blihp

They're saying they lost the console war because they're trying to get a big acquisition approved. They're trying to sell the story 'see how weak we are... we need this to remain competitive'.

Then you probably don't care about this (yet)

Assume a truly competitive model in the Open Source world is still a ways off. These teams and their infrastructure are still in their early days while OpenAI is more at the fine-tuning and polishing stage. The fact that these open teams are able to have something in the same universe in terms of functionality this fast is pretty amazing... but it will take time before there's an artifact that will be a strong competitor.

It depends on what you were expecting from GOFAI. The future state is likely to be a combination of approaches where each makes sense rather than a single one. We're still in the honeymoon phase with deep learning and disillusionment with its ultimate limitations is likely still to come.

Oh no, they're going belly up in 20,000 days! (i.e. $10B / 500k) Compute is going to keep getting cheaper and they're going to keep optimizing it to reduce how much compute it needs. I'm more curious about their next steps rather than how they're going to keep the lights on for ChatGPT.

I'll take 'what companies are irrelevant in AI?' for $200

Knee-jerk regulations rooted in emotion and ignorance are bad. When there are bad regulations the results are usually not pretty (i.e. they tend to fail to achieve their stated objectives) and all they end up doing is protect the established players from competition as only they can afford the cost of compliance.

IIRC, you can get them for ~$1 on aliexpress. They're handy little devices.

There was color but it was achieved via tinted cellophane tape. (though I do remember playing pure black and white versions as well) Later, there were 'real' color versions in arcades but I don't recall if it was a later iteration of the hardware or a knock-off.

While spinning rust was destined to lose the majority of the market to flash, I think the hard disk companies accelerated the move with the SMR fiasco. It got me moving more things to SSDs sooner than I had planned.

There's barely any credible information about GPT4 (i.e. OpenAI hasn't said very much about what's going on behind the curtain) and there's absolutely none re: any releases beyond that.

Better get used to it from the corporate labs. Now that ChatGPT has ignited widespread interest, these companies are all about building business models with moats. The easy going 'let's just release it' days are most likely over.

Sure you can. The difference between the CPU and GPU markets is that AMD is a competent competitor in one of them. Pre-Ryzen AMD knew they weren't competitive and AMD CPU pricing reflected that. The reason nVidia is getting away with their pricing is that AMD has been producing mediocre hardware (and drivers) and pricing it as if it were premium and competitive for the money. AMD's continually declining GPU market share indicates that customers aren't buying their argument.

They haven't been doing so at that rate for a very long time.

That ownership stake is 'on loan' to them until they make 100x their money back. Then ownership reverts back to OpenAI.

Their 'donor' is Google, their users are us. Without us they have no donor. Rust at least makes some kind of sense because it is a tool they used to build parts of Firefox.

Aside from being the new hotness, what exactly about AI makes sense for Mozilla/Firefox to jump into and have anything to offer? The one obvious thing they could do would be to integrate AI capabilities into the browser for the users benefit (i.e. the most valuable thing they could do to contribute to 'trustworthy AI'. Note that this would not require a new foundation/company... just integrating the capability into the product they already have) But of course Mozilla most likely won't do this... they're going to keep taking moonshots they can't afford. I can't say I'll miss them when they're gone.

Likely not even close as the endgame was a face-saving move both for Intel and Raja.

From the outside this looks like a classic case of giving someone a window seat and sending the message, if not outright telling them: 'figure out your next career move'. He botched Arc badly (both in execution and messaging) and was briefly promoted then demoted. Had he tried to stick around, he most likely would have been let go and soon.

You have been added to the wait list that will be submitted to the review board that has yet to be set up to discuss whether or not they should consider the question of if such a delegation is warranted. However, there is no guarantee that said board will be assembled prior to Bard's cancellation.

It truly has achieved human-level intelligence!

I'd say it's more likely that there will be at least slower rolling runs on smaller banks by large depositors. Keep in mind that the unlimited coverage only applies to the depositors of the two banks that were taken over, not all depositors everywhere. Keeping large balances in a bank that may not be deemed a systemic risk is still rolling the dice if said bank fails. (i.e. unless a bunch of other banks fail around the same time getting national attention, you'd probably be out of luck)

I think you're far too optimistic about how this will play out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jnQ0zEQPu_A

FDIC insurance was never intended to cover everything, hence the limit. It was designed to ensure that the general public[1] could have confidence that their deposits were safe. Larger players were also covered... up to the same limit. That is fair and reasonable. For those with significant assets supplemental deposit insurance products are a thing, just as home and auto insurance is, and these people/companies opted not to purchase it or otherwise prudently manage their money given the very well known limits of FDIC coverage.

