{"id":"Wa9WpZTkJHs","title":"Spies Seduce Silicon Valley AI Workers, Goldman Sachs AI Assistant and Layoffs, AI Hype Cycle Trough","description":"Join the NEAR Legion at https://nearlegion.com/\n\nFollow us on X:   / nearlegion  \n\n#NEAR #nearprotocol #NEARAI #ai #ainews","channel_name":"NEAR Protocol","published_at":"2025-10-27T00:00:00.000Z","thumbnail_url":"https://img.youtube.com/vi/Wa9WpZTkJHs/hqdefault.jpg","transcript_text":"Good morning, Legion and happy Monday. The last Monday of a sour Uptober. The good news is, is that there's a lot happening in the near ecosystem. These next two months, and a lot to get excited about. Over the weekend, Illia dropped a new podcast on the Cognitive Revolution Pod, where he talks about AI governance, the future of personal assistants and the role that agents might play in that future. Rhea also announced that more than 17,000 Zcash is already collateralized on near for our AI stories. We have a couple of good ones to get into today. First up is on Silicon Valley Spies. The state of the AI arms race is so intense, other countries are sending spies to Silicon Valley to seduce tech workers. This should be a good wake up call for everybody that the AI race is very real and not looking to cool down any time soon. Next up, an article from last week breaking down Goldman Sachs plan to roll out an internal assistant to help workers do their job better and faster. This comes on the heels of a Goldman Sachs study itself that predicted that routine workers may be facing layoffs in the future. Analysts expect automation to reshape staffing. with Bloomberg Intelligence projecting up to 200,000 bank jobs at risk as routine tasks get absorbed by AI. That, folks, is one of the most lucrative professions going the pathway of automation for the margins of the firm. The future will be interesting, to say the least. Our final story today is a nice thesis from Balaji on what comes next for AI. His points are worth quoting fully. So here goes. First up, AI is now entering the trough phase of the hype cycle. Every tech, no matter how amazing, goes through this. It's actually one of the best times to invest and build. Once the space begins to thin. Second, AI is both highly useful for search, summarization, visualization, and prototyping, and also a highly annoying source of spam scams and slop. Too many will focus solely on the downsides. Third, the exact plateau of AI is quite unexpected. The fact that current model seems to have topped out at far better web search, in summary, is not where most would have pegged it in 22, disrupting Google as a historic accomplishment. Yet it's not the machine god or artificial superintelligence. Fourth, one thesis for why models plateaued in this way is that LLM style digital AI really is just repeating rather than truly thinking. It's downstream, not upstream. Now, you can get much further with this than most thought, but you can't get all the way to novel thoughts. And the fifth point we'll quote is that, as biology has said before, digital AI does it middle to middle, not end to end because the bottleneck for digital AI is prompting and verifying. Check out the full thread to see his predictions on robotics in China. But suffice it to say, we remain early in the AI era entering a trough and honestly in quite a good position for NEAR to ship DCML. We'll do this all again real soon.","transcript_synced_at":"2026-11-03T04:48:39.438Z","segments":[{"start_seconds":0,"text":"Good morning, Legion and happy Monday. The last Monday of a sour Uptober.","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wa9WpZTkJHs&t=0s"},{"start_seconds":4,"text":"The good news is, is that there's a lot happening in the near ecosystem.","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wa9WpZTkJHs&t=4s"},{"start_seconds":7,"text":"These next two months, and a lot to get excited about.","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wa9WpZTkJHs&t=7s"},{"start_seconds":10,"text":"Over the weekend, Illia dropped a new podcast on the Cognitive Revolution Pod, where he talks about AI governance, the future of personal assistants and the role that agents might play in that future.","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wa9WpZTkJHs&t=10s"},{"start_seconds":20,"text":"Rhea also announced that more than 17,000 Zcash is already collateralized on near for our AI stories.","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wa9WpZTkJHs&t=20s"},{"start_seconds":27,"text":"We have a couple of good ones to get into today. First up is on Silicon Valley Spies.","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wa9WpZTkJHs&t=27s"},{"start_seconds":33,"text":"The state of the AI arms race is so intense, other countries are sending spies to Silicon Valley to seduce tech workers.","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wa9WpZTkJHs&t=33s"},{"start_seconds":40,"text":"This