellectual property remain a concern. Suno is positioned as a platform where users can visit and discover new music, which brings to mind Sora, OpenAI’s app for generating short videos. The question is whether users will see Suno as a trusted place that hosts engaging, unique music.Finally, Praveen visits Ilya Sutskever’s appearance on Dwarkesh Podcast. Sutskever was the chief scientist and a co-founder of OpenAI, and makes the point that there is enough compute to prove out almost any idea involving artificial intelligence. This type of work doesn’t require the largest amount of compute, so “we are no longer in the age of scaling; we’re back in the age of research.”Zero Shot’s cover art is generated using AI. Everything else is made by humans.If you have suggestions, critiques, or fresh ideas, we’d love to hear from you. Write to us at [email protected], or just drop us a note to say hi.Additional ReadingTega Brain’s Slop Evaderhttps://tegabrain.com/Slop-Evader Low-background steelhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low-background_steel The Plasticene era: Current uncertainties in estimates of the hazards posed by tiny plastic particles on soils and terrestrial invertebrateshttps://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048969724023957 OpenAI takes stake in Thrive Holdings in latest circular dealhttps://www.ft.com/content/53e2003e-c5c0-42a1-937a-eaea77ac4d41 Accenture dubs 800,000 staff ‘reinventors’ amid shift to AIhttps://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/dec/01/accenture-rebrands-staff-reinventors-ai-artificial-intelligence ‘Google Antigravity just deleted the contents of my whole drive’https://old.reddit.com/r/google_antigravity/comments/1p82or6/google_antigravity_just_deleted_the_contents_of/ Shell Game, Season 2https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/shell-game/id1753117762 James Watson and Edward O. Wilson: An Intellectual Ententehttps://www.harvardmagazine.com/2009/09/james-watson-edward-o-wilson-intellectual-entente A.F. Steadman reads the prologue of Skandar and the Unicorn Thiefhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FmzH_IcYWQY Suno creates an entire Spotify catalog’s worth of music every two weeks, says investor pitch deck for $250M fundraisehttps://www.billboard.com/pro/suno-creates-spotify-catalog-music-two-weeks-pitch-deck/ Silicon Valley has more companies than ideas – Illya Sutskeverhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RNq0PWHIgOw Jack Dorsey funds diVine, a Vine reboot that includes Vine's video archive | TechCrunchhttps://techcrunch.com/2025/11/12/jack-dorsey-funds-divine-a-vine-reboot-that-includes-vines-video-archive/ 

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• Perplexity kills student incentives, moving past peak Nvidia, the Google Empire strikes back

  Welcome back to Zero Shot, where Brady, Praveen, and Rohin offer their perspectives on the latest developments in artificial intelligence.This week, Praveen describes how Perplexity aborted its Campus Partner Programme in India after allegations of fraud surfaced. In a bid to drum up usage for its Comet browser, Perplexity had rolled out a referral-for-pay system, enticing students to convince others to download the AI browser… except they may have been legions of bots. If living, breathing people can’t be convinced to use Comet, then what does that say about it as a product?Rohin dived into the successes of Nvidia, which is the most successful “shovel seller” among companies in the AI sector. Advanced sales of its Blackwell and Rubin chips over the next 14 months, for instance, have reached $500 billion. But given how Google’s tensor processing units (TPUs) are now able to train state-of-the-art language models, the lustre around Nvidia’s graphics processing units (GPUs) has faded just a bit.Finally, Brady unpacks the rollout of Gemini 3 by Google, which has compelled even OpenAI’s Sam Altman to pause and acknowledge that it’s a threat to everyone else. Gemini 3 excels at visual tasks, and it’s part of the architecture that makes Google’s new integrated development environment Antigravity stand out. Not only does Google have this advanced language model, but also the trust of enterprise and retail users—setting it apart from other companies such as OpenAI. Zero Shot’s cover art is generated using AI. Everything else is made by humans.If you have fresh ideas, critiques, or suggestions, we’d love to hear from you. Drop us a note at [email protected], or just write to us to say hi.Additional Reading‘It’s hell for us here’: Mumbai families suffer as data centres keep the city hooked on coalhttps://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/nov/24/mumbai-datacentres-coal-air-pollution ‘AI eats the world’, November 2025https://www.ben-evans.com/presentations Insurers retreat from AI cover as risk of multibillion-dollar claims mountshttps://www.ft.com/content/abfe9741-f438-4ed6-a673-075ec177dc62 ‘Perplexity cancels Campus Partner Programme in India after widespread fraud’https://www.theleftshift.com/perplexity-cancels-campus-partner-programme-in-india-after-widespread-fraud/ ‘Earn thousands as a Campus Partner’ of Perplexityhttps://x.com/sherlock_ux/status/1980849775382786069?s=20 ‘Perplexity has cancelled its Campus Partner Programme in India following allegations of fraud tied to its referral system’https://x.com/arsh_goyal/status/1985255590038524346?s=20 The algorithm that detected a $610 billion fraud: How machine intelligence exposed the AI industry’s circular financing schemehttps://substack.com/home/post/p-179453867 Nvidia’s ‘I’m not Enron’ memo has people asking a lot of questions already answered by that memohttps://www.theverge.com/business/828047/nvidia-enron-conspiracy-accounting ‘Made by humans’, Perplexity says the quiet part out loud, AI in courtroomshttps://the-ken.com/podcasts/zero-shot/made-by-humans-perplexity-says-the-quiet-part-out-loud-ai-in-courtrooms/ ChatGPT Go's free year turns Indian markets into its biggest test bedhttps://www.business-standard.com/companies/news/chatgpt-go-s-free-year-turns-indian-markets-into-its-biggest-test-bed-125112401042_1.html “Attention is all you need”https://arxiv.org/abs/1706.03762 Altman Memo Forecasts ‘Rough Vibes’ Due to Resurgent Googlehttps://www.theinformation.com/articles/openai-ceo-braces-possible-economic-headwinds-catching-resurgent-google 

