The Web’s ‘Existential’ AI Threat, OpenAI’s Microsoft Office Competitor, Tesla Robotaxi Launch

Channel: Alex Kantrowitz

Published at: 2025-06-30

YouTube video id: Le1_D-zp6os

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Le1_D-zp6os

Welcome to Big Technology Podcast Friday
edition where we break down the news in
our traditional coolheaded and nuanced
format. We have so much to speak with
you about this week in another big week
of tech and AI news. We are going to
cover um the tiny amount of traffic that
AI has been sending to websites and
whether that is a sign of a greater
collapse to come. Uh we'll also talk
about the latest in the OpenAI Microsoft
wars. some interesting news coming from
Anthropic that we can drop uh today and
talk to you about. Uh we also have some
news about what Mera Marotti is up to at
Thinking Machine Labs. Of course, Tesla
uh has gotten its robo taxi initiative
underway and Jeff Bezos is getting
married. So, joining us as always, not
as always, joining us as as a special
guest here to speak with us about this
is our regular uh guest Reed Alberg, the
technology editor at Sound For. Reed,
great to see you. Thanks so much for
coming on. Yeah, absolutely. I just got
back from the wedding. It was great. No,
I'm just kidding. I was not there.
Wasn't at the Bezos wedding. This is my
Easter egg for listeners. I have a list
of celebrities that will be at the Bezos
wedding, including one who was listed as
uh ready to go and now apparently is not
going. All right, I'll we'll get to all
that at the end. Fine. Fine. I I'll just
give the spoiler. It's Katy Perry. Katy
Perry's was on the list. Apparently,
she's not on the list now. We'll get to
the bottom of this. We do journalism
here. We'll figure it out. Um, but let's
talk about where we do journalism and
where a lot of the happenings on the
internet occur, which is websites. So, a
couple months ago, we talked about how
um the CEO of Cloudflare, Matthew
Prince, uh had gone basically public and
said, "Listen, uh compared to uh a year
ago, Generative AI saying sending way
fewer visits uh to websites as let's say
Google search." Um so, 6 months ago,
this is these are the numbers. He said
Google the ratio was 6:1. OpenAI 250
pages is pages crawled. So, six pages
crawled, one visit. uh from Google, 250
pages crawled, one visit from OpenAI. Uh
6,000 pages crawled, one visit from
Anthropic. That was 6 months ago. Now
for Google, it's 18 pages crawled, one
visit. OpenAI, it's 1,500 pages crawled,
one visit. Uh Anthropic, it's was it's
now gone up from 6,000 to 60,000 pages
crawled one visit. Prince says, "People
aren't following the footnotes." Is this
time to panic? I mean, I sort of I'm
going to title this uh this conversation
or the the beginning of this podcast
episode, the web's existential AI
threat. Am I getting over my skis, Reed?
Am I is this hyperbole? I think it's
always a great time to panic in the
media business, to be honest. Um and I'm
and that's not just a joke. I mean I
think it's it's like I remember you know
being in uh you know studying journalism
in college and talking about you know
panicking uh in the media business and
at that time it was you know just just
the web was uh was completely destroying
it. I think what's interesting and
Matthew Prince has been on this you know
he's been talking about this now for a
while. I've talked to him about it. I
think it's I think it's admirable what
he's doing, but I also think that, you
know, traffic was never a good metric to
judge whether, you know, a story is
valuable, a a media article is valuable.
So, if that metric goes away, then yeah,
I mean, it's going to hurt the it's
going to hurt the current industry, but
I think it actually is is maybe in the
end a positive thing. Um, and I think
there's there's two things going on. I
mean, one is the traffic and the other
is like, you know, that they're scraping
all these websites and and pulling in
the information and that part. If you if
you get rid of traffic as a metric, you
don't need uh you don't need to allow
these things to scrape your websites,
right? I mean, it's possible to to put a
hard payw wall in place and to
essentially stop that scraping. So, but
then you don't get then you don't get
the traffic. So, you get rid of that
business model. I think in the end it
will be a healthy thing for the media.