should be a good wake up call for everybody that the AI race is very real and not looking to cool down any time soon.","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wa9WpZTkJHs&t=40s"},{"start_seconds":47,"text":"Next up, an article from last week breaking down Goldman Sachs plan to roll out an internal assistant to help workers do their job better and faster.","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wa9WpZTkJHs&t=47s"},{"start_seconds":56,"text":"This comes on the heels of a Goldman Sachs study itself that predicted that routine workers may be facing layoffs in the future.","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wa9WpZTkJHs&t=56s"},{"start_seconds":63,"text":"Analysts expect automation to reshape staffing.","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wa9WpZTkJHs&t=63s"},{"start_seconds":66,"text":"with Bloomberg Intelligence projecting up to 200,000 bank jobs at risk as routine tasks get absorbed by AI.","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wa9WpZTkJHs&t=66s"},{"start_seconds":73,"text":"That, folks, is one of the most lucrative professions going the pathway of automation for the margins of the firm.","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wa9WpZTkJHs&t=73s"},{"start_seconds":80,"text":"The future will be interesting, to say the least.","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wa9WpZTkJHs&t=80s"},{"start_seconds":83,"text":"Our final story today is a nice thesis from Balaji on what comes next for AI. His points are worth quoting fully. So here goes.","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wa9WpZTkJHs&t=83s"},{"start_seconds":91,"text":"First up, AI is now entering the trough phase of the hype cycle.","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wa9WpZTkJHs&t=91s"},{"start_seconds":95,"text":"Every tech, no matter how amazing, goes through this.","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wa9WpZTkJHs&t=95s"},{"start_seconds":98,"text":"It's actually one of the best times to invest and build. Once the space begins to thin.","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wa9WpZTkJHs&t=98s"},{"start_seconds":102,"text":"Second, AI is both highly useful for search, summarization, visualization, and prototyping, and also a highly annoying source of spam scams and slop.","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wa9WpZTkJHs&t=102s"},{"start_seconds":113,"text":"Too many will focus solely on the downsides.","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wa9WpZTkJHs&t=113s"},{"start_seconds":115,"text":"Third, the exact plateau of AI is quite unexpected.","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wa9WpZTkJHs&t=115s"},{"start_seconds":119,"text":"The fact that current model seems to have topped out at far better web search, in summary, is not where most would have pegged it in 22, disrupting Google as a historic accomplishment.","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wa9WpZTkJHs&t=119s"},{"start_seconds":129,"text":"Yet it's not the machine god or artificial superintelligence.","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wa9WpZTkJHs&t=129s"},{"start_seconds":133,"text":"Fourth, one thesis for why models plateaued in this way is that LLM style digital AI really is just repeating rather than truly thinking.","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wa9WpZTkJHs&t=133s"},{"start_seconds":142,"text":"It's downstream, not upstream.","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wa9WpZTkJHs&t=142s"},{"start_seconds":144,"text":"Now, you can get much further with this than most thought, but you can't get all the way to novel thoughts.","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wa9WpZTkJHs&t=144s"},{"start_seconds":149,"text":"And the fifth point we'll quote is that, as biology has said before, digital AI does it middle to middle, not end to end","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wa9WpZTkJHs&t=149s"},{"start_seconds":156,"text":"because the bottleneck for digital AI is prompting and verifying.","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wa9WpZTkJHs&t=156s"},{"start_seconds":160,"text":"Check out the full thread to see his predictions on robotics in China.","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wa9WpZTkJHs&t=160s"},{"start_seconds":163,"text":"But suffice it to say, we remain early in the AI era entering a trough and honestly in quite a good position for NEAR to ship DCML.","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wa9WpZTkJHs&t=163s"},{"start_seconds":172,"text":"We'll do this all again real soon.","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wa9WpZTkJHs&t=172s"}],"youtube_url":"https://youtube.com/watch?v=Wa9WpZTkJHs","url":"https://near-pedia.xyz/videos/Wa9WpZTkJHs"}