Welcome to the Cloud Wars Minute — your daily news and commentary show, hosted by Cloud Wars Founder Bob Evans. Each episode provides insights and perspectives around the “reimagination machine” that is the Cloud.
In this Cloud Wars Minute, Bob Evans reviews an analogy made by Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella during the Microsoft Build conference.
Highlights
00:15 — Microsoft has been #1 on the Cloud Wars Top 10 list for the last three years. Bob explains that he was intrigued by CEO Satya Nadella’s “curious comparison” that he made at the recent Microsoft Build conference, equating ChatGPT to a steam engine.
00:58 — At the conference, which is targeted at developers, Nadella was framing his discussions of generative AI and ChatGPT within the context of “builders,” notes Bob. During his keynote, Nadella said “I’ve always loved [Steve] Jobs’ description of computers as ‘bicycles for the mind’.”
01:43 — Nadella went on to say that “we went from the bicycle to the steam engine with the launch of ChatGPT.” Yes, the invention of the steam engine was tremendous — but that invention happened more than 400 years ago. Just last year, the last steam-powered railway train was taken out of commission. This leads Bob to wonder exactly what point Nadella was trying to get across.
02:48 — Was he trying to suggest that, just as the steam engine dazzled people 400 years ago, ChatGPT — and generative AI as a whole — is doing that now?
03:44 — Given Microsoft’s position on the Cloud Wars Top 10, and across the industry in general, “I think he was really making a point, I’m just not sure whether that point is this is the new engine of innovation,” adds Bob, or if he is placing ChatGPT within the proper context of the generative AI revolution.
