Depending on where you get your news from, AI is either coming for your job or about to make it a whole lot easier – whether you speak in words, or you speak in code.
So we’re taking a look at some of the companies in our Spaceship Voyager portfolios that are working with, or creating more of, our new robot overlords.
What is AI, anyway?
AI is the ability of software to mimic human decisions and reasoning. It does this by spotting patterns in data.
The best AIs are programmed to learn from their mistakes and make predictions about what will happen next.
There are three types of AI
1. AI that’s as smart as we are
Narrow AI, or ‘artificial narrow intelligence’, is also known as weak AI.
Microsoft says that every example of AI that you see at use in the world falls under this category.
Narrow AI is when a computer can perform a task as well as a human can. Narrow AIs include things like self-driving cars, ChatGPT, and Mittens the Chess.com chessbot that sent everybody crazy in 2023.
2. AI that could beat us in a fight
General AI, or ‘artificial general intelligence’, is AI that could outsmart humans at things.
General AI currently only exists in theory, but you can watch it brought to life in movies. Millennials, think of the maid from The Jetsons; Gen Z, your fighter is Megan.
General AI is the idea that robots will be able to think and act for themselves – no extra programming required.
3. AI that’ll steal your heart, then steal your planet
ASI, or ‘artificial super intelligence’, is the third type of AI and probably won’t exist in our lifetimes, if it ever does.
It’s the idea of an AI that’s superior to humans in every way – think of SPOILER ALERT the voice of Scarlett Johannson ditching Joaquin Phoenix in the movie Her, and escaping to a different planet.
Could you fall in love with an AI?
(An AI that’ll fall in love with you isn’t real – unless you ask these people.)
So, while General and Super AI is what people are freaking out about, Narrow AI is what we’re actually using. How does it get so smart?
AI generally learns in two different ways
Machine learning
Machine learning is when software follows a series of algorithms to identify patterns and make predictions.
If you’ve ever upsized your Amazon order because “People like you also bought…” you’ll have experienced this first hand.
We asked one of our engineers to explain it to us like we’re five.
“I'd probably say machine learning "models" are fed data. The "machine learning" part of machine learning is really the process of "training" or building the model,” said Victor from Spaceship.
"Basically you get data, you train a machine learning model based on that data, and you get a finished model out the other end.
The finished model takes inputs (new data), and produces outputs (predictions, etc.).”
This means the AI can keep getting smarter as long as the data it feeds on gets richer and better over time.
Deep learning
Deep learning works a bit like the brain does, with neural networks that link to more neural networks.
It’s trained on huge data sets, and is better with edge cases, which is why it’s used in facial recognition, and with Virtual Assistants like Siri and Alexa.
How do we invest in AI at Spaceship?
Our Spaceship Voyager Senior Portfolio Manager Jason Sedawie has described AI as being like ‘the new oil’, a development in technology that can change everything that comes after it.
ChatGPT has described AI as being like ‘a really smart robot friend’ (but then, it would say that…)
There are two ways we think about investing in AI at Spaceship.
1. Exposure to microchips
Whether you think AI is cool or scary, there’s one thing it is for sure: expensive.
The Washington Post has said that AI chatbots lose money every time somebody uses them.
So while asking ChatGPT to write a football chant for a Liverpool star is definitely worth it for punters, it may not be for OpenAI, who runs ChatGPT itself.
AI is so expensive because it’s resource heavy to run. It uses way more power than your average Google search. That power means it needs stronger computers, and stronger computers need stronger microchips.
The Spaceship Earth and Spaceship Universe portfolios have exposure to the microchip factory bigwigs NVIDIA, Advanced Micro Devices, ASML, and Taiwan Semiconductor.
Generally, any company that wants to innovate in AI will need a lot of very strong microchips to do it, and these Spaceship Voyager portfolios have exposure to these very strong microchip factories.
2. Investing in companies that benefit from AI
Some of the companies in our Spaceship Voyager portfolios use AI to underpin, or evolve, their businesses.
Here’s what a few of them do.
Help predict and treat surgical complications (Intuitive Surgical):
Intuitive Surgical has a robot that helps perform surgery, which is already pretty cool. But it also invested in KelaHealth, which uses AI to help predict how likely it is that a patient in surgery will have complications, and recommends interventions for them.
(Intuitive Surgical is in the Spaceship Universe and Spaceship Earth portfolios.)
Generate art (Adobe)
Adobe is well known for its suite of creative tools which touch everything from movies to memes to digital ads. Think Photoshop, Acrobat, and Premiere Pro. Adobe has Canva hot on its heels as a competitor, so it’s going for growth, announcing plans to buy Figma late last year, and now launching Adobe Firefly, which will generate images based on what you ask it to.
The difference between Adobe Firefly and other generative art engines is that Adobe Firefly aims to use AI ethically. There’s a huge debate about AI engines being trained on creative work it doesn’t own - and Adobe is putting thought into how to be a force for good.
(Adobe is in the Spaceship Universe and Spaceship Earth portfolios.)
Increase productivity (Microsoft)
Microsoft made waves early this year for taking an even bigger stake in OpenAI - the makers of ChatGPT. It then announced it would be integrating the technology into its Teams Suite. Popular with big corporates, Microsoft Teams has collaborative features such as meetings and document sharing. ChatGPT will help meeting organisers to take minutes, create templates, and generally be helpful. A bit like our favourite from the nineties.
(Microsoft is in the Spaceship Universe and Spaceship Earth portfolios.)
Is AI coming for your job?
There’s a lot of hype about AI right now. Cynics say it’s filling some of the void that crypto and the metaverse was meant to have filled up by now. It’s true that we don’t know the long-term impact of AI to people’s jobs. That’s a big part about why we’re long-term investors: because we want to be prepared for any future that eventuates.
Some of our Spaceship Voyager portfolios invest in Microsoft, Amazon, NVIDIA, Advanced Micro Devices, ASML, Taiwan Semiconductor, Intuitive Surgical, Adobe, and Microsoft at the time of writing.
Important! We’re sharing with you our thoughts on the companies in which Spaceship Voyager invests for your informational purposes only. We think it’s important (and interesting!) to let you know what’s happening with Spaceship Voyager’s investments. However, we are not making recommendations to buy or sell holdings in a specific company. Past performance isn’t a reliable indicator or guarantee of future performance.
