When OpenAI Meets Google – After Musk and Page parted, the OpenAI story comes to a head: What Musk had to say about Hassabis
The Openai story has been reported on before, and the text of Musk’s lawsuit shows that he was aware of the dangers during a 2012 meeting with the CEO of DeepMind. The lawsuit also confirms that Musk disagreed deeply with Google cofounder Larry Page over the future risks of AI, something that apparently led to the pair falling out as friends. Musk eventually parted ways with OpenAI in 2018 and has apparently soured further on the project since the wild success of ChatGPT.
“I think we should say that we are starting with a $1B funding commitment. This is not a hoax. Musk wrote a missive about introducing OpenAI to the world and he will cover anything that anyone else doesn’t. He dismissed a suggestion to launch by announcing $100 million in funding, citing the huge resources of Google and Facebook.
The software thought Musk had forwarded arguments about Hassabis being a better place to research and development than Google was.
What is the point of regulation? How it’s going to make you more aware of new technologies, and what it might cost you to try to hack them?
Well, it was my pleasure, Kevin. You are often driving the train on the show and you do a good job at it. and I get intimidated when I have to try to walk you through something, but this was something that I really wanted to go through because I think it matters.
I believe I can accept it and say that it does not really matter. We don’t have any regulation in the US so we’re not seeing much innovation. When was the last time a large successful new search engine or a large successful new social network came along or a large successful e-commerce company came along? We have all the room to innovate here in America and we have none of that, right? So I think it’s just a good thing that there are some countries on Earth that want to encourage innovation a little bit more. And I do think that these are pro-competitive steps that they are taking that will sincerely benefit companies, both in Europe and elsewhere.
And I am just here to say, it is worth trying, OK? We do not want to live in a world that is run by five for-profit corporations. We want to figure out a way to make them open up a little bit, play nice with others, create opportunities for other companies. It is the most significant effort that we have seen so far. So while, again, I am skeptical that it’s going to get us even halfway to the finish line, it is a place to start and we can build from here.
Yeah, I agree. It’s straightforward to figure out a million different reasons that a tech regulation won’t work. It won’t have the desired effect. It’ll have these unintended consequences. And that can be an excuse for tech companies to essentially throw up their hands and say, it’s not even worth trying.
So Apple is basically arguing that because they build the iPhone and the App Store and the infrastructure and all the review processes that go into making sure that apps are safe when they’re put in the App Store that they are entitled to these fees from developers. The DMA will make users less safe because you will be able to sideloadapps that haven’t gone through the whole review process. You could get things that are offensive or pornographic or have malware in them or something, and that this is ultimately going to backfire for consumers.
Yeah. I would say that so far what I am feeling about the Digital Markets Act is sort of analogous to what I’m feeling about the lawsuit that Elon Musk filed against OpenAI, which is like, does this make a lot of sense on its face? Maybe I’m not sure if the actual complaints here are valid. I think that there is a process of learning happening here and what is the structure of openai?
The answer is no. Our producers had a great question about how will they know that the DMA is working in our prep document. I would love to tell you that in 10 years there are going to be five major search engines, six major phone operating systems, and 11 major e-Commerce platforms all around the world, because the DMA went into effect. The ideal would be for us to distribute the balance of power much more broadly across companies.
Source: Musk vs. OpenAI, Europe’s Tech Crackdown and a Month With the Vision Pro
What have we learned from using the Apple Vision Pro? I’m bringing in Joanna Stern, Editor of the Wall Street Journal, Europe’s Tech Crackdown and a Month With the Vision Pro
But I do want to talk about this because I have been having this experience of using this thing every day since it showed up at my house, and it is a wild piece of technology. I think it has better things than I anticipated. There are things that are really terrible and worse than I expected. It’s been a month since this thing has come out and some people have been using it for most or all of that month. And I think it’s time to step back and say, well, this thing that came out that had all this attention around it, all this excitement, all this skepticism — what is it actually being used for? How are people liking it?
Correct. It took some time for it to be approved and shipped out. I have it. I’ve had it for about a week now. You don’t have one and I was pretty excited to talk about it with you. I wonder if the technology department isn’t springing for one.
I would like to talk to her about whether we think this is going to be a fad, if it’s going to be popular, or if it’s just going to be a novelty item.
