Three years after ChatGPT made OpenAI the leader in artificial intelligence and a household name, rivals have closed the gap and some investors are wondering if the sensation has the wherewithal to stay dominant. Investor Michael Burry, made famous in the film The Big Short, recently likened OpenAI to Netscape, which ruled the web-browser market in the mid-1990s only to lose to Microsoft's Internet Explorer. OpenAI is the next Netscape, doomed and hemorrhaging cash, Burry said recently in a post on X, formerly Twitter. In a time of both misinformation and too much information, quality journalism is more crucial than ever. By subscribing, you can help us get the story right.

The year 1998 was a pivotal one in the history of technology: Apple's introduction of the iMac helped set the company back on the path to success after it nearly went bankrupt earlier in the decade; Google was founded by two Stanford students, Larry Page and Sergey Brin; and Microsoft introduced Windows 98, an improved version of its popular computer operating system. That May, Microsoft also became the target of a historic antitrust lawsuit lodged by the Department of Justice and twenty states, accusing it of anticompetitive behavior in two domains: attempting to maintain its monopoly in computer operating systems and trying to monopolize a new market, that of Internet browsers. At the time, residential Wi-Fi connectivity was rapidly expanding across America, and, in the quaintly titled "browser wars," Netscape Navigator, a popular browser released by Mosaic Communications Corporation in 1994, fought Microsoft's Internet Explorer for the growing class of Web-connected consumers. Microsoft, the D.O.J. alleged, had attempted to crush Netscape by making deals with Internet-service providers that prioritized Explorer access at Netscape users' expense. The trial began that fall, and included seventy-six days of testimony that took place over more than eight months, during which a government witness alleged that a Microsoft executive had pledged to "cut off Netscape's air supply" (which a Microsoft attorney denied).

"Netscape was to the Internet what ChatGPT is to Artificial Intelligence. The Internet existed before Netscape. But the browser helped millions of mere mortals connect the dots on what could be done, and dream of what could be." ChatGPT3.5 is a "Super Baby" only few months old. We got to set the right expectation!

Disclosure: Microsoft is a client of the author. Microsoft this week caught Google napping when it comes to the future of online search -- much as Google caught Microsoft napping almost two decades ago when it came to the future of web browsers. And given the similarities between the two, Google should have been better prepared. Think of it: Google's rollout of Bard is reminiscent of Microsoft's acquisition of Spyglass -- the maker of Mosaic, remember? Even with the Microsoft-Spyglass tie-up, upstart Google still won the browser war once Microsoft dispatched Netscape (a victory that was far less certain then than it looks now in retrospect).

On May 26, 1995, Bill Gates wrote the famous "Internet Tidal Wave" internal memo at Microsoft. This was a huge wake-up call for the desktop software company at the time. It immediately shifted priorities and resources for Microsoft to go after the nascent World Wide Web. I thought of this "Internet Tidal Wave" moment when I came across a helpful analogy from Hubspot CTO Dharmesh Shah a couple weeks ago: "Netscape was to the Internet what ChatGPT is to Artificial Intelligence. "The Internet existed before Netscape.

On May 26, 1995, Bill Gates wrote the famous "Internet Tidal Wave" internal memo at Microsoft. This was a huge wake-up call for the desktop software company at the time. It immediately shifted priorities and resources for Microsoft to go after the nascent World Wide Web. I thought of this "Internet Tidal Wave" moment when I came across a helpful analogy from Hubspot CTO Dharmesh Shah a couple weeks ago: "Netscape was to the Internet what ChatGPT is to Artificial Intelligence. "The Internet existed before Netscape.

Openly sharing information has been a part of human culture since the beginning of civilization. Information would be shared with the general community and the practice has had a powerful impact on the development of tools and machinery. In opposition to this practice, is the concept of ownership and control over new ideas and concepts, also known as "intellectual property." While the open sharing of new ideas is difficult to abuse, patents can be abused, with a reasonable amount of planning. For example, in 1879, George B. Selden, a patent lawyer, applied for a patent, claiming ownership of the "idea" of a 2-cycle gasoline-powered engine, and, for devious monetary reasons, delayed its patent office approval until "1895."

A team that includes AI Ware (Cleveland, Ohio), a vendor of intelligent systems for design and manufacturing applications, has been awarded a $3.8 million grant by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to develop an aluminum diecasting process monitoring and optimization system. The team will develop a neural network-based system with self-improving capabilities to detect as well as predict process and quality problems, and that can suggest corrective actions before quality degrades below acceptable limits. Caterpillar (Peoria, Ill.), a manufacturer of construction, earth-moving equipment and engines, working with the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) at the University of Illinois, has developed a virtual reality environment for testing new machine designs. These tests assess the vehicle's design and determine visibility from the cab. Verity (Mountain View, Calif.), a supplier of information retrieval tools based on intelligent agent technology, has teamed up with Netscape Communications Corp. (Mountain View, Calif.), a provider of open software for the Internet and other global networks, to bring Verity's Topic agent technology to the Internet.