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This week , some idea on AI esthetics , the challenge of uninsurability , and how to pitch a biotech startup to non - expert . — Anna
Too good to be true
Most tools claiming to find AI - generate textfail stunningly , my colleague Kyle Wiggers reported . That ’s a paradox . I ’m only human , but a deal of the AI - written delivery I receive do n’t pass the sniff test yet ; their mode and wordiness finger off .
Then again , it is probably too early to wait machines to detect a je ne sais quoi , even if we can see it . As fellow TechCrunch writer Ron Miller observed recently , “ it ’s really like AI - generated art , which has a certain flavour and experience . ”
That seem and feel was made funnily obvious in a late experimentation conducted on one of my best-loved social media accounts , Ugly Belgian Houses .
lead by originative office owner Hannes Coudenys , this project became furore — and turned into two books and a TV show — for showing just what its name suggests . But in a break from his common mailing , Coudenys decided to give generative AI a spin . As he told me :
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First I went calculate for existent estate agents that use a lot of [ waffle ] to sell a house . Searching for keywords like unique , dream house , pearl . And then I had to filter them to ascertain the despicable single .
When I found those I feed the exact text to ChatGPT and asked : Make me an persona for this text .
I was amazed that the termination total out sick perfect from the first try .
You could call it consummate . . . or screaming : The contrast between realism and what the AI created found on the descriptionis painfully obvious .
AI VS Reality . Based on the text of a Belgian literal estate broker .
" This magical and rural habitation features a spacious garden with beautiful view of the unripened surroundings behind . The house has a good and right construction structure and offers a lot of potential!pic.twitter.com / DAMgi5M2Tu
— Ugly Belgian Houses ( @uglybelgianhous)December 20 , 2023
Does that mean we are stick with AI aesthetics that are unplug from reality and , say , overly affirmative like only real estate agents can be ? Probably not ; it depends on what we tip them , and Coudenys saw at first hand that AI can do ugly , too , if you insist .
“ I ’ve strain DALL - E before to create Ugly Belgian Houses . And the funny affair is , since I ’ve been doing UBH for 10 years , DALL - E do it the style and got some amazing resultant role . I even posted them . Inthis postI said it was AI . Inthis oneI did n’t , and people just believe it ’s true . Felix Da Housecat even commented , ” Coudenys tell me .
One thing is for sure : With or without AI , I agree with Coudenys that Ugly Belgian Houses is a natural endowment that keeps on gift .
Insurability and Luko’s epilogue
Luko ’s curler - coaster drive andurgent search for a buyerfinally came to an end when news emerged that Allianz Direct wouldbuy the French insurtech startupfor € 4.3 million ( around $ 4.65 million ) , enable patronage to continue and jobs to be maintained .
Luko ’s acquisition wo n’t make everyone happy , but the insurtech will live on
Court documents reveal that Luko ’s suitors also included several other insurtech startups : Laka , Leocare , LovysandMagnolia . Gallic neoinsurer Leocare , in particular , was willing to take over at least 26 of Luko ’s employees and all of its French home indemnity occupation , but its € 10 bid was no rival for Allianz Direct ’s last fling .
However , Leocare CEO Christophe Dandois is no sore loser . In a poston LinkedIn , he wished his competitors respectable fortune while recapping their journey and what could have been . for certain , mistakes were made , but both establish teams portion out a desire to bring solutions to the growing challenge of insurability .
Insurability was n’t a term I was very familiar with , but many of us intuitively understand what ’s at play : Risk photo is a fine balance for insurers . With factors such as more frequent atmospheric condition and mood risk , or even just societal changes like remote work and newfangled form of mobility , Dandois explain , there ’s a time when it just becomes too much to insure risks the old way , at least affordably .
Still , I wonder what this had to do with sell house insurance in France , like Luko and Leocare do . But understand more on the topic , I realize that this was more than a thought exercise .
“ While France has yet to partake the fate of the United States , where insurers are withdrawing en masse shot from certain regions exposed to born disasters , ” French newspaper Les Echosnotedrecently , “ the phenomenon is already visible in the Gallic overseas territories , where place insurance coverage brook at 50 % , compared with 96 % in mainland France . ”
Hence Dandois ’ view , which is both restrained and bold : “ Neoinsurers are n’t the only future of insurance policy , but without their digital and APIzation know - how , without their power to deploy apace and make data speak , there will be no social and societal reply to THE question of insurability . ” A worthy challenge for technical school to take on .
Pepper Bio’s pitch deck teardown
It is always intimidating to write about biotech as a non - expert . But when I late coveredPepper Bio ’s seed unit of ammunition , primary scientific military officer Samantha Dale Strasser and CEO Jon Hu did a nifty line of work at explaining what they do to the layperson that I am . I did n’t cognize what transomics meant beforehand , but after our chat , I could grasp how it could aid discover drug for untreated diseases such as certain forms of Cancer the Crab .
Pitch Deck Teardown : Pepper Bio ’s $ 6.5 M seed deck
Did Pepper Bio strike the same balancein its auction pitch deck , which my co-worker Haje dissected for his Pitch Deck Teardown serial ? Yes and no . One slide necessitate a band of guesswork or old knowledge of the drug find space . But Haje had self-aggrandizing kudos for other sliding board , call one “ a masterpiece ” and another one a “ mic free fall . ” Well done , Pepper Bio .