And so today, I thought we should bring in Joanna Stern. One of the early reviewers for the Apple Vision Pro was a columnist for The Wall Street Journal, she was a personal tech columnist. She has written a lot about her experiences using it.
I like that. I have a lot of friends who have the Vision Pro, and their opinions have been mixed. But since you’ve gotten your hands on this thing, it seems to be bringing you a lot of joy.
And I think it’s brought Joanna some joy, too. I am curious to hear you two trade notes because I think she may have some good tips for you, since she has been around for a long time. Let’s bring her in!
Source: Musk vs. OpenAI, Europe’s Tech Crackdown and a Month With the Vision Pro
Open AI: Where are we going? What are we? What do we need to talk about? What can we really learn from OpenAI?
Yeah, it does. At the very least, I think that we should continue to follow up on this story by taking ourselves on a European vacation later this year and seeing how the DMA is putting itself into practice. What do you think?
So Casey, there are a few topics on this show that one or the other of US has always been reluctant to talk about because we think it’s boring. For you, this is semiconductors.
So essentially, OpenAI is saying, look, you knew from the beginning, or very close to the beginning of OpenAI, that we were going to have to raise a bunch of money and probably lose our pure non-profit model. And you also knew that we were, at some point, going to have to stop releasing stuff to the public because it was going to be more and more powerful. We don’t need to provide all of the code for this mission to succeed.
Like, Elon Musk has also not open sourced his AI stuff. Grok is not an open source model. He doesn’t think everything should be open. If you put open in the name of your business, people will probably assume that you are going to be open.
I don’t want you to say it’s a good point. I believe putting open in the company’s name has caused a lot of misunderstandings. No one expects Mcdonald’s to share their secret recipe for the Big Mac sauce because they aren’t called Open McDonald’s.
Source: Musk vs. OpenAI, Europe’s Tech Crackdown and a Month With the Vision Pro
The OpenAI Blog Post: MUSK vs. OpenAI, Europe’s Tech Crackdown and a Month With the Vision Pro
So that is basically the top line of their claim is that Elon Musk is just jealous. He’s just jealous. He was an important part of our founding. We admire him, but he did not think we would succeed. We succeeded, and because of sour grapes, he’s now suing us. That is their basic claim. The early years of the company are also included in the emails. And Casey, what do these emails show?
Yeah. What do you think about this exchange? It’s obviously very dishy. It’s obviously full of sort of beef and feuding between these very powerful tech people, which makes it interesting to folks like us. But is there a real case here, or is this just kind of a bunch of rich tech guys sort of arguing with each other?
My favorite of the emails is from Elon in 2018. He sends this to Ilya Sutskever, Greg Brockman, and Sam Altman. In my opinion, my assessment of Openai being relevant to Deep Mind without a huge change in execution and resources is not 1 percent. I wish it were otherwise. Even raising several hundred million won’t be enough. This will take billions of dollars a year or it will be forgotten.
And Ilya writes, “As we get closer to building AI, it will make sense to start being less open. The open in OpenAI means that everyone should benefit from the fruits of AI after it’s built, but it’s totally OK not to share the science.” And Elon Musk, according to this blog post, replies to that email with one word. He says yes.
Yes. Although of course, Kevin, when we read that email where Elon Musk says, yep, the one question that the OpenAI blog post cannot answer is how much ketamine was in Elon’s system when he wrote that? He may have no recollection, depending on what the level is.
Source: Musk vs. OpenAI, Europe’s Tech Crackdown and a Month With the Vision Pro
What I Want to do to use the Vision Pro? Some Things I Can’t Do (and Why I Don’t) Currently Do
I want to use this thing more, but I’m not actually doing it. What are the things you can do to use the Vision Pro that will get you to use a laptop?
I don’t want to buy a new backpack. It’s difficult to buy backpacks for women. That is a whole other show. There are some things where I will use it more now that I did not think it would be. And that was more in the entertainment world.
I will have all these monitors. I’m going to bring it to and from the office every day. Well, no, it’s way too heavy to do that every day. My backpack is not big enough. I would need a new backpack.