Maybe not for current media companies
though. So Matthew is going to be in New
York. I'm in the middle of pitching his
team to try to get him uh to come on and
talk a little bit more about what he
means here. We should note I think he's
selling something to help publishers
stop the scraping. But I don't think
that's really going to change very much
because ultimately uh bots like Chat
Chipt are already so useful. So, I don't
think that you're going to have like
this this wall that publishers put up
and all of a sudden people are going to
go to websites. I think that's probably
um because it just takes a few websites
to get that traffic or to get that
usefulness into these bots. Um, but
Rita, I I'll just take the counter
argument here, which is it's, you know,
traffic didn't matter as long as you had
some, right? Like, you needed to have a
little bit of an audience. And you could
say to advertisers, we have a high uh a
very valuable audience. We have uh the
top executives in the field. Um,
therefore, you should do this event with
us or this engagement with us. Um, when
you have zero traffic, that changes. And
by the way, it's not just publishers,
right? We're talking about the web which
also has I would say um uh entertainment
sites, booking sites. I mean obviously
Netflix isn't going to go away. Uh but
there was a publisher I spoke with World
History Encyclopedia. It's just you know
a site where people go and learn about
world history. Uh and that's taken a big
hit from AI. So if all these um
different aspects of the web start to go
away, that does sound like maybe it
could be a crisis. What's your take?
Well, I mean, look, you make you make
really good points, but I think in the
end, you know, if if what you have is
like all the highquality journalism is
essentially non-traffic based, the
business model is not is not maybe you
have advertising, but it's not the
targeted advertising that we see, you
know, in in the traffic business, then
let's see what these AI models get from
this these few websites that are still
traffic-based. I mean, it's going to be
complete crap. And so I I think in the
end they'll have to figure out some way
that they'll either e either have to pay
publications to sort of republish on
their platforms and that could be that
could be a business that maybe supports
media other models will will emerge
right I mean like you know at some you
do it to events right there there there
are lots of ideas to fund journalism
subscriptions right before traffic even
existed the media business was pretty
healthy right people paid for newspapers
and you know yeah they got they had the
classifides business and all that stuff
but but it's not just journalism though
it's not just journalism that's the
point I'm trying to make is that yeah we
you know because we're journalists we
like to talk about the journalism
websites but um again like this is this
is going to be everything yeah I mean
look if if what you're talking about is
like these passion projects that are
sort of like the bread and butter of the
web if people don't go to these websites
anymore and they get just like ingested
into AI models and and disappear. I
mean, again, like then the AI models
won't like they won't be as valuable.
Like they'll there won't be anything to
ingest anymore. And so they'll something
will have to shake out is what I'm
saying. Like it's not I I don't think
it's like the Armageddon when it comes
to just like the long tale of of web
content. I I don't think it's Armageddon
for that. I think something will, you
know, I don't know what it is, but like
that will work itself out. I think what
I really care about is that is that
journalism is it survives, right? That's
what to me the most important thing and
I think and I think that will survive
too. Maybe I just sound like a like a
just a total optimist, a techno optimist
or whatever now. But I do think that
Yeah. No, I mean it's definitely you
have of all the people I speak to about
this, you have some of the more
optimistic perspective uh perspectives
that I've heard about it. Um I don't
fault you for that. I think that we tend
to have things um end up growing
together uh but not all the time and it
is interesting that you'll end up
getting a tremendous amount of power
concentrated in the hands of these bots
in the hands of let's say openai or
anthropics claude although they don't
really care too much about cloud anymore
um but you'll have this power
concentration maybe that's why we see
all these billions of dollars uh being
invested if you get the master chatbot
where everybody accesses all the
content, the news, sports scores, world
history. Maybe they're instead of going
to like booking or kayak, they're doing
that within uh the bot. Then, you know,
these numbers that Matthew Prince is
putting out highlights kind of like the
big question we've been talking about on
the show for a long time, which is what
is the valuation uh of of these b of
these chat bots and these foundational
model companies and when is it going to
be justified? And I guess if you gobble
up the whole web, you're okay. Well, you
know, like you mentioned sports scores.
That's an interesting one. Like people
used to used to pay for newspapers so
they could open it up and see the sports
score, right? And then, you know, online
publications started putting the scores
up. And now I think the way it works is
if you if you Google a sports score, you
just see the score right there. And I I
believe they have a deal. Well, maybe
it's with ESPN, but like eventually it's
it's going to I think they just get
those scores directly from the leagues
and they're just going to be paying the
league for that information. This is not
really a it's not that's not really like
a valuable service that somebody that
some publication is providing. So, I
think if you're if you're developing if
you're bu you're putting out some really
valuable thing, I think it'll find it'll
find a way to, you know, to to be
valued, right? Like and and you talk
about these bots, like I don't even know
if that's how this is going to shake
out. Like I think what you might have is
sort of everyone will have their own
personal bot that sort of handles their
information diet and maybe that bot has
subscriptions to things and it reads,
you know, publications for you, but
you're at least paying for it. I mean,
that's that's one way this could go. I
think like we're we're looking at this
right now through the lens of what we
already know, which is like the current
web, and that is all going to change.
