Apple and Sightful are making the world safe for giant virtual-screen laptops. As a big-screen loving nomad who lives out of a backpack, I can't wait. Read my newsletter, MACHINE SOCIETY!
The company’s value is so high because of its dominance in AI chips, surpassing even Apple. Now the company is aiming to transform a much larger $50 trillion market: ‘Physical AI.’ Read my opinion column at computerworld.com.
Some of the wines come from 150-year-old vines.
In 2011 Marc Andreessen, co-founder of the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, asserted in a Wall Street Journal essay that “software is eating the world.” He was right, of course. But in this decade it’s AI software, specifically, that’s eating our world. And very soon, AI software will eat the smartphone world, too. Read how in my Computerworld column.
Real-world avatars, CyberTruck campers, 3D webcams, LEGO Macs, AI binoculars and more! Read it on MACHINE SOCIETY!
Why make anything when AI can make it better, faster and cheaper? Read all about it on Machine Society!
Michael Krasny interviewed me on his wonderful podcast, Grey Matter. He asked me about the Gastronomad lifestyle and about the cultural impact of AI, plus about my newsletter, Machine Society.
Listen to the interview here.
Check out the shiny new podcast Inside A.I., hosted by Jason Howell and Jeff Jarvis and, on this episode, guested by me! The timing couldn't be better, as the podcast was recorded after two of the most consequential announcements in the history of AI, of course, by OpenAI and Google. This is a must-listen, must-watch podcast episode!
Listen and watch here!
Become a patron of the show here!
I’ve been predicting that a massive AI glasses industry is about to take off and take over. It will probably happen next year. And the new trend in multimodal AI with video as one of the modes should convince everyone how big the AI glasses market will be. Read my opinion column at Computerworld.com.
Join host Leo Laporte and guests Paris Martineau, Sam Abuelsamid and me on TWiT where we tackle solar storms, Tesla chaos, Apple AI, Google failures, TikTok risks, messaging mayhem, Sony switcheroos and much, much more!!
Perplexity AI is not unique. It’s simply the most popular and probably best in the category of tools that combine search with large language model (LLM) chatbots. (I previously recommended another in this space, is phind.com.)
The leading brands will soon converge on Perplexity’s space. OpenAI is rumored to be building a search engine. Apple’s Siri is thought to be getting the addition of AI. Bing already uses ChatGPT. And Perplexity-like startups abound — for example, Subtl.ai explicitly positions its tools as a kind of “enterprise Perplexity AI” that keeps corporate data private (Perplexity has its own enterprise offering, called Perplexity Enterprise).
It’s likely that within a year, the AI chatbots will have search, the search engines will have AI and the voice assistants will have both search and AI.
This strikes me as an improvement all around.
The translation is: "DO NOT DIRTY THE WALLS" and "CLEANLINESS IS A GREAT SIGN OF CIVILIZATION."
"Any day now, an industry will emerge where your face and body are scanned, your voice is recorded and your communications are fed into the system, so it knows how you use words. From that point, a virtual version of you can leave high-resolution video messages from a simple command you give to your AI glasses." Read my opinion column at Computerworld.com.
Researchers have created a new, never-seen-before kind of malware they call the “Morris II” worm, which uses popular AI services to spread itself, infect new systems and steal data. The worm demonstrates the potential dangers of AI security threats and creates a new urgency around securing AI models. Read all about it in my SecurityIntelligence report.
A grant posted by the US State Department wants to counter Russian disinformation in video games through video games. Here's a summary from the grant:
"Leveraging the popularity and penetration of video games in Eastern Europe, the implementer will develop an eSports program at American Spaces in Ukraine. eSports athletes will need professional training to form a talent pipeline to professional teams in Ukraine. In tandem with traditional eSports training, these athletes will receive counter disinformation/conflict resolution training to confront foreign propaganda and disinformation in competitive online gaming spaces. The project will culminate with an eSports tournament and coalition-building event on the sidelines of the tournament."
Is this a good idea or a bad idea?
This stuff turns into pulque, the most delightful, mildly alcoholic beverage.
Two investors want to re-invent news. And it’s the worst journalism idea I’ve heard in a long time.
Nathaniel Brooks Horwitz and Sam Koppelman — both 27 years old — are creating a newsroom that will be monetized by investments based on “scoops” produced by the newsroom, according to exclusive reporting by the Financial Times.
In other words, their investment firm, the $100 million hedge fund Hunterbrook Capital, is using journalists to write stories designed to affect the stock market. They’ll buy or sell stock based on those “market-moving” stories before the market moves — before other investors know about the stories — thereby profiting.
Read it all on Mike's List.
Yeah, I'm in Oaxaca again. My wife, Amira, went out with friends while I slaved away in the information mines. But she brought me this Tlayuda from the food vendor down the street -- tlayudas are what Oaxacans eat instead of tacos. And mezcal here is not only a great idea. It's the law.
In a pickup of a Wall Street Journal article, the Tech Times re-reports that AI companies have nearly exhausted the available resources of the open internet -- they've already hoovered up most content on the internet to train their AI models. The piece expressed this in the headline by saying "AI Companies Are Running Out of Internet."
First Post expressed the idea by saying "AI companies have consumed the entire internet."
Meetings waste time, destroy solitary deep work and make a mockery of flex work and a globally distributed workforces. Here's the good news: We now have the data, the management systems and, above all, the technology to replace meetings with something much better. Read my opinion column at Computerworld.
A major shift in how cyber insurance works started with an attack on the pharmaceutical giant Merck. Or did it start somewhere else? Read my piece at SecurityIntelligence.
Amira and I went to a friend's birthday party at a wine bar in San Francisco, and our friends Charlie and Julia (who are on the list to ride Waymo cars) called a Waymo. And it was Waymo fun than I thought it would be.
Watch out, nomads. If you're using Google Fi, you need to spend at least some of your time in the US. Last month Google threatened to suspend my account if I didn't spend at least a week in the US during the month of March. (Which I'm doing now.)
Amira got this from a baker in Italy, North of Venice. It's around 600 years old. This timelapse covers only four hours.
The Aztec Calendar in Mexico City.
The Silicon Valley city of San Jose lashed cameras to city vehicles to record video of the streets, then they process that video through AI to identify potholes, illegally parked cars. Now, they've added a new element: The hunt for homeless vans, RVs and encampments. This proves yet again that California will do anything to the homeless except house them. (A resident would have to earn nearly $100,000 per year to afford a minimal one-bedroom apartment in San Jose.)
The companies San Ho is partnering with include Ash Sensors, Sensen.AI, Xloop Digital, Blue Dome Technologies and CityRover.
AI's plan to replace humanity is proceeding according to plan, apparently. New research published in the International Journal of Educational Technology in Higher Education found that college students who rely on ChatGPT in their schoolwork are suffering from memory loss and tanking academic performance.