Source: Musk vs. OpenAI, Europe’s Tech Crackdown and a Month With the Vision Pro
What Have You Learned During Your First Months in Europe’s Tech Crackdown and A Month With The Vision Pro? An Introductory Interview
And it isn’t only that the excitement wears off. It’s also that the use of it wears off. Things I actually thought I’d take up are not what I think I’m going to do. I thought that working would be one of the things that I would do all the time. It’s going to be so great.
I think I want to wear this as much as possible, and I want to love it. But I don’t actually gravitate towards wearing it a month in. When you get a new gadgets, you are so excited about it, it smells good, it feels good, and you can do all the things you can not do with other gadgets.
I only had this for a week but you have been trying it for a month. I would like to ask you what your first impressions were, and what your impressions are now one month later.
You showed off different features, like putting timer over pots on the stove. You went skiing in the Vision Pro, and you used these personas, these little 3D renderings of your face on a FaceTime call with some other early testers. It takes a little while in the New York Times procurement process to get your mine, for reasons that are not worth going into here.
Yeah. There are reasons that it took a while for it to be explained and it is probably not all that interesting.
Source: Musk vs. OpenAI, Europe’s Tech Crackdown and a Month With the Vision Pro
Elon Musk’s lawsuit against Microsoft and OpenAI is or isn’t anti-assisted intellectual property (GPT-4)
This post appeared on Tuesday, some days after Musk filed his lawsuit. And the blog post doesn’t really address this claim about whether GPT-4 is or isn’t AGI. But basically there they say, we don’t believe Elon’s lawsuit has merit. We are going to dismiss it.
Most people on this show don’t think about AGI like that. When you and I talk about AGI, we generally mean a computer that can do anyone’s job better than they can, right? We’re not there. Microsoft came along and said that they think this could be the beginning of AGI. And now Elon Musk is weaponizing that against Microsoft and OpenAI saying, oh, you’ve already achieved AGI? That is going to make a problem for you.
I think we are a long way away from that. I think it should be obvious how to tell who is qualified to make that decision. If there is a piece of software that you can install on your computer that will do any job in the world at a human level of competence or a higher level of competence, I don’t think it’s necessary to have a blue ribbon commission look into it.
Source: Musk vs. OpenAI, Europe’s Tech Crackdown and a Month With the Vision Pro
Defend the Right Rights of GPT-4 and Microsoft, which is a Non-For-Profit, Open Source Technology. Comment on ‘Musk vs. OpenAI, Europe’s Tech Crackdown and
Yeah. In his view, he created a nonprofit. And while there is a nonprofit board that controls the company, it also is doing a lot of commercial work. Microsoft is probably going to make a lot of money because of the for-profit subsidiary, which is currently valued at $86 billion. When Musk left, it was a very different company.
So one of them is just breach of contract. You had this agreement to develop this technology as a nonprofit and open source it. You have not done that. GPT-4 is not open source and Openai is partnering with Microsoft.
Legal experts say that it is extremely difficult to enforce a contract if there isn’t a contract at all.
That is true. That is true. There is a need for a valid contract to win a lawsuit. That contract needs to be written down in some form and enforceable.
Source: Musk vs. OpenAI, Europe’s Tech Crackdown and a Month With the Vision Pro
The Google Gemini vs. OpenAI lawsuit: We are seeing sparks of an artificial general intelligence, and what does that tell us?
All right, well let’s set that aside for a second because I’m hoping that this lawsuit also contains another charge, and maybe one that’s even just based around some weird legal terminology I’ve never heard of.
I asked Google Gemini what promissory estoppel meant and it said buzz off, white boy. No, I’m just kidding. It said promissory estoppel is when you make a promise to someone that you’re going to do something and the other person relies on that promise to their detriment, and then you go back on your promise.
Yeah. So you may recall last year, Microsoft researchers wrote a paper after GPT-4 came out that said, we are already seeing sparks of an artificial general intelligence. Well, what does that mean? I think the most generous, non hype-y reading of that statement is GPT-4 is, in some ways, truly a general intelligence. You can throw a lot of different kinds of things at it and it can handle those tasks reasonably well.
Microsoft can use GPT- 3.5, GPT-4, DALLE, but they won’t be able to use any new technology if they achieve AGI. And they did this basically as a safety measure because their theory was eventually, we’re going to build something like AGI. It is likely to be powerful for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that it will help people do their jobs. And we don’t want to be in a position where we are forced to give that over to Microsoft.
