This is the correct take.
It's an unbelievable failure.
117 karma · joined May 18, 2025
It's an unbelievable failure.
Google Deepmind has failed.
Flash 3.5 seems capable for a flash model, Antigravity seems like a reasonable harness. But GDM is responsible for the frontier model and it looks like a complete failure.
What's particularly galling is the size of funding of GDM. It is enormous compared to the other labs. The headcount of other labs is swollen by infra, marketing, sales, GDM is pure "engineering" and its frontier model isn't even leading open source.
What a failure. It's unreal.
Why do you care? You can select other voices. Why do you need to control others?
What is at the root of your need for domination?
IIUC the literature, there is serious loss of functionality associated with lack of verbal interaction. People can say "they should just talk to more people" or "more people should make time for them" but the fact of the matter is that it doesn't happen, and if this helps terrific.
"The first chart below shows that so far there are no signs of profit margins rising outside the tech sector. This is ultimately what we are waiting for, because the value of AI companies today rests entirely on the promise that margins in the S&P 493 will eventually climb."
This is absolutely not necessary. The bull case is that AI will bring great efficiencies. The surplus profits from those efficiencies could easily be competed away by firms who have adopted AI. Those firms who do not adopt AI will have their margis crushed.
IDK if the WS-15 failed or is "two decades" behind. I think we just don't know, but we do know that it is that they have achieved the ability to deliver, in mass, third-generation single-crystal nickel-based superalloys. That's a strong proof point.
As for commercial, China can/has grant a sizable portion of the C919 to domestic engine producers ( I think AECC has this contract ) that allows for a lot of capital and practice.
I would not be shocked if China demonstrates highly competitive engines in the late 2020, maybe with a few setbacks and iterations. I would also not be shocked if they started demonstrating engines with some characteristics slightly better than the Western manufactures in that time period (or maybe a little later).
I doubt that the money had anything to do with it.
I also doubt that the state of the technology at OAI vs. Google had much to do with it, Google is behind no doubt, but the gap is not as far as we know, insurmountable.
I suspect that this is a leadership clash. Noam was working in GDM. GDM somehow went away from coding and RSI into "world models" and that has played out very poorly. Who made that call? Who was still playing politics?
Given this is Noam the list of people that could be pissing him off is very small: Demis, Sergey (?!), a couple of VPs in GDM.
What the hell happened?
"This gives us the first corollary of end-state thinking — cold but honest: every step that sits between intent and implementation will, by default, disappear."
This is likely correct.
But the author withdraws into thousands of words afterwards about the importance of gatekeeping using their current skills.
I think that is wrong. YMMV.
These are new products (generally) and that's a different class of problem.
It is possible that since LLM+harness helps with execution then we should see more experiments.
It is amazing that this doesn't happen more often.
GDM is making (or has been backed into a corner into making) the bet that high throughput, low latency, low capability models are the path forward.
That probably works for vibe coded apps by non-practitioners.
I suspect that practitioners/professionals will wait longer for better results.
1. 2019 capped-profit restructuring + 1B MSFT investment
2. 2023 Microsoft expansion / reported 75%-then-49% economics
3. 2024/2025 PBC restructuring
AFAIK it has not been reported as to exactly what the jury found, but IIUC the 2019 date is consistent with their findings.
That's poor for Musk, but it makes sense. He was arguing 2023. I think it is a valid argument.
But he had to know that 2019 was very much in play (and is likely the most logically consistent).
This is very squishy law.
I do not think that your second was correct.
Gemini will conduct seconds to minutes of work before requesting aid. And it will commonly fall over.
Claude/Codex will commonly do minutes to hours of work.
The difference is one to two orders of magnitude. It is immense.
He made a follow up after the pushback by GDM.
Google’s businesses are very broad and durable. But Google being the only company in the world without access (except for GDM+labs) to a competent coding agent will take a toll.
We’ll see how long Google can hold out hoping for GDM to create something that is competitive.
I’m guess that within 6 months Google will give up on coding and finally let their devs use Claude/Codex.
This isn’t a security problem, this is a GDM issue with GDM’s promises being far beyond their ability.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ykiuz1ZdGBc
That sure felt "different".
No doubt hands are important, but I think you've missed a lot here Wired.
If Grok is actually good here, they will have a customer!
Here is the LLM's summary of the current legal issue at hand:
Attempting to determine the identity of an unknown individual co-located with a victim at a specific time requires a reverse-location query. Because the Supreme Court has not yet established a unified national doctrine for these searches post-Carpenter, lower courts are highly fragmented. Many magistrates systematically refuse to authorize geofence warrants or tower dumps, citing the lack of individualized probable cause for the peripheral, innocent devices swept up in the geographic net.
And indeed, in my case, the police were not able to conduct this geofenced investigation (which would have instantly idenitied the person).
Meta pays top dollar. They also pay enormous sums for what management identifies as performance.
Conversely, Meta is ruthless about cutting those management identifies as low performers.
This is the deal going in. It’s not a crime.
This is so much better than the competition. I suspect that this will have an impact in business and education, at a minimum.
Apple Watch, AirPods, M1 Silicon, services.
A few flops, like Apple Vision Pro and their confusion with AI. But that's ok given the wins.
Overall, as a non-founder he's near the tops in CEOs over the last couple of decades. The only non-founders I would put above him are Satya (although he has a had a couple of rough years), Bob Iger, Jamie Dimon and maybe Andy Jassy.
Taking a fair lens to this he is "first round hall of fame non-founder".
I get that people are scared of investing in China. But if I still made single stock investments, I would seriously consider BABA, it seems well positioned.
Given that it makes sense to cut if the company doesn't have new product ideas to spend that excess resources.
Cynicism makes you sound smart. Optimism makes you successful.
The cynicism around this technology is everywhere, even though it clearly has real power to solve problems. It is a technology which enables so many use cases that were impossible before, that makes it very highly hyped/expected. And that is causing an immune (over) reaction by natural skeptics, that's an error.
People need to take a measured, reality based, view of how the technology is being used today, the adoption curve, and the increase in capabilities over time.
It's clearly being used strongly, and may even be revolutionary.
Bubbles burst when there's no 'there' there. AI has an undeniable 'there'—the only question is the timing of the ROI.
Practical LLMs on mobile devices are at least a few years away.
Why would anyone give him money? Really. I'm blown away.
I think that Rob Pike was far more of a wordcel than a shape rotator for a famous computer scientist (which historically were very much on the shape rotator side).
Classically the ranking is :
Least distortionary
Land value taxes / recurrent tax on pure land rents
Broad recurrent property taxes
Broad consumption taxes (uniform VAT / sales tax)
Tariffs / trade taxes
Personal income / labor income taxes
Corporate income taxes
Transaction taxes
Most distortionary