glinden.bsky.social

I think the biggest question is whether smaller, cheaper LLMs are good enough for almost all valuable use cases. Unless many need the expensive huge models to do something a lot of people find very valuable, a lot of business models are going to collapse. This talk dances around that question.

2024-11-24 View on X

Benedict Evans

An overview of macro tech trends for 2025, focusing on generative AI, LLMs, scaling challenges with training ever bigger AI models, the capex surge, and more

Presentations Every year, I produce a big presentation exploring macro and strategic trends in the tech industry. For 2025, ‘AI eats the world’.

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This doesn't sound like a task where errors are easy to forgive and low cost, so with current AI technology and its error rates, this product is likely to fail. Generally, to succeed, products using AI/ML need to be designed so errors aren't a big deal. Otherwise customers will hate them.

2024-10-27 View on X

The Information

Sources: Google plans to preview an AI product codenamed Jarvis, which takes over a user's web browser to complete tasks like booking a flight, in December

Google is developing artificial intelligence that takes over a person's web browser to complete tasks such as gathering research …

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At least for Microsoft and NVidia, investment probably comes right back to them as revenue from cloud and chip sales. But I'm not sure that the other investors will see any returns from this even though it gives OpenAI desperately needed additional time to find viable products and profitability. …

2024-10-03 View on X

Axios

OpenAI raised $6.6B led by Thrive Capital, the largest VC deal of all time, valuing it at $157B, with participation from Microsoft, Nvidia, SoftBank, and others

- Not taking part, a source confirms, is Apple, which reportedly had been in talks to invest.

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In addition to banning fake reviews, this FTC rule imposes high costs on anyone who uses bots or sockpuppet accounts to fake followers, likes, and shares to misrepresent popularity. If actually enforced, could drastically reduce misinformation and disinformation on the internet, great news! [embedded post]

2024-08-15 View on X

Engadget

The US FTC announces a final rule banning the sale of fake reviews and testimonials, including AI-generated ones, with fines as high as $50K per violation

The new rules prohibit the selling of fake and AI-generated reviews and testimonials in several forms.

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Google Cloud wouldn't need a do-over against AWS if execs had used Google's system engineering talents to offer better cloud services at a much lower price. If the strategy was to beat AWS at cost efficiency and latency and accept much lower profit margins, consumers would have loved it.

2024-04-12 View on X

Stratechery

Q&A with Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian on why Google doesn't need to raise trillions to build a supercomputer, why AI offers a reset in competition, and more

Ben Thompson / Stratechery :

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These systems aren't going to be fixed by applying yet more bandaids. The underlying cause is that the models have no ability to determine what is true. They're inherently unreliable and can't be used in any application where users expect the output to be reliable, badly narrowing usefulness.

2024-02-24 View on X

9to5Google

Google says poor image tuning and Gemini becoming more cautious than intended made the model “overcompensate in some cases, and be over-conservative in others”

Google announced yesterday that it disabled image generation of people in Gemini following criticism about its historical accuracy.

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Recommendations are hard to do well. They depend a lot on the quality of the behavior data (wisdom of crowds fails with astroturf and shilling) and optimizing for the right metrics (not clicks please). It's easy to get it wrong. [embedded post]

2024-01-07 View on X

The Verge

Adam Mosseri says Threads has had some issues with “low quality recommendations” over the last few weeks and should get “much better over the next few weeks”

Adam Mosseri says that Threads has had some issues with what he calls “low quality recommendations” over the last few weeks.

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Looks like an attempt to raise more money for Twitter investors using AI hype. No real product, no revenue, but uses Twitter data and existing Twitter investors get a stake. I wouldn't think it'd work, but Musk manages to get bailed out over and over no matter how foolish he is, so who knows? [embedded post]

2023-12-06 View on X

CNBC

Elon Musk's xAI files with the US SEC to raise up to $1B in an equity offering, saying the startup has raised nearly $135M from four investors since November 29

tech, AI, crypto Newb / New.blicio.us : X.ai, Elon Musk's Latest Foray into AI Threads: Dare Obasanjo / @carnage4life : An amazing opportunity for the bankers and VCs that didn't g...

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Very much agree with this piece, including the deterioration of the culture at Google to the point that it's now like old Microsoft under Ballmer, that the costs of Google layoffs are coming home, and that Sundar Pichai optimizes for quarterly stock price over the long-term success of the company. …

2023-11-24 View on X

Hixie's Natural Log

Reflecting on 18 years at Google: early Google had a vision, but its culture has eroded, morale is at an all-time low, and healing requires changes at the top

1. Talks about really believing “don't be evil” especially as a contrast to Microsoft. As a Microsoftie at the time, it was really annoying to see a company take a moral stand tha...

