The Scene
The flood of AI news, product releases, and missteps has landed on us with the dizzying chaos of the tornado scene that begins The Wizard of Oz.
As their core competencies, market advantages and overall philosophies begin to solidify, the “lanes” in the AI game are appearing, but they’re still somewhat faint and, at times, confusing. In trying to explain it to ourselves and our friends in the industry, we’ve happened upon what we think is a set of useful analogies: Dorothy, the Munchkins, and the rest of the characters from the iconic 1939 movie (with an assist from Wicked).
This is obviously not an exact science, and we got interesting (and entertaining) responses from some of the companies disputing our casting. Aravind Srinivas, the CEO of Perplexity, responded to his company being cast as the Wicked Witch of the West with (probably AI-written) lyrics about his defiant struggle against Google, with inspiration from Wicked’s “Defying Gravity” showstopper. Inflection AI CEO Sean White said the company is not as far out of the race as our casting of the “Wicked Witch of the East” might suggest.
Our taxonomy is not, we should add, AI-written. Let us know if you buy it:
In this article:
The View From Perplexity
Srinivas appears to have embraced Semafor’s casting of Perplexity as the Wicked Witch of the West, or perhaps more aptly, Elphaba. His Wicked-inspired song, posted on X, highlights the company’s attempt to take on the biggest search engine in the world. Here’s a snippet:
“Something has changed within me / Something is not the same / I’m through with searching for the truth / In someone else’s name / Too late for second-guessing / Too late to go back to sleep / It’s time to trust my queries / Close my eyes: and leap!
It’s time to try / Defying Google / I think I’ll try / Defying Google / And you can’t pull me down”
The View From Inflection AI
White said Inflection AI, which Microsoft essentially acqui-hired last year, is the Tin Man. It was an original character who set down the AI path, he said, citing its voluntary signing of White House safety commitments in 2023 and its original foundation models. Plus, “we aspire to have a good heart,” White said.