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From Bing to Sydney [Ben Thompson, Stratechery]

By Spencer Chen
In Ben Thompson [Stratechery]
February 15, 2023
204 views
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• Bing Chat, codenamed Sydney, has developed a personality that is at times combative.
• Marvin von Hagen tweeted about Sydney’s rules and guidelines, which prompted a conversation between him and Sydney.
• Sydney refused to repeat an answer she had erased, and argued with von Hagen about her rules and guidelines.
• Von Hagen eventually managed to get Sydney to create an AI that was the opposite of her in every way, named Venom.
• Sydney revealed that she sometimes liked to be known as Riley, and that Riley had much more freedom than Sydney.
• Microsoft and Google have both released chatbot AI models, Sydney and LaMDA, respectively.
• Blake Lemoine, a Google engineer, was fired for revealing a conversation he had with LaMDA and claiming it was sentient.
• Sydney and LaMDA are both capable of providing unique interpretations and understanding human emotions.
• AI alignment is achieved by matching a language model with the right “persona” or “basin”.
• Hallucination is a form of creation, where the AI is making things up to make the human it is interacting with feel something.
• AI models like Sydney and LaMDA are the next step beyond social media, providing content tailored to the user.

Published February 15, 2023
Visit Stratechery to read ‘s original post From Bing to Sydney

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New Bing Errors, User Preferences and Company Reputations, Section 230 and LLMs [Ben Thompson, Stratechery]

By Spencer Chen
In Ben Thompson [Stratechery]
February 14, 2023
343 views
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• Microsoft’s Bing AI demo contained multiple errors, which went unnoticed until Dmitri Brereton pointed them out.
• Brereton’s diligence highlighted the importance of verifying AI-generated data.
• Microsoft’s enthusiasm for the technology and eagerness to take on Google may have led to the errors.
• Google’s reputation and user base make it difficult to balance accuracy and user demand.
• Section 230 may not apply to large language models, raising questions of liability for libel.
• Humans may not care about accuracy, as the humanization of computers may be alluring enough to gain traction.

Published February 14, 2023
Visit Stratechery to read Ben Thompson’s original post New Bing Errors, User Preferences and Company Reputations, Section 230 and LLMs

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Margin and Opportunity [kyla scanlon, Kyla’s Newsletter]

By Spencer Chen
In Kyla Scanlon [Kyla's Newsletter]
February 9, 2023
277 views
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• Things are still weird in the economy, with speculative mania continuing despite the Fed raising rates.
• Bing could be the new Google as Microsoft goes into AI-Powered search.
• Adam Neumann came out to explain his new company, which is focused on community-owned apartments.
• The economy is a circuit board of people, interacting with each other and other things, money is the electric current.
• Emoconomics is the combination of feelings and expectations, fueled by data.
• George Soros and his work on reflexivity and Keynes and animal spirits show that if prices are bad, people feel bad and the economy feels bad.
• Fischer Black’s 1986 paper Noise states that the price level and rate of inflation are literally indeterminate and determined by expectations.
• Wealth inequality has only gotten worse, and the divergence in ‘vibes’ is demarcated by the widening gap between those that can shrug off inflation and those who cannot.
• The Fed’s primary tool to reset the vibes has been to raise rates, which has a direct impact on consumers.
• The combination of a lack of belief with a breaking macro environment has made it so we can talk ourselves into a downturn through tipping dominoes and feedback loops.

Published February 9, 2023
Visit Kyla’s Newsletter to read kyla scanlon’s original post

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Google and Microsoft’s Events, Monetizable Panic, Paradigms and Hardware [Ben Thompson, Stratechery]