Source: Musk vs. OpenAI, Europe’s Tech Crackdown and a Month With the Vision Pro
Make the Most Excellent Citizen’s Arrest by Remote Piloting a Tech Giant into a Self-Driving Waymo
Yeah. This just feels like the latest case of a tech giant getting so rich that it can afford to have its own research department, and then the research department doing nothing but embarrassing the company. How many times have we seen this before, whether it’s like the researchers at Google’s AI division that created all sorts of headaches for them? Or researchers inside Facebook being like, sure seems like this is harmful to a lot of people. If there is a lesson here, tech companies, let’s be real careful when you create those research divisions.
This transcript was made using Speech recognition software. While it has been reviewed by human transcribers, it may contain errors. Before quoting from this transcript and email transcripts@ny Times.com, please review the episode audio.
This is true. This happened in LA a few days ago. Apparently, this was a guy who got into a self-driving Waymo as someone else was getting out. The police officers say he got into the driver’s seat and tried to basically drive it away, but couldn’t manipulate the controls.
The employee who was watching on the closedcircuit TV said “sir, please leave the car.” And the guy would not leave the car. And so the Waymo employee just like called the police and the guy got arrested.
See, I think that that’s unfortunate, Kevin, because there’s a much funnier way to resolve that situation, which is you close the doors, you lock them, and then you just have the car drive itself to jail.
Like, if I’m the Waymo employee, that’s the most fun day you’ve ever had. You are usually trying to help it. oh, it got stuck on a curb or whatever. This is your chance. You can make the best citizen’s arrest of all time by just remote piloting this man directly to prison.
Source: Musk vs. OpenAI, Europe’s Tech Crackdown and a Month With the Vision Pro
Digital Markets Day: What Happens When European Tech Regulation Gets Wrong and Why Is It Still Relevant for Tech Companies?
They are calling it Digital Markets day. That is something different. There are many stories about tech companies attempting to comply, or at least pretend to comply, with the new European tech regulation. It gets very complicated in all the details, but I’m hoping maybe you can help me understand what is going on and why I should care.
So did GDPR create a bunch of silly popups that affect no one in any positive way? I feel like we see this with European tech regulation, but there were good ideas there. So it never gets us all the way to, oh my gosh, big tech has been reined in and we can now move on with our lives. But it does introduce these little ideas that are good that can get picked up by other countries lawmakers, regulators around the world.
And after it was passed, that law got copied in other places, among them California, where we live right now. Which means that if you’re worried that one of these companies, like Clearview AI, is collecting a million pictures of your face and then selling it to a police department, you as a Californian, can now go to a regulator in the state and say, hey, I want you to tell me everything that about me and possibly even delete those things.
Tech companies can be fined if they don’t comply with the new law, but it’s not enough to actually force them to change their practices, it’s just kind So is that the kind of thing that we can expect to see more of here with the DMA is just like companies violating this law, getting fined by European regulators, paying a fine that’s chump change, and then they continue to go on with their lives?
Yeah. If they are found to be in serious violation of rules, they can be fined up to 20% of their global revenue, also known as revenue in Europe, turnover. Do you know that revenue turnover is called in Europe?
I guess it’s just because you got the money coming in, you’re turning it over and putting it into a bank. Like who knows? Why do they do that? I’m not European. Wow.
Source: Musk vs. OpenAI, Europe’s Tech Crackdown and a Month With the Vision Pro
The Largest Bowl of Ice Cream in the House (I think) Is the Biggest and the Worst? When did you go there with the Vision Pro?
Exactly. It’s like I’m complying with the letter of the law, but not the spirit of the law. If your child asks, can I have a bowl of ice cream? and you say yes, then they like bring out of the salad bowl, like the biggest bowl in the house. And they go, you didn’t say what size bowl. Like that is malicious compliance, and that is essentially what Apple is doing here.
So I think the biggest is that it’s the biggest, literally. I believe that in the first couple of days, you put up with the compromises because you are getting used to them and it is not as bad. It is not as casual.
And so then, after you wear it for a number of days in a row, you’re like, I kind of need a break from this thing. So that was the main thing. There are a couple of things that need to occur in regards to setting that up. So I’ve got to take it out, which not a big deal. I could keep it on my desk, right? I have to make sure that the battery is charged and everything is set up. You can set it up so that it’s like plug-and-play, but not if you are traveling to and from work. The office has a lot of me coming in and out.
