Superintelligence Is New Black | 3 Wow and 1 Promise

Summary

This episode of “3 Wow and 1 Promise” explores the new era of “superintelligence” that has replaced AGI as the buzzword of choice. The first wow covers SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son’s massive $32 billion investment in OpenAI (part of a $40 billion pledge at a $300 billion valuation), making them the biggest backer of OpenAI. But he’s not alone - Mark Zuckerberg is in “full blades mode” with Meta’s superintelligence lab, hiring researchers with rumored $100 million offers and poaching four senior researchers from OpenAI.

The second wow highlights Google’s relentless building despite summer - they shipped YouTube AI copilot features, Doppl virtual try-on, improved Gemini in Photos, Gemma 3n on-device models running at 60fps on Pixel, Gemini robotics for laundry folding, AlphaGenome for DNA analysis, and Gemini CLI. The third wow features two major AI adoption reports: PWC’s Global AI Jobs Barometer showing industries embracing AI see 3x more revenue per employee and wages growing 2x faster, and Menlo Ventures reporting 1.8 billion people have used AI tools.

The promise section critiques Gemini CLI - despite its exciting launch with a 1 million token context window and generous free tier, users report major issues with login, API errors, and inconsistent functionality.

Highlights

”Superintelligence is the new black”

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“We are in the super intelligence era and no more of this looming acronym of AGI. Superintelligence is a new black now and everyone wants to try it on.” — Ksenia, 0:25

”Money cascading like Niagara Falls”

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“Mark Zuckerberg was throwing the numbers like 100 million for hire. He definitely caused some pain to OpenAI. Four senior researchers from OpenAI have jumped ship to join Zuckerberg’s cause. It’s kind of just wild how the money is cascading like Niagara Falls into the beast.” — Ksenia, 1:42

”Google building like pragmatic bees”

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“You think it’s summer’s slowdown and there will be less models. Google’s people don’t know about that. They keep working like pragmatic bees. Building, building, building, building without wasting time.” — Ksenia, 2:43

”AI is the new rocket fuel for the economy”

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“Industries embracing AI are seeing three times more revenue per employee. Wages growing twice as fast. Even in jobs that should have been automated away by now, like customer support. People are not just keeping their roles, they are leveling up.” — Ksenia on PWC report, 4:53

”Gemini CLI is a Claude clone - and it shows”

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“Let’s be honest, Gemini CLI is a Claude clone and so it’s going to be judged against the current performance and accuracy of Claude Code. The generous free tier might win it all. But if it fails on so many fronts, Gemini just needs to put all the energy they can to fix it as fast as possible.” — Ksenia quoting user feedback, 7:57

Key Points

• SoftBank’s $32B Investment (0:40) - Bringing total pledge to $40B at $300B OpenAI valuation, making them the biggest backer
• Superintelligence Replaces AGI (0:25) - The industry has shifted terminology from AGI to superintelligence
• Zuckerberg’s $100M Hires (1:34) - Meta throwing unprecedented money to recruit AI talent
• Four OpenAI Researchers Leave (1:46) - Senior researchers jumped ship to join Zuckerberg’s superintelligence lab
• Meta Eyeing Acquisitions (2:21) - Talked to Perplexity, Thinking Machines Lab, Runway AI, now eyeing Play AI
• YouTube AI Copilot (3:06) - AI-powered search with curated clips, creator takes, and smart summaries
• Google Doppl (3:23) - Virtual try-on experiment for testing outfits online
• Gemma 3n Performance (3:51) - On-device model hitting 60fps on Pixel phones
• Gemini Robotics (4:04) - Folding laundry offline with natural language commands
• AlphaGenome Launch (4:14) - DeepMind mapping genome, scoring DNA variants across cell types
• 1.8 Billion AI Users (6:03) - Menlo Ventures report on consumer AI adoption
• Gemini CLI Free Tier (7:19) - 60 requests/minute, 1000 requests/day, 1M token context window

