Additionally these 'A.I apps are just gold rush' comments are too dismissive about the potential. It may be that there are some low hanging fruit that will get picked first, but I personally think that the vast majority of opportunity requires some level innovation, creative thinking, and grit to utilize.

Edited to add: This is not an indictment on the college student in question! Congrats to him for being prepared to seize on an opportunity and executing well.

That might or might not be a smart move in the current context, but the tragedy of students grinding Leetcode for obnoxious jobs gatekeeping needs to stop.

My second thought was: This sounds like another idea that could easily be killed off by Google or similar companies, if they just add a "this is googlebert, your personalized analysis robot - just link your website/upload docs and ask away!" function.

Or this kind of functionality simply becomes part of the batteries included package for ChatGPT etc.

Pre 2021: Useful semantic search widely deployed, used for recommendations for sales. OpenAI has an answers endpoint specifically for this technical use case, full docs, and many companies implement this internally.

Mid 2022: People like me experiment with GPT answering using semantic context on dynamically uploaded content, e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7V3VkNj2bag - but cannot get approved for this use case by OpenAI.

Nov 2022: GPT had banned open ended responses and chat like interfaces until now. Explain paper is the first tool that allows you to chat with your PDFs with multiple questions, and to use it on many types of PDFs, released in November IIRC and viral on twitter: https://twitter.com/rauchg/status/1596220185727275008

December-January 2023: 15+ Chat with PDF tools are launched, including pre-hyped launches on ProductHunt from pivoting products January+ onwards: Almost daily launches, sometimes with USPs. I launched AnyQuestions.ai which was at the time the only question tool able to work with videos [1]. Chatbase catches virality on twitter and makes some other sound decisions [2].

Feburary 2023 onwards: No platforms since February have succeeded.

[1] But it took a long time to process with Whisper and the interface was more answer focused than chat-and-response focused; I also made bets on including a larger context and using non-typical embeddings (looking for entailment/contradictions of the sentence as well as semantic similarity) which turned out to not be the right commercial choice.

[2] Allowing embedding on websites, and sharing the Chatbase branding that way was powerful, as well as being able to easily work for new websites as a quick solution. It spread easily through competitor FOMO and was a fast product.

But, that means they are uploading customer data to OpenAI servers, right? Umm, wonder the legality of that if you don't mention this point in your Legal Terms section (I just quickly searched for OpenAI and couldn't find anything)

"by losing $2 million"

Well make it up in volume, famous last words.

Honestly that entire interview just reveals how much of that poor guys thinking is already infected by the virus called capitalism. Accumulating personal wealth shouldn't be the end goal here. It's short-sighted and perpetuates the very system that created inequality and injustice in the first place.

Instead of focusing on personal gain, why not channel that energy into organizing and fighting for a more equitable and just system? Learn about alternatives to capitalism and push for systemic change that benefits everyone, not just a select few who manage to "take advantage of opportunities."

Capitalism thrives on people thinking they can get rich quick, while most end up struggling and the rich get richer. By pursuing this goal, you're just playing into that system. Focus on the greater good and work towards a future where everyone has a fair shot, not just the ones who keep up with AI or whatever the next tech trend will be for the growth imperative to exploit.