everything is just going to be
completely different. So I think people
often like forget that like the this is
such a fun this AI stuff is going to be
such a fundamental change that like all
these assumptions that we have or you I
think you just have to discount all of
them. Okay. And it's by the way it's not
just publishers not just web publishers
also the infrastructure of the web is
going to change. And you recently had a
conversation with Liz Reed who runs
search at Google and you had you asked
her about hey well how how's advertising
going to work and you actually have this
like idea or this thought that
advertising is going to be quite
different as we move forward. So what is
going to happen to the Google stack?
Because the I think and you put this in
your article, right? They have so many
great AI bets. They have Deep Mind and
Gemini. They have Whimo. They have
Isomorphic Labs. But the reason why the
stock is the cheapest of I think of all
Magnificent 7 stocks is because we don't
know what's going to happen to search.
It's funny. I wrote that story and then
I got I got a a message from a Google
employee who was asking me if they
should keep their stock.
That's the question, right? Like that is
fascinating to me of like you know
they're they I think they were I
actually they read that and were like
well maybe I should keep this stock. I
mean that that's crazy to me that even
Google employees are like what you know
do I even believe in the future of this
company? But no I think they I mean
Google of all the companies has so much
going for it right. I I think they're
they're a pretty good long-term bet but
this cash cow you know search
advertising thing is like you know to
totally threatened by this new model.
Um, and I've sort of thought like why
have advertising at all in the AI in the
AI world? At least like at least the
kind of advertising that you associate
with like search ads where you're trying
to buy a product and then you get a
bunch of ads for similar products and
things like that. Well, that shouldn't
be necessary in the world of AI. Um, and
Liz Reed's point was, well, no, it it
still is because you'll have like these
small companies that maybe want to get
their product out like it's newer, so
it's not going to be read by these
things. And then I'm thinking, well,
okay, but then I'm not even going to see
that ad, right? Like I my my agent or
whatever is going to go find the
information and then present me with the
facts and and ask me what I want to buy.
So if a human is not seeing an ad, is it
really an ad? Like it's it's something
else. It's like it's a it's a service
for providing information. And you can
imagine a world where there are microt
transactions and there's sort of like
credible sources of information that's
that you know can be trusted to provide
you know not just like puffery or or BS
to try to sell BS products. So it's like
I think what you're going to see is this
whole industry this whole ecosystem that
sort of mirrors the ad tech world but
really isn't advertising at all if that
makes sense. Yeah. Yeah, I mean the way
that you describe it is um imagine
describing a pair of shoes you want to
buy to a voice assistant who searches
the web perhaps using Google and then
describes the options and you instruct
it to purchase one of them. If there's
an ad in that scenario, it's going to be
seen by an AI agent and not a human. So
what would Don Draper advertise to the
AI agent? It is kind of interesting like
do you think our AI agents like might be
on the take? Maybe like they have like a
deal under the table with Nike to be
like, "We know that he's an Adidas
buyer, but um just like show him this
Jordan ad and maybe he'll go out and buy
it." Yeah. I mean, I think if I think if
these things if um if Google decides
that what they're going to do is is
actually try to influence the
recommendations, allow companies to, you
know, to sort of it'll it's sort of like
paytoplay then, right? It goes then it's
not advertising anymore. And so, you
know, I think that's a that that's a
tough Yeah, I think people will try that
is the answer. They will try that.
They'll try to have your agent be on the
take, but those those those products
will get rejected, right? You're going
to want people are going to want AI
agents that they can trust to make
really good decisions. You have to
remember like an ad right now on the
internet is like like a really good
click-through rate is something like you
like 1%. Or like less than 1%. Yeah.
Half a percent is great. Half a percent.
So like for the most part people just
ignore ads. So like you don't want
nobody wants an ad to be actually part
of their part of their experience
online. And I actually think the term
like personalized advertising is like an
oxymoron because the whole point of it
is that it's not personalized. Like if
it were personalized then you wouldn't
need to see the ad. I mean but why do
you why do you mean that? I mean a
personalized ad could be like all right
let's say let's use this sneaker example
right we know that Reed is a tennis
player so therefore we're going to
advertise him this tennis shoe. that ad
is personalized to you in a way that you
wouldn't have uh personalization if you
were to run like an unargeted tennis
shoe ad on TV, right? But it's not but
it's like ultimately trying to get me to
buy something that I might not otherwise
buy. If I were going to buy that shoe
anyway, then there'd be no reason to
have an ad. This is the exact reason
though that you want to run the ad is
because you know that as someone who
plays tennis, you're going to be in
market for for sneakers every like 6
months. So like if you're a consistent
buyer of Adidas, it's great actually.