Mentions

Companies

• SoftBank (0:37) - Biggest OpenAI investor with $32B committed
• OpenAI (0:43) - Valued at $300B, building superintelligence
• Meta (1:18) - Building superintelligence lab, aggressive hiring
• Perplexity (1:56) - Meta talked to them for potential deal
• Thinking Machines Lab (1:58) - Mira Murati’s startup that Meta approached
• Runway AI (2:17) - Video AI company Meta talked to
• Play AI (2:24) - Conversational voice tech company Meta is eyeing
• Google/DeepMind (2:43) - Multiple product launches, including AlphaGenome
• PWC (4:52) - Published Global AI Jobs Barometer
• Menlo Ventures (5:57) - Consumer AI adoption report
• Toloka (5:45) - Data labeling company (Olga Migorska interview mentioned)

People

• Masayoshi Son (0:37) - SoftBank CEO betting on superintelligence
• Mark Zuckerberg (1:18) - Meta CEO in “full blades mode” for AI
• Mira Murati (2:01) - Former OpenAI CTO who started Thinking Machines Lab
• Olga Migorska (5:45) - Toloka executive interviewed previously

Products & Technologies

• YouTube AI Copilot (3:06) - AI-powered search features
• Doppl (3:23) - Virtual try-on from Google Labs
• Gemini (3:41) - Upgraded “Ask Photos” feature
• Gemma 3n (3:51) - On-device open source model
• AlphaGenome (4:14) - DeepMind genome mapping tool
• Gemini CLI (4:22) - Command line interface with Gemini 2.5 Pro
• Claude Code (8:00) - Anthropic’s competing CLI tool

Surprising Quotes

“He was throwing the numbers like 100 million for hire. He definitely caused some pain to OpenAI. Four senior researchers from OpenAI have jumped ship to join Zuckerberg’s cause.” — Ksenia, 1:34

“Industries embracing AI are seeing three times more revenue per employee. Wages growing twice as fast. Even in jobs that should have been automated away by now, like customer support. People are not just keeping their roles, they are leveling up.” — Ksenia on PWC report, 5:05

“1.8 billion people have already used AI tools. AI is now just life. Parents use it for packing lists and scavenger hunts. Students use it to prep for tests. Millennials are power users. Boomers are quietly on board.” — Ksenia on Menlo report, 6:03

“I don’t mean this in an insulting way. I’m rooting for Gemini CLI, but the current state of Gemini is beyond broken.” — User quote shared by Ksenia, 7:57

Transcript

0:00 Super intelligence is here, but we still don’t know what it is. Welcome to three wows and one promise from Turing Post where I share with you what struck me the most the last week and about one thing that made me think that it’s still promising and not there yet.

0:25 So guys and ladies, I’m not sure if you know, but we are in the super intelligence era and no more of this looming acronym of AGI. At least this is how SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son thinks about it. He just announced a fresh deal with OpenAI bringing SoftBank’s total investment to 32 billion. That’s just a part of their earlier pledge to go up to 40 billion at a 300 billion valuation of OpenAI which makes them the biggest backer of OpenAI. So many words starting with B.

1:01 But if you think he is alone in that and lonely in his super intelligence, he’s not. Super intelligence is a new black now and everyone wants to try it on. And of course, the biggest runner in this race is Mark Zuckerberg from Meta, ex Facebook. If you forgot, he is in full blades mode with his new super intelligence lab.

1:27 There was a lot of rumors and a lot of conversations about how he approaches hiring. He was throwing the numbers like 100 million for hire. We don’t know of course how much he paid researchers that he hired. He definitely caused some pain to OpenAI. Four senior researchers from OpenAI have jumped ship to join Zuckerberg’s cause.

1:53 He also was noticed in talking to Perplexity, Thinking Machines Lab, which is a new startup by Murati, the CTO of OpenAI. Another very peculiar startup that raised so many billions but doesn’t have any product yet. Even nobody knows what they’re going to build but that’s a different topic.

2:14 Mark also talked to Runway AI but all these deals seem to fail. But Meta is now eyeing Play AI known for its conversational voice tech and they are ready to spend millions and millions if not billions of money. I mean, it’s kind of just wild how the money is cascading like Niagara Falls into the beast.

2:43 You think it’s summer’s slowdown and there will be less models. Google’s people don’t know about that. They keep working like pragmatic bees. They building, building, building, building without wasting time on napping.

3:00 Let me just list you a few things that they shipped just last week. Over at YouTube, AI is now your new copilot. Thank you Microsoft for the term. Search now comes with curated clips, creator takes, and smart summaries guiding you down deeper rabbit holes. Raise a hand whoever wanted a chatty binge buddy. YouTube has got your back.