One of the reasons I think it’s easier to keep it next to the side of my bed is Kevin, I didn’t know he had a travel case for it.
That is about a little more than that. Like, that is actually a good moment right there to say, like, I’ve got to pick this case up. I have to pack everything in it. I need to make sure the batteries are connected.
And I could just pick up my phone. The lid of my laptop was open. I mentioned it a bit in the comment. I think it is a good idea for public transit and flying. It was great flying with this thing. The plane does suck as much as we thought, you know what I mean. Like —
Talking about your experience on a plane with the Vision Pro is something we want you to do, because other reviewers have said it is the best use case, and this is something that we have talked about. What was your experience like when you were there?
It was that. I had to fly on a quick business trip down to Florida. I decided to pack it. I thought I would watch it quickly. I’ll just try it out. I was wearing it on the flight, because it really took me out of the seat. And I do — I do describe this in the column, and I’ll explain it here a little bit, too. Because it was a miserable flying situation. It was a 24 — I booked the ticket in the, like, 24 hours, and I get to my seat, and there’s a woman who wants to sit on the aisle, and her husband wants to sit on the window seat.
Source: Musk vs. OpenAI, Europe’s Tech Crackdown and a Month With the Vision Pro
Love is Blind : I’m in the middle of them and I wanna be in Europe’s tech crackdown and a month with the vision pro
I am in the middle of them. There is no way there will be budging. They don’t want to leave. I said yes, OK. They told me that she wanted to talk to me and be friends with me. And then, they’re passing things back and forth between me. It was like, out of — it was out of a script.
Wait, this is truly the worst flying situation. Nowadays people do that. They book the window and the aisle if they’re flying together, because they think, well, no one’s going to want that middle seat between us, and then people end up booking the middle seat. You are stuck between the couple that is passing food and the couple that is talking to each other.
I was blown away by how seamless the United wi-fi worked when I put this thing on. I had never heard those words before. I immediately get on United wi-fi. I’m already to their, like, free entertainment tab.
I’m streaming 480P “Friends,” and it is what — it is the future we were promised. And it just — it takes you out of that situation. You can turn the dial, and I can be in Mars or on the moon. It is great.
Really watching stuff. I mentioned it in the column but my wife loves to watch “Love is Blind” and I don’t. I don’t watch the show. No offense to any listeners.
Source: Musk vs. OpenAI, Europe’s Tech Crackdown and a Month With the Vision Pro
Is it wrong to put on a headset while she is watching TV, and when I am not watching TV with her, but she is enjoying watching TV?
I think it to be very wrong. But sometimes I will put on the headset while she’s watching on the couch. I put on the headset, I put my AirPods in, and we can be together, but we’re not together.
I think this is one of the use cases that I am most excited about. Because my wife and I — we like to watch TV together, but we also have some different tastes. She’s a fan of “The Real Housewives” franchise. I’m not that invested in that series.
But so I have also used it this way, as kind of a way to say, like, I want to be in bed, next to you, watching TV, both of us, but I’ll watch my show, and you watch your show. We will coexist happily with each other.
Source: Musk vs. OpenAI, Europe’s Tech Crackdown and a Month With the Vision Pro
Musk vs. OpenAI, Europe’s Tech Crackdown and a Month With the Vision Pro: Is There an App?
Yeah. As we were doing the review I told Neil that we should speak to the reviewers of the Vision Pro. Because I — same exact situation, and it does sound dystopian and sad, but also, it’s nice. We still want to see each other, but we aren’t watching the same thing.
Yes. I wore the video for an awful amount of hours in a row, because the video I did was the original one. And when I would take it off, I would actually — there was something that happened with my consciousness and mind where I was — wait, is there supposed to be an app there?
Some of the future stuff is really compelling if you take it, and it does. You get used to seeing digital stuff in the real world, but where did it go? I don’t think it’s there anymore. You are telling me that I went in the living room. I thought that I left a window in there. I keep calling it “windows” but an app. They should’ve called the windows.
It feels like we should stop using technology because we know what’s coming out, hearing that you are creating something for yourself inside your machine. Like, I don’t know, you guys.