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• Threat models, using taste to defend margins, ChatGPT’s ‘collab’ with Phonepe

  Welcome back to Zero Shot, where Rohin, Praveen, and Brady discover new ideas and interpretations of the latest developments in artificial intelligence.This week, Rohin wonders what the threats are in our regular usage of AI tools and platforms. Conventional ways of safeguarding against exploits work to an extent, but new vectors are emerging for those who are criminally inclined.Brady encounters an ad for Anthropic’s Claude in one of the least likely of places, then examines how the company is creating scarcity around its infinitely scalable product. What appears to be a play to cast Claude as a premium consumer product is an inverse of OpenAI and Perplexity’s strategies, but could also be a move to protect its enterprise margins.Finally, Praveen looks at an OpenAI collaboration that enables Phonepe’s users to create images, seek career advice, get healthy recipes, receive astrological readings, and more. This could be a lead-in to one specific integration that matters much more to Phonepe, but it isn’t clear whether users are willing to share their financial data if it happens.Zero Shot’s cover art is generated using AI. Everything else is made by humans.We love hearing from our listeners! Send your critiques, suggestions, and ideas to [email protected], or write to us just to say hi. Additional Reading:Human behavior is an intuition-pump for AI riskhttps://invertedpassion.com/human-behavior-is-an-intuition-pump-for-ai-risk/AI and the paperclip problemhttps://cepr.org/voxeu/columns/ai-and-paperclip-problemAI status symbols are popping up everywherehttps://www.businessinsider.com/ai-status-symbols-openai-anthropic-cursor-2025-10Alexa, Siri, Netflix, Tiktok, ChatGPT, Claude—they all “feel like AI” to consumershttps://menlovc.com/perspective/2025-the-state-of-consumer-ai/At a major AI conference, one startup got voted most likely to flophttps://www.businessinsider.com/at-an-ai-conference-attendees-were-asked-which-startup-they-would-short-2025-11 Live skydiving with Google Glasshttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxmbbtuRszA PhonePe Announces Strategic Collaboration with OpenAI to Bring ChatGPT to Indian Users at Scalehttps://www.phonepe.com/press/phonepe-announces-strategic-collaboration-with-openai-to-bring-chatgpt-to-indian-users-at-scale/

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• ‘Made by humans’, Perplexity says the quiet part out loud, AI in courtrooms