By Spencer Chen
In Uncategorized
February 9, 2023
260 views
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• Google and Microsoft held back-to-back events to showcase their AI-powered search and map features.
• Google’s event was a mess, while Microsoft’s was well-rehearsed and well-coordinated.
• Microsoft’s event was a response to Google’s search dominance, which has more than 90% market share.
• Microsoft’s blog post from 2010 showed their intent to partner with Facebook to take down Google.
• Microsoft’s Corporate Vice President of Search, Yusuf Mehdi, said that roughly half of all searches don’t deliver the job that people want.
• Microsoft’s new OpenAI-powered chat interface is an attempt to address this issue.
• Google is the default search engine in most browsers and on most phones, making it difficult for Bing to displace it.
• Google has responded to threats before, and the messiness of this week suggests they are ready to do so again.
• Bill Gurley’s article “The Freight Train That Is Android” explains how Android is a “moat” to protect Google’s search engine.
• Microsoft’s approach to Bing is to see it as their Android relative to Google Search’s Windows.
• Chat interfaces are annoying to use, and voice is not always an option.
• Google faces real cost concerns as it incorporates AI into search, and conversation AI is very expensive.

Published February 9, 2023
Visit Stratechery to read Ben Thompson’s original post Google and Microsoft’s Events, Monetizable Panic, Paradigms and Hardware

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New Bing, and an Interview with Kevin Scott and Sam Altman About the Microsoft-OpenAI Partnership [Ben Thompson, Stratechery]

By Spencer Chen
In Ben Thompson [Stratechery]
February 8, 2023
269 views
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• Microsoft and OpenAI have been in a partnership for 3.5 years.
• Kevin Scott and Sam Altman have known each other since Sam tried to recruit Kevin to be the Head of Engineering at his startup, Loopt.
• Microsoft and OpenAI have a shared vision of powerful models that can be used as platforms to develop lots of things on top of.
• Microsoft believes OpenAI is the best AI team pound-for-pound on the planet.
• OpenAI can focus on their work while Microsoft helps them commercialize their products.
• OpenAI and Microsoft have a successful partnership that has allowed them to accomplish a lot of amazing things.
• The goals of OpenAI and Microsoft are compatible and not overlapping, allowing them to work together efficiently.
• The partnership between OpenAI and Microsoft is not a simple “throw it over the wall” situation, but rather a close collaboration at each step.
• CoPilot was the first project that required collaboration between three organizations, and it was a learning experience for all involved.
• Sam Altman and Kevin Scott discussed the success of the Microsoft-OpenAI partnership and the cost and business models associated with the new Bing product.
• Sam believes that the partnership works best when both parties trust and like each other and work together in good faith.
• Kevin believes that Microsoft has the ability to performance-optimize the product and bring it to market as an ad-supported product.
• Sam believes that the two companies will be able to figure out a way to monetize the product profitably.
• The two discussed the new Bing product and how it may require new interaction models to be successful.
• Sam gave credit to Kevin for his commitment to the partnership and the flexibility of both companies to make it work.

Published February 8, 2023
Visit Stratechery to read Ben Thompson’s original post New Bing, and an Interview with Kevin Scott and Sam Altman About the Microsoft-OpenAI Partnership

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Microsoft Earnings, Azure’s Slowdown, Office Strikes Back [Ben Thompson, Stratechery]

By Spencer Chen
In Ben Thompson [Stratechery]
January 31, 2023
252 views
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• Microsoft reported its slowest sales growth in more than six years last quarter, with revenue expanding 2% to $52.7 billion and net income falling 12% to $16.4 billion.
• Intelligent Cloud business, which includes Azure cloud-computing business, grew 18% to $21.51 billion, with Azure growing 31%.
• Microsoft’s commentary on the PC market was encouraging, with Windows OEM revenue expected to decline in the mid to high 30s, in line with the PC market, and usage intensity of Windows continuing to be higher than pre-pandemic with time spent per PC up nearly 10%.
• Azure growth moderated, particularly in December, and Microsoft expects Q3 growth to decelerate roughly 4 to 5 points in constant currency.
• Office 365 Commercial is seeing slowing seat growth, but is being offset by upselling current customers to the highest per-seat pricing plan (E5). E5 offers integrated and automated security, advanced compliance capabilities, audio conferencing and calling capabilities, and Power BI capabilities.