Source: Musk vs. OpenAI, Europe’s Tech Crackdown and a Month With the Vision Pro
What you are saying about the Vision Pro, and what you’ve told me about it, and why you don’t think about it a lot
Well, I also — I want to ask you about the reaction of other people to you wearing this device. I brought the Vision Pro because I was at a gathering of friends this weekend and it was the first time that I’ve had the Vision Pro.
I’m going to take some spatial videos. I will demo it and give it away. The other half of the people that were at the gathering wanted to try it and put it on, and they were completely against it, or at least not in my opinion. I do not want to be in the same room as this device. Do you have similar reactions from people throughout your life?
You have not surrounded yourself with such loving people. It was after the embargo that I got this, because I had the early review unit in the office, and I wore it very quickly. People came by and pointed at my office with a glass window. They think I can not hear them but I can hear them and see them. I told people I could see you, and you were naked.
It’s just — like, it’s useless. Nobody is taking me seriously. TheBeta is supposed to make some improvements, but I have not tested it. People are laughing when you call them. They are — this is a humorous call, and you’re not getting anything done.
Source: Musk vs. OpenAI, Europe’s Tech Crackdown and a Month With the Vision Pro
What I’m excited about — Capturing Spatial Video with the Vision Pro on a Smartphone for Work or Family, and What I would do with a Headphone
Yeah. It’s just, everyone’s laughing and mocking you and saying you look like Botox on hell. Terrible things have been said to my persona. It is just.
The other thing that I really do think a lot about is the way to capture video on this thing. I don’t know, Kevin, if you’ve done that at all. And I know you’re a recent parent.
I just shot a video this week on Tesla Chargers and my Ford, but I wore those Ray-Bans the whole time and was recording a lot of the footage. Right? I pick those up a lot now to get first-person video, whether I’m doing it for work or I’m doing it with my kids. Because I go skiing with my kids, and I don’t want to be holding a phone. I think there is lots of that coming with head computers.
Yes, I agree. The spatial photos and videos are something that if you spend all the money to get one, you are most likely going to use it the most. That feature is something that I’m most excited about. I’ve taken many spatial videos. These are videos in 3D.
When you watch them in the Vision Pro, it feels like you’re in the memory. It’s very sort of random. I have been using that a lot. You can bring them with you on a new phone. So you don’t have to wear the headset everywhere you go. But that, I feel like, is a feature that Apple should tout more. Because that is just so compelling and so different from what’s out there on other devices.
Source: Musk vs. OpenAI, Europe’s Tech Crackdown and a Month With the Vision Pro
Vision Pro: What are you waiting for? What do you wanna tell me? What did you think when you heard about it? How did you read it, how much did you know?
But at the end of the day, I feel like what I’m hearing both of you say is, if you were inclined to just ignore this thing for now, you can absolutely just ignore it. Is that a fair assessment?
I think a week test could be the most fun for me, as I feel a twinge. If I could have this thing, I would use it for entertainment, I said on the show. That was the most interesting thing, the little virtual dinosaur experience, and I wanted to watch it.
I thought about my experience with the Meta headsets, which was that I would put them in a drawer, and never get rid of them, even though I use them for a month. And I just thought, I’m not willing to spend almost $4,000 to have that experience.
And I still think that is the case. At the same time, I love to play video games. I enjoy playing on the PS 5. The moment that I can play, like, a PS5 game and project, like, the entire world of Diablo IV, the game I’m playing right now, on a wall and play it with my PlayStation controller, that’s amazing.
So I’m very much, like, in the camp of, yes, there is a there there. It feels like one of those things where we are years away from using it, and yet we keep coming back to it.
So does this rollout, the Vision Pro, remind you at all of the Apple Watch? Is there anything we can learn from earlier generations of pundits trying to figure out what they were talking about?
Why do I need another screen? I have to remember to charge every day, so why do I need another thing? I’m not sure why I need my texting to come through to me.
It took Apple a couple years to realize that this thing was indeed good for fitness and step tracking, and that they needed to lean into those features. It makes billions of dollars each year for Apple, and it is the bestselling watch in the world.
Yes, and no. I think you hit on the ways that it does, right? They didn’t quite know or figure out what the killer app — I hate using the term, but let’s use it here — was going to be for watches. Fitness, certainly, became one of them. I think that fitness will be on the headset as well. I think that’s just something the company wants to push. But I think one thing I do keep saying with this is, with the iPhone, we absolutely knew what its purpose was before it came, right?
