I have also really been enjoying these lectures. Sarah is quick witted and insightful. I recommend the Dwarkesh podcast to anyone interested in AI in general (though Sarah Paine lectures are completely unrelated).
I already feel like text models are already at sufficiently entertaining and useful quality as you define it. It's definitely possible we never get there for video or 3D modalities, but I think there are strong enough economic incentives such that big tech will dump tens of billions of dollars into achieving it.
IMO current generation models are capable of creating significantly better than "slop" quality content. You need only look at NotebookLM output. As models continue to improve, this will only get better. Look at the rate of improvement of video generation models in the last 12-24 months. It's obvious to me we're rapidly approaching acceptable or even excellent quality on-demand generated content.
Generative AI is going to drive the marginal cost of building 3D interactive content to zero. Unironically this will unlock the metaverse, cringe as that may sound. I'm more bullish than ever on AR/VR.
I'm hoping they're building a commodity AR/VR operating system -- essentially spatial Android. They've already announced a partnership with Samsung and Qualcomm so I've got to imagine some interesting hardware is coming soon.
In contrast, buying my Tesla new was about as easy as any Amazon order. I don't know why other car manufacturers don't make D2C a bigger focus for their business.
One of my all-time favorite records is entitled Crown Shyness. The eponymous track [1] uses this phenomenon as a metaphor for feeling alone while depressed. The branches are so close, but just out of reach. I always thought it was a beautiful analogy.
I suspect for people like Sam who are compulsively ambitious and competitive, it's not about the dollars. It's about winning.
Further, based on anecdotes from friends and Twitter who know Sam personally, I'm inclined to believe he's genuinely motivated by building something that "alters the timeline", so to speak.
I hope you're correct, but empirically this appears to be wishful thinking, at least among larger organizations. How many tech big-cos have implemented a mandatory return to office policy in some capacity? Some big ones off the top of my head: Meta, Google, Apple, Microsoft, Uber, Snap. It's my observation that smaller companies tend to follow larger companies culturally, especially as they scale.
This is misleading. $36B is for all of Reality Labs, which includes Virtual Reality, but also their Augmented Reality glasses in development, Ray-Ban smart glasses, Horizon, Meta's AI org, the Portal product line (now discontinued), the unreleased smart watch, tons of R&D, etc.