From: Reason (reason@exratio.com)
Date: Fri Jan 04 2002 - 02:04:48 MST
I get to deal with VCs far too much. That said, on with the rambling
question.
There was a little discussion on the list recently on AI and business, and I
was meaning to jump in an ask a question back then. Got distracted by cats
or something similar. My question essentially revolves around monetization
of intermediary steps in AI development. From my readings online, there's
very little that discusses what happens in between
a) useful primer steps like Cyg, Flarelang, etc
and
b) boom! functioning, if very crude general intelligence or seed AI
Which I would assume is because no-one really knows for sure (or else we'd
be hip deep in AIs by now).
Now if you're walking into a VC's office to pitch an AI company -- one of
the few places you're guaranteed not to be the strangest project they've
seen -- they're going to want to hear how you're going to be generating
revenue within six months from an initial investment. [Since you're a
software company, that is, and producing those easy-to-make software things,
as opposed to an infrastructure company making those hard-to-make lumps of
iron, but I digress -- lambasting VCs is far too easy].
So you're starting out with something along the lines of a concept, perhaps
some useful protocode for classifying information and information
processing, possibly even a grasp of the One True Path To AI. What can you
produce in six months that you can sell? What is the improvement on that
that would be coming out in a year?
Given the demographics of this list, I'm sure that at least a couple of you
have put some thought into this. Anyone care to share?
Reason
http://www.exratio.com/
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