Phone calls, texting, email — those things were established by the category already. Same with the watch and wearables — we knew that wearables were good for telling time and for working out. Fitbits had been around. They had already seen that category grow.
You have gaming, right? I mean, what are the real reasons people buy VR headsets right now? Gaming. You hit on it before, so Apple needs to break out into those other categories.
Maybe you would be really excited if you could play your PS5 games here. But guess what? You can buy a headset through Sony. Right? Like, so what is that thing? And that’s where I think it’s different.
Source: Musk vs. OpenAI, Europe’s Tech Crackdown and a Month With the Vision Pro
What Time is It? (Musk vs. OpenAI, Europe’s Tech Crackdown and a Month With the Vision Pro)
This has now been upgraded to a legitimate suggestion. Show the time. Take off the eyes and just show me the mask at 1:05 PM.
Great idea. No, Kevin, the thing about the clock, I actually had meant to mention in the first review, and it fell out. It was cut along the way. It is difficult to understand. I thought it was on purpose so I asked, what time is it? Oh, my gosh, I’ve been in here for three days.
Source: Musk vs. OpenAI, Europe’s Tech Crackdown and a Month With the Vision Pro
Is it a GOOD Idea to Keep the New York Times? (Although I am dumb, I am a bit stupid)
A Vision Pro owned by the New York Times. Unless they pry it away from me, I will keep it. We will see. (LAUGHING) We’ll see how this podcast goes.
It is good for trolling your co-host, I’ve found. I did have a good experience of making an “I’m with stupid” sign and just hovering it over Casey’s face.
Yeah. I talked about the debacle over its image-generating capabilities this week. And you can listen to that episode in “The Daily” feed.
Source: Musk vs. OpenAI, Europe’s Tech Crackdown and a Month With the Vision Pro
The Hard Fork Show : Mixk vs. Open AI, Europe’s Tech Crackdown and a Month With the Vision Pro
The producers of “Hardfork” are Rachel Cohn and Davis Land. We’re edited by Jen Poyant. We are fact-checked by Caitlin Love. Today’s show is engineered by Daniel Ramirez. Dan Powell wrote the music with originals by Elisheba Ittoop and Diane Wong.
The audience editor is Ms. Gallogly. Video production by Ryan Manning and Dylan Bergersen. If you haven’t already, watch the video on our YouTube channel. There is a video at the hardfork website. Special thanks to Jeffrey Miranda and Pui-Wing Tam. You can contact us through hardfork@ny Times.com.
Source: Musk vs. OpenAI, Europe’s Tech Crackdown and a Month With the Vision Pro
Google Flights: The Tech Giants who Don’t Prefer to Look Up a Flight. Who Wants to Start a Business?
Most people just use the default. All the revenue from travelers is funneled into its coffers by a system built by Google. It does mean that if you want to start a business where you are selling flights, you have a poor chance of doing it because you are against the company that is Google. If you bought a PC for gaming, you have probably done this recently as well.
It would be my pleasure to explain to you some of the provisions of this law. The principle is that if you are one of the real tech Giants, then you shouldn’t really prefer yourself all the time. Like, you know if you ever just like look up a flight on Google, you immediately see a box that says Google Flights.
We live in a country that has offered essentially no answer to this question. And there’s been endless hearings and screaming and people write laws that go nowhere. But what if I were to tell you that just across the ocean there was another democracy that had big ideas for how you could maybe start to chip away at that power and maybe distribute it a little bit more broadly across the land? If I told Kevin that, what would I do?
It’s a fair question, Kevin. We started to write about tech companies and I think a question that undergirds much of the journalism that we have done is, hey, these companies have done nothing but get larger and more powerful ever since. I wonder if we should try to get rid of that power. How could we do it?