  Welcome back to Zero Shot, The Ken’s weekly discussion where Brady, Praveen, and Rohin go beyond the headlines to probe the major shake-ups in artificial intelligence.This week, Brady notices how media producers and creators emphasising how their work is “made by humans”.  This type of disclaimer looks like the beginning of a bifurcation of content into AI-generated output and “handcrafted” media. Take a few steps further and there are consequences for education, contractual agreements, and legal disputes.Rohin looked at Perplexity’s snapback after Amazon sued it over making agentic shopping available via the Comet browser, enabling automation that places orders on behalf of users. For consumers, the question to consider is: would you hand over your credentials to an AI agent and let it represent you, while you shoulder all legal liability for its actions?Finally, Praveen presented AI’s first major use case in the Global South. Tools and platforms such as ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Adalat AI are speeding up research, stenography, and other tasks in the legal arena, making it possible for court proceedings to move faster. India isn’t alone in this; court systems in other parts of the world such as Brazil and China are using artificial intelligence in their own ways too.Zero Shot’s cover art is generated using AI. Everything else is made by humans.We appreciate your critiques, suggestions, and ideas. Send them to [email protected], or write in just to say hi. If you’d like to sponsor Zero Shot, let’s talk. Additional ReadingPluribus: “This show was made by humans”https://bsky.app/profile/thespaceshipper.com/post/3m54is34d5c2lRosalía on Lux: “It’s all human—very much human”https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/30/arts/music/rosalia-lux-interview.htmlThis year’s Coca-Cola holiday ad exposes one of the biggest problems with AI-generated videohttps://www.businessinsider.com/coca-cola-ai-holiday-ad-glitches-highlight-ai-shortcomings-2025-11Chinese court again rules AI-generated images are eligible for copyright protectionhttps://www.chinaiplawupdate.com/2025/03/chinese-court-again-rules-there-is-copyright-in-ai-generated-images/Bullying is not innovationhttps://www.perplexity.ai/hub/blog/bullying-is-not-innovationNorway tests show Chinese-made electric buses can be halted remotely by manufacturerhttps://www.channelnewsasia.com/world/norway-tests-chinese-made-electric-bus-yutong-halted-remotely-54483664,000 Indian courts have done away with typing. An AI revolution is onhttps://theprint.in/ground-reports/4000-indian-courts-have-done-away-with-typing-an-ai-revolution-is-on/2770297/Petition in Supreme Court says GenAI in judiciary may lead to fake case lawshttps://www.thehindu.com/news/national/petition-in-supreme-court-says-genai-in-judiciary-may-cause-hallucinations-lead-to-fake-case-laws/article70262821.ece

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• Synthetic musical artists, the Nifty Fifty and Magnificent 7, Big AI’s ‘zero f***s given’ era

  Welcome back to Zero Shot, The Ken’s weekly podcast where Brady, Praveen, and Rohin riff off each other’s commentary about the big ideas and latest developments in artificial intelligence.This week, Praveen covers the accomplishments of Xania Monet, the first AI-powered artist to debut on an airplay chart. Xania is among at least six AI artists to be included on Billboard rankings, and she’s the creation of a real-life songwriter who used Suno (and human assistance) to create her songs. Find out what this means for the streaming business and creative expression.Brady explains how the dominance of the Magnificent 7—Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta, Microsoft, Nvidia, and Tesla—in the current stock market echoes the Nifty Fifty on the New York Stock Exchange in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Spoiler alert: it didn’t end well for those firms half a century ago. Whether you believe there’s currently an AI bubble, it’s still worth knowing what happened before.Finally, Rohin posits that Big AI is in its “zero f***s given” era. Investment in private AI companies is now being framed as “play or lose”. Opting out is stigmatised. The consequences could be severe.Plus: Send us your setup for a long/short strategy as a skeptical investor who is hedging against the AI bubble popping. We’ll feature the interesting, unexpected, counterintuitive ideas in the next episode.The content of this podcast is not investment advice. Always do your own research.Share your critiques, suggestions, and ideas, or just say hi by dropping a note at [email protected]. If you’d like to sponsor Zero Shot, let’s talk.*Additional Reading & ListeningHow many AI artists have debuted on Billboard’s charts?https://www.billboard.com/lists/ai-artists-on-billboard-charts/“How Was I Supposed to Know?” by Xania Monethttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=opuDZYJuAz0 Ways of Seeinghttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ways_of_Seeing What is “involution”, China's race-to-the-bottom competition trend?https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/what-is-involution-chinas-race-to-the-bottom-competition-trend-2025-09-14/ Sam Altman shuts down question about how OpenAI can commit to spending $1.4 trillion while earning billions: 'Enough'https://www.businessinsider.com/sam-altman-defends-openai-trillion-spending-2025-11 How OpenAI uses complex and circular deals to fuels its multibillion-dollar risehttps://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/10/31/technology/openai-fundraising-deals.html 

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