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.
AWS: “It’s Day 0.1 in generative AI”
More unprecedented PR activity from AWS, while actual product remains missing in action. They must have stumbled on that much-hyped third step in the 10k race, so summoned the media to announce a new metaphor. One attendee described the event as “rambling”.
For the record, ChatGPT was released 296 days ago. If Amazon waits for re:Invent to deliver its own LLM, it won’t be Day 2, it will be Year 2.
Previous: AWS: “We’re three rankles into a 10k rankle”, “Every Single” Amazon PR Team is Working on Generative AI (Part I’ve Lost Count), “Every Single” Amazon PR Team is Working on Generative AI, Titan or Titanic?, Amazon Pioneers LLM-less Generative AI, A PR Campaign About Nothing: AWS and Generative AI, Day Two of Amazon’s PR Campaign About Nothing, Amazon’s Relentless PR Campaign About Nothing
Yet Alexa Gets an LLM: Which?
Days after the momentous metaphor migration, Amazon held its annual event where they throw random talking devices at the wall to see if any stick (spoiler: none have). They casually mentioned they’re putting a LLM behind Alexa. No mention of which LLM and no one seems to have asked (major media omission). Given their insatiable desire to beat their chests about any semblance of generative AI relevance, I think we would have heard if it were an Amazon LLM. My guess is they’re using someone else’s (Anthropic?) and hope to swap in their own down the road. But epic audible hallucinations await! The NY Times’ hallucinations editor (no, not Thomas Friedman) must be salivating .
Kudos for the FTC. Seriously.
Private equity kills software companies, but they kill people when they invest in healthcare.
Previous: A New Antitrust Doctrine, A Glimmer of Antitrust Sanity, Another Glimmer of Antitrust Sanity?, Taking a Modest Victory Lap on Antitrust
Related: These Are the Plunderers: How Private Equity Runs—and Wrecks—America, ‘Life and death situations’: Lawmakers battle Wall Street over health care
The EU’s Reckoning Approaches
A continent can’t live solely on fines of American tech companies.
Previous: Collapsing Economic Models: German Edition, EU Rethinking Its Stance on Mercantilism, German Auto Industry Reaches Hail Mary Stage, How Do You Say “Burning Platform” in German?, Volkswagen’s Death Throes Continue, The Fate of the European Economy: Automotive Edition, Europe: Investing in Slave Labor
EU Reverts to Form
There was that one time I found myself in loose agreement with the European Union. Let the record show they have reverted to form, so I am now spared that indignity. Arrogance and confusion are a dangerous combination for policy-making. And a huge distraction as their industrial foundation crumbles.
Previous: EU says “discrimination, not extinction, is a more pressing concern for AI”, AI Regulation: Move Fast and Regulate Things
GPUs Are Better Than Any Financial Asset (For Now)
Previous: O Brother, Where Art Thy GPUs?
Xi Jinping Thought on Wall Street Running Dogs
Couldn’t happen to a nicer set of fellow travelers, useful idiots and unlicensed foreign agents. Wall Street remains the CCP’s biggest ally.
Previous: The Perils of Working for a Cult of Personality, Press Releases We’d Like to See, Best Nickname for Emmanuel Macron, Winnie-the-Pooh: Lover of Honey, Champion of Freedom, Missing the (Bamboo) Forest for the (Apple) Trees
My Bags are Packed
I’m ready to leave at a moment’s notice as Elon seems determined to destroy Twitter. Until the post-Twitter landscape resolves, my primary online hangout is here at http://platformonomics.com. You can subscribe to get my blog posts and the short-form observations that traditionally would have been on Twitter.