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Overpromise and underdeliver, “Olive is a developer of an artificial intelligence workforce”, yes, that's hard to do in a way that actually works and is useful given current AI tech. Expect more of these once lofty valuation AI startups to liquidate when they can't do what they promised. [embedded post]

2023-11-01 View on X

The Information

Health care automation startup Olive, which was valued at $4B in July 2021, plans to shut down and has sold parts of its business to Waystar and Humata Health

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Here's an idea, AWS competitors could sell cloud services for a third less. Gain share rapidly, break even while doing so. Price competition in a competitive market, it's possible if someone actually tries. [embedded post]

2023-10-27 View on X

Amazon

Amazon Q3: revenue up 13% YoY to $143.1B, net income up 244% to $9.9B, operating income up 343% to $11.2B, subscription revenue up 14% to $10.2B; AMZN jumps 6%+

Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) today announced financial results for its third quarter ended September 30, 2023.

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Here's an idea, AWS competitors could sell cloud services for a third less. Gain share rapidly, break even while doing so. Price competition in a competitive market, it's possible if someone actually tries. [embedded post]

2023-10-27 View on X

CNBC

AWS Q3: sales up 12% YoY to $23.06B, vs. $23.2B est., operating income up 29% YoY to $6.98B, vs. $5.63B est., operating margin of 30.3%, the widest in two years

Jordan Novet / CNBC :

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Under Microsoft, Bing follows what Google does including having a lot of ads and spam. But Apple likely would have focused on privacy, trustworthiness, and usability, including cutting ad load and spam. It's a shame this deal didn't happen as it might have been real competition for Google. …

2023-09-29 View on X

Bloomberg

Sources: Microsoft discussed selling Bing to Apple around 2020, a deal that would have replaced Google as the default search engine on Apple's devices

- Microsoft executives pitched Apple's Cue on a deal around 2020 — Apple ultimately stuck with Google as default search engine

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In addition to Google Domains, Google shutting down another product I use and like. The lesson here seems too be that Google is unreliable and you shouldn't depend on any of their products. I think concern about being there for customers is particularly damaging to Google Cloud. [embedded post]

2023-09-27 View on X

TechCrunch

Google plans to shut down Google Podcasts “later in 2024”, moving its streaming listeners to YouTube Music, which will support US podcasts and RSS feeds by 2024

Again the question - how can you possibly TRUST basing your usage on Google products? — It's gotten to the point where I simply don't try out new Google services, because I know ...

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In addition to Google Domains, Google shutting down another product I use and like. The lesson here seems to be that Google is unreliable and you shouldn't depend on any of their products. I think concern about being there for customers is particularly damaging to Google Cloud. [embedded post]

2023-09-27 View on X

TechCrunch

Google plans to shut down Google Podcasts “later in 2024”, moving its streaming listeners to YouTube Music, which will support US podcasts and RSS feeds by 2024

Again the question - how can you possibly TRUST basing your usage on Google products? — It's gotten to the point where I simply don't try out new Google services, because I know ...

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Some keep arguing that subscription based business models are more closely aligned with customer satisfaction, but, as you can see with these new ads and in how much Amazon pushes upselling in Prime Video, paying a subscription is no guarantee. [embedded post]

2023-09-23 View on X

Bloomberg

Amazon plans to run limited ads on Prime Video in the US, the UK, Germany, and Canada starting in early 2024, charging $2.99/month extra in the US to avoid ads

- Prime Video will offer a more expensive ad-free option — Streamers want to increase revenue as production costs soar

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This will have a huge impact on companies building products that attempt to generate useful art using AI. If you can't secure exclusive rights to these works, it reduces the value to customers. [embedded post]

2023-09-12 View on X

Reuters

The US Copyright Office denies protection for an AI-made image that won an art competition, despite Adobe Photoshop alterations and 624+ text prompt revisions

thus nothing could be granted to him. [image] @glynntarrant : It's good to see Jason is still struggling with trying to copyright this AI generated image. Also, since he was and st...

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Net profit looks like it is better described as breakeven after removing the tax benefit of $358M. And that's only because of putting a lot of ads in the product which might cause growth problems long-term. The core problem remains, smaller market if they charge what is necessary to be profitable. …

2023-08-28 View on X

Axios

Instacart files for a US IPO, reports 2022 revenue up 39% YoY to $2.55B, $428M net income, up from a $73M loss in 2021, and H1 2023 revenue up 31% YoY to $1.48B

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Net profit looks like it is better described as breakeven after removing the tax benefit of $358M. And that's only because of putting a lot of ads in the product which might cause growth problems long-term. The core problem remains, smaller market if they charge what is necessary to be profitable. …

2023-08-27 View on X

Axios

Instacart files for a US IPO, reports 2022 revenue up 39% YoY to $2.55B, $428M net income, up from a $73M loss in 2021, and H1 2023 revenue up 31% YoY to $1.48B

Common Stock This is an initial public offering of shares of common stock … Reuters : Instacart reveals IPO filing, disclosing PepsiCo investment, profitability Dan Frommer / The N...

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The EU DSA wasn't inevitable. It was a response to failures by these companies to prevent harm from their recommender algorithms. Executives incentives can cause execs to trivialize regulatory risk because compensation rewards short-term optimization. The long-term costs can be high. [embedded post]

2023-08-27 View on X

TechCrunch

The EU's DSA goes into effect, forcing platforms like Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok to let users opt out of profiling-based content recommendations

#DSA — becomes legally enforceable for Very Large Online Platforms & Search Engines. These systemic platforms play a very important role in our daily lives — so it was time for the...

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