3:20 Meanwhile, Google Labs is flexible with Doppl D-O-P-P-L. What a weird name. It’s a virtual try-on experiment that lets you test drive any outfit you see online. I actually tried it when I was at Google IO. It’s pretty accurate. It’s fun and I think it will be super useful for busy people.

3:41 Next, in Photos, Gemini quietly levels up Ask Photos, letting you find dogs or that beach trip faster and smarter. On the hardware frontier, Google drops Gemma 3n. Gemma is their open-source model. The tiny mighty on-device model already hitting 60fps on Pixel.

4:01 And yes, Gemini robotics on device is folding laundry offline with natural language commands. We are so close to have these robots in our houses. Can’t wait.

4:14 Even DeepMind is cooking. They mapping the genome with AlphaGenome scoring DNA variants across cell types. Over in the terminal, Gemini CLI lands with a bang. 1 million token context window, open-sourced, and dev productivity piped straight into your shell. But we will talk more about them in our promising section. Sorry Google.

4:39 So while others throw money at each other and all these magical words, Google’s cooking like a commercial kitchen.

4:46 Reports show AI is widely used. Two interesting reports were published last week. And what made me say wow is how positive and almost excited they are about it. Not cautiously optimistic. Not “let’s wait and see.” I mean full on “AI is the new rocket fuel for the economy” vibes.

5:12 First up, PWC Global AI Jobs Barometer. They went through nearly a billion jobs. Yes, again, billion. And found that industries embracing AI are seeing three times more revenue per employee. Wages growing twice as fast.

5:30 Even in jobs that should have been automated away by now, like customer support. People are not just keeping their roles, they are leveling up. AI is doing the boring stuff and humans are handling the gnarly edge cases and getting paid more for it.

5:45 Olga Migorska from Toloka said us the same thing. If you haven’t watched this interview, check it out. In data labeling, humans are actually making more money by labeling with expertise.

5:57 The second report, the Menlo Ventures report dropped their report on consumer AI and it’s like, oh, hey, 1.8 billion people have already used AI tools. AI is now just life.

6:10 You know, parents use it for packing lists and scavenger hunts to write an invitation for a kids party. Students use it to prep for tests. Millennials are power users. Boomers are quietly on board. And if it was a shadow niche before that people were afraid to touch, it’s a daily habit now again for billions.

6:31 These reports are basically saying that AI is making you more valuable. And if you know how to use it, you are essential.

6:44 Now to the big promising project from the last week and it is Gemini CLI. Gemini command line interface CLI launched last week with a bang. Developers community was so excited. There was so many tweets and it’s understandable. It’s a very interesting and powerful interface when it works.

7:07 So what they offer? It’s open source, it’s fast, it packs their best model, Gemini 2.5 Pro for coding, debugging, and automating tasks. And it’s basically free. They said such a generous free tier, offering 60 model requests per minute and 1,000 requests per day with no cost. The only thing you need to have is a Google account.

7:31 This exceeds typical developer usage. And unlike competitors like Claude or OpenAI products which often have paid tiers with lower limits, Gemini CLI’s open-source nature and high usage allowance make it accessible without upfront costs which you know so good for innovation and exploration.

7:50 But let me just read a couple of words from a user from GitHub which cover pretty well why Gemini CLI is not there yet. That’s what he says: “I don’t mean this in an insulting way. I’m rooting for Gemini CLI, but the current state of Gemini is beyond broken.”

8:08 “Right now, Google CLI is suffering from major blockers. Unable to log in, logs in but refuses to do anything. Random API errors, needs work, blah blah blah.” He lists all these not working things.

8:20 And he says, “I just feel at this point there is no telling what’s going to be fixed and when. And it’s going to be exhausting trying out Gemini weekly for the same tasks just to see if it’s working normally.”

8:35 “Let’s be honest, Gemini CLI is a Claude clone and so it’s going to be judged against the current performance and accuracy of Claude Code.”

8:43 Saying all that, the generous free tier might win it all. But again, if it fails on so many fronts, Gemini just needs to put all the energy they can to fix it as fast as possible because the race, the pace is so fast. If developers don’t like to use it, it’s not working for them, they will switch to what works and they will stick with that.

9:07 That was my three W and one promise. And I hope you enjoyed it. Please subscribe below. Makes me happy. And I’ll see you next time.