It's great money for Nike to spend to be
like, "All right, this person probably
is going to keep this habit for life.
You don't really age out of tennis until
you get like, you know, way old." And um
and so therefore, if Nike spends, let's
say, $100 to reach you on a with a
personalized ad, the ROI could be like
very high over Yeah. But what you're
describing is almost brand advertising,
right? That's like I like Nike's Nike
needs to like, you know, show up in my
feed every once in a while to make me
sort of like just keep them that image
of the swoosh in the back of my my mind.
I mean, that's sort of that's kind of
like brand advertising, I think. Yeah. I
mean brand advertising can be
personalized.
Okay, sure it can be personalized. Maybe
I need to work on that on that uh
analogy a little bit. But I I do think
look I read the end of the article and I
understand why Google employees uh might
might be thinking should I sell my
stock? I mean you know you're talking
about agentto agent protocols and uh you
say the transition could take time and
Google needs to innovate on search
without killing its cash cow. if it's
successful, the thing that replaces it,
whether we call it advertising or
something else, could be even bigger.
But that's like quite a long time
horizon compared to what we're hearing
from Matthew Prince today. I mean, even
I'm actually curious to hear your
perspective about the timeline on
whether when this agent stuff becomes a
reality because we have people that are
like going out to the press saying, "Oh
yeah, we're using agents all the time."
Um, but in reality, most people are
like, "What are you talking about?"
Yeah, I mean the the timeline stuff is I
think I think this stuff happens and
this is also another reason that I kind
of am like I know Prince is talking
about like traffic numbers today, but
I'm also sort of like it makes me I I
think slower change is just better in
general for society. Like you don't want
this stuff to happen overnight. It'll
just be it'll be total chaos. And I
think we are getting slow change. I
don't think I mean I don't really I
don't think this agent thing has really
taken off at all. And I think what's
really happening is like people are
trying this stuff and it's and it can't
be trusted. It's too you know there's
too much hallucination, too many errors.
Like you know in a lot of these in a lot
of the really great AI agent use cases
if it makes one mistake you can't you
can't use it. Like it's just you know
you can't trust it. So, I think it's
actually going to be I think it's going
to be a while before this stuff gets
good enough. Mark Benoff, friend of the
show, uh was out speaking more about
agents this week. He said 50% of the
work at Salesforce is already being done
by AI. Are you buying or selling that
statement? The work I don't I don't
know. I think AI is doing up to 50% of
the work at Salesforce. CEO of of
Salesforce says uh this is reporting uh
this is CNBC reporting on Bloomberg. He
says all of us have to get to our head
around this idea that AI could do things
that before we were doing and we can
move to do higher value work. He says
that technology currently accounts from
about 30 to 50% of the company's work.
30 to 50. I'm I'm sorry. I don't think
that's possible. Yeah. I mean,
especially, you got to get your your
handle on how much that that that work
the AI how much work the sounds like an
advertisement to me. That's the kind of
language in advertisements up to 50%.
Reed, that's actually for you.
But in one instance, it was 50%.
This person wrote an email and 50% of it
was written by No, I think I think the
coding stuff is totally real. I mean
that is like definitely people are are
using it. There's sort of like this
generational divide too. It's like the
classic disruption. Like if you're a new
company today, if you're a new like
software startup, like your codebase is
totally AI like it's probably 100%
written by AI and you've developed it in
this way that it's sort of readable,
searchable by AI so that it can make
changes. And if you're if you were the
from the preAI era, it this you probably
think, you know, AI code sucks because
it's not able to go in and like affect
your code base, right? So you're so
there's this like generational divide
and I think that's where it's very lumpy
like how this stuff is is being
implemented but coding is powerful. You
hosted a tech event or yeah tech event
in San Francisco last month and Amjad
Masad the CEO of Replet was there and
this week he's tweeting out uh
unbelievable increases in revenue.
Replet of course enables people to to
use AI to code to vibe code uh and uh
puts a picture of I think a private jet
on the runway out there and says thank
you vibe coding. So something's working
well. I mean look a after people after
CEOs come and do a fireside with me at
these events they usually see huge
increases in revenue. So not surprising.
