1/ Now that I've had time to recover from the excitement that was the preparation for the @nearmap #Navig8 conference, I thought I'd set myself a challenge: do a daily post showcasing one of our Gen 5 layers in a city. 🧵

Us developers have learned the hard way that: 1. Prototyping is more like 10% of the actual work - even though the business folks thinks we're 90% done 2. Shipping prototypes to production is possible but generally a bad idea Vibe coding is prototyping. Others will learn - soon

🚨 TOMORROW🚨 @michaelbewley is returning to #SXSWSydney with his unmissable session, 'Raising the bar on Geospatial AI'. ⌚️12:15 PM - 1:00 PM 📍Discovery Stage Don’t miss the chance to hear firsthand how #NearmapAI is delivering insights that create more livable communities.

So odd when the clear market leader in the hottest tech field today (AI) is seeing a steady stream of departures: cofounders, executives. The people who have the most internal details on current status and future plans. They have far more information than us on the outside.

I’m pretty confused by this - I’d expect OpenAI to have a pretty tight definition of “intelligence” given they’re pursuing AGI. At what point is going from smart high schooler to PhD about becoming more intelligent? Isn’t it about knowledge and skills? GPT-4 doesn’t get to AGI just by knowing more facts…

As you watch the Aurora this evening, it’s worth reflecting that you’re getting a rare direct glimpse of the power of Nature. Those charged particles causing the atmosphere to glow came from a sunspot complex 17 times the diameter of Earth and traveled across 90 million miles at a million miles an hour. Without our magnetic field to protect us, our atmosphere would have been lost to space long ago. Those colours in the sky are Nature reminding us that we’re very lucky to be here amidst the violence. And perhaps therefore also reminding us not to shite it all up :-)

If only it wasn’t raining. theguardian.com/australia-ne…

Extreme (G5) geomagnetic conditions have been observed!

Discover how @nearmap (powered by AWS) generate insights from aerial imagery at petabyte scale to better understand how the built environment is evolving. go.aws/43LbYDc 📅 Hear more from Dr Bewley on Nearmap's AI journey, at AWS Sydney Summit. go.aws/43L6hVD

What’s with all the bots following me in the last week, with almost 5k following, < 100 followers, and LLM generated tweets about nothing in particular? Or is it just me?

Today, @Betterv has joined the Nearmap family! This acquisition combines the power of world-class aerial imagery, location intelligence, and property risk-management solutions for insurance providers. Learn more: bit.ly/41gCpiP

We need a name for ChatGPT style prose, because I swear I can identify it in the wild. It has a certain vibe. Like it was written by a golden retriever.

Today I got a call inviting me to consider a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity: to become the interim CEO of @OpenAI. After consulting with my family and reflecting on it for just a few hours, I accepted. I had recently resigned from my role as CEO of Twitch due to the birth of my now 9 month old son. Spending time with him has been every bit as rewarding as I thought it would be, and I was happily avoiding full time employment. I took this job because I believe that OpenAI is one of the most important companies currently in existence. When the board shared the situation and asked me to take the role, I did not make the decision lightly. Ultimately I felt that I had a duty to help if I could. I have spent today drinking from the firehose as much as possible, speaking with the board, a small number of major partners, and listening to employees. Our partnership with Microsoft remains strong, and my priority in the coming weeks will be to make sure we continue to serve all our customers well. OpenAI employees are extremely impressive, as you might have guessed, and mission-driven in the extreme. And it’s clear that the process and communications around Sam’s removal has been handled very badly, which has seriously damaged our trust. I have a three point plan for the next 30 days: - Hire an independent investigator to dig into the entire process leading up to this point and generate a full report. - Continue to speak to as many of our employees, partners, investors, and customers as possible, take good notes, and share the key takeaways. - Reform the management and leadership team in light of recent departures into an effective force to drive results for our customers. Depending on the results everything we learn from these, I will drive changes in the organization — up to and including pushing strongly for significant governance changes if necessary. I will be rolling these out as they become clear over the 30 day period. OpenAI’s stability and success are too important to allow turmoil to disrupt them like this. I will endeavor to address the key concerns as well, although in many cases I believe it may take longer than a month to achieve true progress. I have nothing but respect for what Sam and the entire OpenAI team have built. It’s not just an incredible research project and software product, but an incredible company. I’m here because I know that, and I want to do everything in my power to protect it and grow it further. It's now 1am and I'll pick this up tomorrow. PS: I am posting this here both because I think it’s in the general public interest to know in this case, but please don’t expect all future internal comms to come through a public channel. PPS: Before I took the job, I checked on the reasoning behind the change. The board did *not* remove Sam over any specific disagreement on safety, their reasoning was completely different from that. I'm not crazy enough to take this job without board support for commercializing our awesome models.

Wow.

OpenAI announces leadership transition openai.com/blog/openai-annou…

Our Hub officially launched yesterday @Sydney_Uni's @SIRISRobotics. Thank you to the @arc_gov_au @QUT @ourANU @QUTRobotics Through our research collaboration, we hope to become a driving force in robotics for asset inspection and management.

Yesterday at @sxswsydney, Nearmap AI experts Dr. @michaelbewley and Dr. Kitty Lo discussed how the power of intelligent mapping can change our world (they rocked it, btw!) Want to learn more? Drop into the #SXSWSydney Technology & Innovation Expo and swing by our booth!

Day 1 of the @SXSWSydney Tech & Innovation Expo was ✨amazing✨ Join us in the Breakthrough Zone all week to discover how you can empower change with new perspectives. And don't miss #NearmapAI experts @michaelbewley and Dr. Kitty Lo on the Discovery stage tomorrow at 3pm.

Interested in reading about fully automated detection of damaged buildings after #Hurricane #Idalia? We now use large scale deep learning to flag damaged buildings to help rapid triage response on every aerial imagery survey we fly. Check it out at linkedin.com/pulse/hurricane…