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The a16z Show · Monday, September 7, 2026

Focus on Fundamental Research Needed for More Accessible AI

Kaiser believes that the current focus on scaling up AI models with massive datasets, driven by their success, has overshadowed fundamental research. He suggests that the high cost of current methods may push researchers back towards exploring breakthroughs that allow AI to learn more efficiently from smaller datasets.

personLucas Kaiser

The tape

3 quotes
But now that it's so expensive, maybe we will focus back more on fundamental research. And, yeah, I'm absolutely convinced it can work and it just needs research and effort.
Lucas Kaiser
I think people sometimes look at the current state of AI and get a little pessimistic, that it's like, you know, it's just big companies, big data centers, everything's so big and then you get a subscription to something you cannot do much about.
Lucas Kaiser
And to me, it's like, okay, but that's just the current state. You know, it's just this year, next year. It's a step in the technology. But it's a step towards something much more fun where you'll have everyone can have their own model maybe.
Lucas Kaiser
Heard on The a16z Show — “Can Open Source Keep AI Power From Concentrating?, published Monday, September 7, 2026. Heardvine summarizes and quotes with attribution and timestamps, and links to the original everywhere.
Transcribed via Gemini audio transcription · $0.01
Focus on Fundamental Research Needed for More Accessible AI — Heardvine