Um no but thank you for coming to that
event. It was good to see you there. A
great event. Yeah definitely it was a
great event. really good conversations.
Jack Clark from Anthropic was there. I
think I noted something that he said in
the in the show that week. So, it was
good. Thank you. Yeah. And I think
coding is like if let's say like the
whole AI agent thing doesn't like happen
for a while. Coding is can automate a
lot of stuff in our lives right now.
Like so like so much there's so much
powerful software out there that we that
we don't use because we don't have an
army of coders. We don't you know nobody
knows how to code basically. And I think
if just that one thing changes like I
think you'll see just a lot more
automation in the world and it might
feel like agents even if it's not like
truly an agent like doing something it
might kind of feel like that. I think I
think we still see a huge amount of
change even even just from the coding
stuff. Yeah. Sam Alman and Brad LCAP the
COO of uh OpenAI and of course Sam is
the CEO. They were out at uh this hard
fork event this week and had a lot of
interesting things to say. Uh which
we'll talk about over the course of this
conversation. But one of the things Sam
said that I thought was interesting was
that you know I think he was asked um so
AI can code but it can't do much else.
Where's the other stuff? And he's like
well coding is pretty general
technology. Like if you want to do a lot
of different things you can code your
way into it which I thought was an
interesting response. So I definitely
agree with you on the code front. Um,
speaking of, by the way, uh, AI eating
the web or eating different content,
there was a very important court ruling
this week, uh, that I want to get your
take on, and that is that Anthropic one,
this is from Reuters, Anthropics wins a
key US ruling on AI training and authors
copyright lawsuit, a federal judge in
San Francisco ruled late on Monday that
Anthropic's use of books without
permission to train its artificial
intelligence system was legal under US
copyright law. Um the judge sided with
the tech companies on the pivotal
question uh saying that Anthropic made
fair use of books written by the authors
that brought the suit to train its
clawed large language model. Um first of
all, do you agree with the judge? And
second, what do you think this means for
the AI industry? Yeah, I actually do
agree and I think I think this is what
most copyright lawyers thought would
happen. um super interesting I thought
was that okay it's like the ruling is
sort of like if I could summarize it um
you know just in non-legal terms it's
kind of like if you're if you're an AI
agent you can learn from stuff or if
you're an AI model like you can learn
from things just like a human you know
learns from stuff but the think the
funny part is like they said the way
they had obtained these books was
actually not legal that that was that
was piracy so I think that's that was
super interesting to me it's Well, if
you're going to train on this stuff, you
should at least have to buy it. Like, I
think, you know, if you're if you're
going to ingest a bunch of books, like
buy the books. I think it's hilarious
that like so many people are are
outraged by these models training on
books and they don't say anything about
the fact that like there's websites
where you can just go illegally download
pirated books. Um, so yeah, I mean, no,
I totally agree with that. I think, you
know, why not let them train on this
stuff is but they shouldn't be able to
reproduce it. Like you shouldn't be able
to say send send me like chapter 4 of,
you know, Alex Canterowitz's book. Like
that's not cool. Um or the whole thing.
Definitely not. Yes. Yeah. I'd prefer
that that doesn't happen. And I mean,
Anthropic has a lot of books. This is
the ruling says they have more than 7
million pirated books. And US copyright
law says willful copyright infringement
can justify statutory damages of up to
$150,000
per work. Uh I'm not great at math, but
that is that is a very big number they
could potentially end up seeing as a
fine uh for possessing these millions of
pirated books. Wait, I hope my books in
that in that in that group because that
means I get $150,000.
I I No. Well, I don't know. It might
just be the authors that are suing, but
if there ends up being a pool that's
paid out to authors whose books have
been ingested uh by AI, I promise you,
Reed, I'll be there first in line for my
handout. And I if you want me to take a
ticket for you and grab your money, I'll
do that also. Ple Yeah, please do.
Please do. Or maybe I'll send my AEI
agent to go collect. Um let's see.
Right. Yeah. But you'll you'll get your
money in 15 years. Um hey, let's talk
about fine.
Let's talk about this one last part. Get
a loan based on that. Uh not not for me.