Why should I be happy that the rest of us are now being volunteered to pay for insurance coverage for the group most able to understand the risk they were taking and pay for it themselves? If that weren't bad enough, this new coverage only applies for some banks. This is exactly the socialization of losses that so infuriates the general public. Not only are we paying for it, albeit indirectly, but most of us aren't even eligible for it ourselves.

This is yet another move in the exact wrong direction.

[1] i.e. the majority of individuals and small businesses who tend to be less sophisticated. As a result this quite easily understood system was put into place. I also don't buy any argument that something average Americans understand is just too complex or arcane for a group of largely 'qualified investors' and VCs.

Their decision and action was to deposit in excess of the FDIC insured amount without supplemental insurance that was their responsibility to have or ensure their bank provided. The reality of the situation is that those who did so are now being retroactively granted supplemental deposit insurance after a loss and free of charge. The rest of us are paying for this gift courtesy of the government... again. (sure not as taxpayers, merely as consumers)

To many of us, a bailout is whenever the consequences of one's decisions/actions are set aside to avoid the logical negative outcome they would have otherwise experienced. What makes this more galling[1] is the fact that this new platinum FDIC coverage plan doesn't cover everyone at every bank, merely those who are anointed as 'systemic risks' (way to put a new label on 'too big to fail') Then to make it sound like this is all being paid for by all the other benevolent banks is just insulting.[2]

[1] Beyond the group primarily benefiting are exactly the group who should well understand something as basic as FDIC coverage limits and supplemental insurance.

[2] While it is technically true that the taxpayers will not be directly footing the bill, they neglect to mention that as soon as said taxpayers put on their consumer hats, they will in fact be paying for this in the form of increased fees/decreased interest rates on deposits/increased borrowing interest rates, no matter how slight.

Silvergate is tiny (assets-wise) compared to SVB and Signature and not worth a mention as it poses no systemic risk.

I think they were referring to the bootloader not being locked down.

True, but it was never Xerox's thinking and they didn't do it out of altruism. The government was breathing down their necks re: antitrust in the late 60's (i.e. the peak profit years) and taking on some of the ARPA projects at PARC helped buy Xerox some time on that front. They also only had a 5 year commitment to the projects and based on a couple of oral histories I've heard, it sounds like they started dismantling things as soon as they could.

No, I would include IBM high on the list. IBM did a half-assed PC design to rush something to market[1] after being late to PCs which was a significant factor in why they lost control of the PC market a handful of years after entering it.[2] They actually had a few shots at a comeback (the Thinkpad was a great laptop etc.) but didn't like margins and decided to become a services business instead[3]... how's that working out?

[1] They decided the OS wasn't that important... sure, let Microsoft own that. The CPU architecture wasn't that important... sure, let Intel own that. Just glue a bunch of off-the-shelf logic together for the rest. After all, the real value is in the IBM logo on the box. What could possibly go wrong?

[2] Sure, they were calling the shots for the 8086 and (mostly) 80286 generations. They tried to rectify their mistake over half a decade later with the PS/2 (i.e. proprietary everything) but by then it was too late. Compaq and the clone makers owned the market from the 80386 on.

[3] Out of the frying pan and into the fire?

I wasn't there, but I've heard/read accounts from those who were... so I believe you. None of the 'serious' tech companies back then took 'personal' computing (whether at home or the office) seriously. They were too entrenched in the server room mentality. When the upstarts made it obvious the business they were losing out on, they scrambled to shove some products out the door but ultimately failed at least in part because they still didn't understand the space.[1] This is part of why none of them are around to any significant degree today.

[1] Another example was HP not wanting Woz working on their PC... I guess the 'professionals' had everything under control?

Doubtful. There are glimmers of good ideas, just like there were out of Microsoft and Apple research in previous decades. But ultimately, the scope and scale of what PARC was working on (and prior to that (D)ARPA) hasn't been attempted since AFAIK.

That was the entire point of what they were doing at PARC: build a possible computing future. They were not trying to build a mass market solution, they were trying to pull what could be commonplace 10-15 years in the future with smart, motivated people and money-is-no-object hardware budgets. Sure, they couldn't turn it into products in the 70's, but they would have had one hell of a product roadmap for the next 50 years if management understood what they had.