New post format: a weekly rollup of links, comments on those links, activity updates and attempts at humor. The intention is quicker hits in addition to the less frequent big posts and more timely hammering on my favorite themes. This is my primary hangout until the contours of the post-Twitter world become clear. Be sure to subscribe below and to the right to receive all my output via email.
Note that my poor, overtaxed server struggles to serve up all the images to email users at the same time, so if you don’t see images, be sure to click through. Server upgrade in the works.
Stability AI: Not So Stable
Not to say I told you so, but I did. Alarm bells went off listening to the Stability AI CEO pontificate on a podcast. Too glib, too certain about the future, too megalomaniacal, too secretive, too evasive. I put a discreet marker down and a week later Forbes confirmed those suspicions. While he is too old for the Forbes 30 under 30 serving up to 30 cell block, perhaps there are vacancies nearby.
Previous: Seeing Post Facto Red Flags Ex Ante
Related: The AI Founder Taking Credit For Stable Diffusion’s Success Has A History Of Exaggeration
Barron’s Recurring Rite of Embarrassment
Despite the fact that IBM is 0-for-the-21st century, Barron’s seems to do a biennial bullish article arguing IBM’s resurrection is finally upon us. After the last piece that tried to put Watson’s failure behind them, this year’s thesis is IBM has “arguably deeper AI knowledge than almost any company”. Inquiring minds want to know how this still happens (and do they ever even glance at the previous article?). Other business publications have ended the tradition of letting IBM dictate cover stories.
Previous: IBM’s Lost Decade, IBM’s “Cloud” Business (or Lack Thereof), Keeping Up With the Clowns, more on IBM’s decline and fall
The Crypto Crackdown: Just Late and/or Ass-Covering?
It is great the SEC (“For more than 85 years since our founding at the height of the Great Depression, we have stayed true to our mission of protecting investors…”) finally has moved on wide-scale crypto fraud and at last concluded after years of deliberation that the argument securities laws didn’t apply “because blockchain bro” is, in fact, invalid. But how much of the suddenly aggressive enforcement is to distract from/make up for the fact they only moved after failing to protect investors to the tune of $2 trillion? And they are still deliberating whether Ethereum is a security or not.
Previous: Profiles in Cowardice: SEC Edition
A Gimme For Antitrust Authorities?
Can our antitrust authorities stop a merger where the CEO actually said the quiet part out loud: the deal will “take the competitor off the board”? Or are they too busy with their hipster antitrust vendetta against “Big Bad Tech” to do mundane yet mainstream antitrust?
Previous: A New Antitrust Doctrine
Related: But let’s play the “what if it was strategic chess” game…
PlatformonomicsGPT?
WordPress has a new plugin that integrates ChatGPT. Now you can have the bot write blog posts (though writing whole posts is probably the least interesting of its features). Can an LLM learn to snark (and deliver it parenthetically)? Brace yourself as I turn it loose on a library of snarky titles and ledes I never finished.
Chinese Diplomat Asserts Freedom of Speech Rights
Fortunately for him, he was in France, not at home in China, that renowned bastion of free speech. The hypocrisy of the CCP knows no bounds.
Previous: The 2020 Nobel Peace Prize
Job Security?
