1/n The private biotech industry perhaps has at least 10-20 years more accumulated knowledge than the academic world. A majority do not realize this. This is why nation-states like China and Russia cannot create vaccines like in the West. AI will end up similarly.
2/n This large disparity in knowledge and know-how is a consequence of the evolutionary nature of biology. This nature also exists in deep learning AI. Evolution's creativity is a consequence of frozen accidents; these accidents cannot be uncovered through first principles.
3/n Genentech, an early pioneer in genetic engineering, has specially engineered organisms (i.e., mice) that the rest of the world cannot access. Many biotech companies have secret sauce that can only be discovered through experimentation.
4/n The same will happen with deep learning AI. We have reached that state in development where firms like OpenAI are keeping their cards very close to their chest. There are scant details on the methods used in ChatGPT or GPT-4. We can only speculate as an outside observer.
5/n Most biological material is available to everyone, so it's possible for biotech firms to create similar function genetic material via convergent evolution. In AI, access to the largest models are monopolized by few players.
6/n But surprisingly, open-source models such as #stablediffusion have created their own cottage industry of innovation that has even surpassed closed-source systems. This is because it's unlikely for a private company to be clairvoyant of the entire long tail of use cases.
7/n Furthermore, there is a new debate where private companies like OpenAI argue that open-source AI is unwise because it's too potent. theverge.com/2023/3/15/2364… 
8/n The most potent biotechnology and the most potent cognitive technology will be in the hands of private corporations. But how is this any different from the present reality that the most potent decentralized coordination is in the hands of private companies (see: money)?
9/n There you have it folks, the most powerful of technologies will always be in the hands of private companies. It has been like this for a very long time (see: central banks). Do not expect that to change in biotechnology or in AI.
10/n There is often this argument that everyone in AI knows what others AI groups know. This *was* true before ChatGPT. Knowledge blindness is more likely for technologies of an evolutionary nature. There is a wall of ignorance as a consequence of the Halting problem.
11/n That wall of ignorance becomes a defensive moat when companies finally discover its potency. You see, prior to 2022, deep learning AI was not potent enough. Then a phase transition happened, and all of a sudden we are in an entirely new regime.
12/n There are "hyperobjects" in this world that contain know-how and knowledge that are *do not* have mobility. They are affixed in the development and evolution of an "organism" (i.e., a living thing, an AI, a language, a corporation, a community, a city, a nation-state,… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…
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