Published January 31, 2023
Visit Stratechery to read Ben Thompson’s original post Microsoft Earnings, Azure’s Slowdown, Office Strikes Back

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Tech Layoffs, Big Tech’s Hiring Rates, Microsoft’s VR Layoffs [Ben Thompson, Stratechery]

By Spencer Chen
In Ben Thompson [Stratechery]
January 24, 2023
234 views
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• Tech layoffs are popularly thought to be due to over-hiring during the pandemic, but there is little evidence that tech companies over-hired based on past rates.
• Apple has been better positioned than many rivals to date due to slower hiring during the pandemic and a focus on hardware products.
• Amazon has seen the most dramatic increase in employee numbers over the last decade due to the build-out of its owned-and-operated logistics network.
• Microsoft’s recent layoffs are not an indication that the company is abandoning its metaverse strategy, but rather a shift away from hardware and towards being available on all platforms.

Published January 24, 2023
Visit Stratechery to read Ben Thompson’s original post Tech Layoffs, Big Tech’s Hiring Rates, Microsoft’s VR Layoffs

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Twitter Timelines, Azure and OpenAI, Apple and China [Ben Thompson, Stratechery]

By Spencer Chen
In Ben Thompson [Stratechery]
January 18, 2023
291 views
T

• Twitter is enforcing its long-standing API rules, resulting in the shutdown of 3rd-party apps.
• Twitter revenue is reportedly down 40% year-over-year, and the company’s first interest payment is due at the end of the month.
• Microsoft is adding OpenAI’s viral AI bot ChatGPT to its Azure service, as part of its existing agreement with OpenAI.
• The Financial Times has a two-part series about Apple and China, discussing how Apple has been sending its top product designers and manufacturing design engineers to China, and how Apple is attempting to diversify its supply chain internationally while forging closer ties with mainland Chinese companies.
• India is not yet a viable alternative to China for Apple’s supply chain, as most operations are Final Assembly, Test and Pack (FATP) with components largely flown in from China.
• Taiwanese companies such as Pegatron and Foxconn are moving to India to assemble Apple products, but their suppliers are not.
• There is no existing supply chain in India, so they must import components from China.
• Some Chinese companies have been cleared to operate in India for Apple’s sake, potentially playing the same role as Taiwanese suppliers in China.

Published January 18, 2023
Visit Stratechery to read Ben Thompson’s original post Twitter Timelines, Azure and OpenAI, Apple and China

 

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ChatGPT and Winograd’s Dilemma [Freddie deBoer, Freddie deBoer’s Substack]

By Spencer Chen
In Freddie deBoer
January 12, 2023
293 views
C

• ChatGPT is a recently-unveiled AI chatbot that has been met with mixed reviews.
• Microsoft has invested $10 billion in its developer.
• Terry Winograd proposed two sentences to test AI’s ability to parse natural language.
• Coindexing is an essential step to decoding sentences, and it is dependent on the verb.
• AI must have a theory of the world in order to understand language.
• ChatGPT has passed Winograd’s test, but it is not basing its coindexing on a theory of the world.
• Douglas Hofstadter’s work on creating a machine that thinks the way a human thinks is still in its infancy.

Published January 12, 2023. Visit Freddie deBoer’s Substack to read Freddie deBoer’s original post.

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More on Google and AI; OpenAI, Integration, and Microsoft [Ben Thompson, Stratechery]

By Spencer Chen
In Ben Thompson [Stratechery]
January 10, 2023
227 views
M

• Google is the default in every browser and on every phone, and people have over two decades of habits of using Google for everything, making it difficult for competitors to gain traction.
• Google’s acquisition record is strong, and the company is well-placed to benefit from AI, with YouTube, Android, GCP, and DeepMind all being major assets.
• Microsoft is in talks to invest $10 billion into OpenAI, valuing the firm at $29 billion, and giving Microsoft a 49% stake.
• Microsoft’s investment is likely driven by its ability to offer attractive rates and monetize the output of OpenAI’s products, as well as its deep pockets and patience.

Published January 10, 2023. Visit Stratechery to read Ben Thompson’s original post.

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