Inklings #012 📧
While it's easy to dismiss those pushing back against AI as "Luddites" – there's actually a far more interesting argument that there are some parallels with the actual movement from the 1810s...
M.G. Siegler
Thoughts On...
⚖️ Well, There Goes That Dream – I had a feeling the jury deliberation in the Elon vs. OpenAI trial might not last long. It didn't even take two hours for them to unanimously reject Musk's claims on the grounds that he failed to bring them within the statute of limitations. In other words, everything else argued and presented in the case didn't matter. What a colossal waste of time. Serious question: can citizens of California sue over a waste of tax payer dollars? (ChatGPT doesn't think so – Claude concurs.) And, of course, Elon's lawyers have already announced he'll be appealing. We'll see (and if so, he should probably get a new lawyer?). He wasn't there. Nor was Sam Altman nor Greg Brockman, which was a bit surprising given their attendance throughout. Hopefully they're back to work. [NYT]
💫 Big Tech's Emissary Movement – Given Dina Powell McCormick's previous roles in administrations (including Trump's first term) it obviously makes sense for her to serve as Meta's liaison at political events. But I also wonder if we're not starting to see a shift where the tech leaders get some distance from the administration (after doing everything to be as close as possible) as we head towards the midterms (and tip into Trump's "lame duck" era). Beyond McCormick spelling Zuck, Tim Cook is continuing his duties in this regard even though he's handing over the CEO reigns to John Ternus this year. Might we see more of say, Brad Smith instead of Satya Nadella? In a way, Amazon and Google have been doing this already with founders Jeff Bezos and Sergey Brin sometimes stepping into such a role in place of Andy Jassy and Sundar Pichai, respectively. If Trump stops getting CEOs and gets more and more of these emissaries, will he start to get annoyed? [Bloomberg 🔒]
🥫 Apple's 'Dinged Can' Strategy – When I was a kid – okay, not a kid, but younger – I was told that Keystone Light was the same as Coors Light but cheaper because they used cans that were 'dinged' in the process. As it turns out, that's not true. But it is essentially what Apple is doing with the MacBook Neo. Essentially, they're using A18 Pro chips that ended up slightly defective, but fine if you simply shut off one (graphics) core. And actually, this is a strategy that Apple has long leveraged with various chips (starting with Apple TV and continuing on to HomePod, and even less expensive iPhones). This is highlighted now because the Neo is proving so popular that Apple ran out of defective chips to use, so they're reportedly having to spin up new processes to make more chips – many of which obviously won't be defective, but they may "bin" on purpose anyway to keep the product the same. Sort of a fun/weird problem to have (and especially complicated for Apple right now because NVIDIA now commands so much of TSMC's time – hence, the new Intel deal!). By the way, while it wasn't true of Coors cans, it is obviously true of a lot of fruit (how fitting!), where "deformed" (or dinged!) supplies move to other places to sell for less... [WSJ 🔒]
I Quote...
"I have my AI agent talking to their AI agent to request these refunds, which is quite fun."
– Tyler Cadwell, a founder and developer talking about his use of tools such as OpenClaw to run his startup. While much of the talk has been about tasking agents to do work to date, when agents start talking to other agents and simply send you any "human do-dos", things could start to get really interesting...
Asides...
- Because we can't have a Friday without an OpenAI news dump, Greg Brockman is now officially in charge of product, after temporarily taking the role with Fidji Simo's medical leave of absence. They make a point of saying she's still coming back, but... to do what? [Wired 🔒]
- With work still underway to make it great again, Microsoft has seemingly officially made Xbox 'XBOX' again. [Verge]
- Replit was able to "work things out" with Apple over the approval of "vibe coding" within their app. A preview of more to come at WWDC? [9to5Mac]
- While Bill Ackman may be buying up Microsoft stock, guess who is selling? Another Bill. Gates. [Information 🔒]
- The first name rumored to be auditioning for James Bond after Amazon's official announcement that casting has begun? Tom Francis – whom you probably don't know (I didn't), but that's largely because he's mainly known for his theater work. He's only 26. Interesting... [Variety]
I Spy...
Fine, here's a pic of Tom, only because it's so comically an aspirational James Bond shot...
Below, members of The Inner Ring will find thoughts on:
• Siri Heads Back to "Beta"
• The Great SF AI Divide