Source: Musk vs. OpenAI, Europe’s Tech Crackdown and a Month With the Vision Pro
Why Apple is going after the big sweeping privacy law? How Apple is reacting to the EU GDPR and the European tech regulators and the public opinion
I don’t believe that was the end. It was the big sweeping privacy law. And I interviewed a bunch of European tech regulators and they would give these sort of stem winders about how they were preserving dignity and privacy for their citizens and keeping data sovereign inside the EU. It sounded like they were storming the Bastille. It has taken a couple of years since the introduction of the General Data Protection Regulation for me to feel the effect that it has on me, I have to use little buttons that say to accept or reject cookies whenever I go to Europe. Like that is the only thing, honestly, that has changed as a result of GDPR for me.
Yes. Whenever I read Apple saying about something harming consumers, I just always replace the word consumers with profits because then I think you get a sort of closer approximation of what Apple’s really mad about. It is amazing, if we have to implement these rules, they are really going to harm profits, and they are not going to be happy about it. Profits are going to be banging down our door saying, we hate this.
It is such a shame because it is like the same percentage of developers that make the most money for Apple. The only companies that make money for Apple are the 1% that make all the money.
Honestly, tens of millions of dollars a year. They said that we will probably end up paying more money than we would if we stayed on the old system since Apple’s new system is intended to save us money than we would by using the old system.
Every single year, you have to pay Apple millions of dollars if someone installs one of your apps.
And they respond by rolling out this series of changes for iOS users and developers in Europe. And one of the things that they do according to this post that I read is that they tweak the way that they do payment processing for apps. Apple charges a fee for using their payment system to process payments inside an application, so it is basically what you have to do. The DMA says Apple can no longer require you to use their payment processing system. People should be able to use other payment processing options.
The law does many things. Among them, it makes it illegal for certain tech companies, the really, really big ones that the EU has designated as gatekeepers, to self preference their own products and services ahead of competitors on apps that they own or platforms or app stores they control.
I tell you that regulators around the world are paying attention. Japan, South Korea, Turkey, and the United Kingdom are all contemplating their own versions of this law according to Bloomberg. I would be shocked if we passed something similar at a federal level in the United States, but I would not be surprised if individual states look to the DMA, particularly if it is successful, and look to implement similar rules in their own states.
Source: Musk vs. OpenAI, Europe’s Tech Crackdown and a Month With the Vision Pro
Looping for Understanding: A Case Study of a Conversation between Mosk and OpenAI (Europe’s Tech Crackdown and a Month With the Vision Pro)
Those are some of the biggest ones. There is a lot in there. I could give more examples, but I think that’s a pretty nice little package of stuff that might actually affect you, the listener, or you, Kevin, in your life that is going to happen as a result of the DMA.
So this is from my friend Charles Duhigg who just wrote a book about communication, and he says that part of being a good communicator is doing looping for understanding. I am going to repeat what you have said to me.
You’re doing a good job of convincing me I should care about this. looping for understanding is something I learned about recently. Have you heard about this?
Source: Musk vs. OpenAI, Europe’s Tech Crackdown and a Month With the Vision Pro
Why don’t you want to be the default? Tell me when you can’t do it because Apple tells you, but only for what you want
Guess what? You can’t do it because Apple said, no. Again you are the consumer. You paid a lot of money for a phone. You can use the chip for whatever Apple wants, but only for what they want. My friend, not in Europe anymore. We don’t know what crazy payment solutions we’re going to get in Europe.
You sort of double click the little button on the side of your phone and you’re able to touch it down on a little NFC reader and you’re able to pay for something. It was a nice experience. Kevin, what if you were running your own payments company? Is it possible you might want to put your own payments app onto the iPhone? I think that could be cool.
Yes. I’ve heard bits and pieces of this, and I actually have heard much more about the Apple piece of this for reasons that we should go into because they have been sort of rolling out all these changes in a way that strikes me as sort of undermining the spirit of the DMA. I believe this is showing up in real products that people in Europe are using all the time.
That’s right. There are a lot of changes here. That example that I mentioned is no longer going to be the case. In Europe, the company that sells flights in Europe is going to face competition from other companies that are selling air travel. Bing will not be the default search in Europe.
Source: Musk vs. OpenAI, Europe’s Tech Crackdown and a Month With the Vision Pro
The DMA Revisited: Where Am I Going? Where Are We Going? What Have We Missed? How Did DMA Find Us?
Right. But my point is, there was something you had to manage because one of these tech giants said, hey, we’re just going to give ourselves a helping hand. We are going to give ourselves a helping hand with the market cap being trillions. And then along comes the DMA, Kevin.