Um but I'm sure somebody will give it to
you at a high interest rate. Um let's
talk about this last thing you had
dropped in our document which is that uh
there's a new thing that Google has
that's trying to help publishers make
money outside of just traffic. It's
called offer wall. Do you want to talk a
little bit about why you found that
interesting? Yeah. Well, I just thought
it was relevant in this broader
conversation, right? that I mean if I
understand it correctly it's sort of
like you can um you know if you're a
publication like you can have
microtransactions and there you know
they sort of make it easy for you to
collect revenue. I don't whether that's
subscriptions, ads or whatever. I mean,
I don't know. It's pro it's probably not
like hugely significant, but it kind of
just shows that these companies are are
thinking about this issue and like how
do they I don't think I don't think
Google wants like, you know, pe people
like you and you know, the media to kind
of go around saying that they're they're
destroying the web and they're putting
publishers out of business, right? They
want to figure out a way to to make it
work. So, I don't know. That was sort of
my my general takeaway, but you might
have a different a different opinion.
Yeah, I think it's interesting for a
couple reasons. One is that they're they
seem like they're just directing people
away from the web. I mean, they're
basically they're giving publishers this
ability to create a popup on their
website and say to access the content,
sign up to our newsletter, which like
email isn't going away even if the web
might be or the web. Um Ron and I like
to say the web is like, you know, slowly
degrading. Um, and by the way, thank you
to Ron John for bringing some of the
stories in for this this week's uh uh
show, especially that Matthew Prince uh
statistic. He'll be back next week. Um,
but I think that yeah, it's interesting
to see Google steer people away from the
web. And the other thing is this only
works as if if you have traffic. So, I
still think that um traffic for
traffic's sake is meaningless, but some
form of traffic or audiences going to
your sites to seek out your stuff uh is
important. Whether you're a publisher,
whether you're a a encyclopedia for
history or whether you're a um even a
travel website.
Yeah. But you know, look at what
happened with like with Substack, right?
Like all these people, you know, started
just paying for these news. Like who
would have predicted that? I mean, yeah,
it's been I mean, look, trust me, it's
been cool. It's an amazing new thing.
You're you're a great example. And you
know, I think it's um you know, but just
making it easier for people to pay
online is that's like a really good
thing, right? Like it like why is it
that if I'm driving my car, I have like
you know I I I click on I use like
Spotify which is like built into my car
and I just click on that and I listen to
podcasts. Like if if a podcast wants to
charge me, it's like I don't even know
how I'm going to do like, you know, not
to mention I'm driving, but like why
shouldn't it just be like a voice
assistant that's like, "Hey, like this
is this podcast costs a dollar or
whatever it is, you know, $5. Do you
want to subscribe to it or something and
just do it?" Like we need I I I think
it's crazy how much friction there is in
just like payments on the web. And I
sometimes wonder like if that went away
like that might that might actually
change the publishing model in ways that
are probably positive I would guess. But
I don't know. I agree Reed. I'm with you
on this one. I mean if you could get
let's say you're like in your assistant.
It has your credit card. You're either
uh talking to it via voice or you can
chat to it. It says it has information.
Do you want to access it? Do you want to
subscribe and get regular updates? do
you want to um you know with a voice
interaction uh paid to listen to the
rest of this show and there's a voice
update there um and everything is
seamless and baked in. I think that's
very promising. So all right I'm
starting to see there's there may be
some light here. Maybe some light but we
need to know ahead. I'm a I'm the techno
optimist. I'm I'm I'm I can't believe I
am I can't believe I'm the positive one.
But yeah, I have to say, listen, I'm
also quite positive about the direction
that this technology is going to go. But
I think also that there's there are
there are bumps and I think the mission
here is really to be like where is it
going to go right? Where's it going to
go wrong? Let's pressure test the
theories of the critics and let's
pressure test the theories of the
optimists. So you got the big technology
treatment today. No, it's true. I mean,
I have this this story in about
Anthropic today that we got like an
exclusive on about their um they're
doing that they're going to put money
into researching the effects of AI,
right? On on labor and on, you know, the
global labor force and economics. I
mean, they should definitely look at the
media like they should they should for
sure look at, you know, okay, how is
this affecting publishing? like someone
should apply for one of the grant
they're giving out these like $50,000
grants or up to up to $50,000.
Um, you know, but they're looking at
like I I think ultimately like what what
is the the conclusion all these people
come to is like the the uh the way you
solve this is just like better, you
know, better like people talk about
universal basic income, right? It's just
better like social help for people if
they if they're put out of work or
whatever, right? Right. I mean, I think
that's the that's the conclusion that
people are going to come to. I I'm
guessing, but well, I think it's good
that they are starting to study this.
And I wonder, do you think so? You got
the exclusive from Anthropic about this
idea that they're or this this new
program that they're going to roll out
to study um economic impact of the
technology. Do you think this is an
outgrowth of Daario's comment that 50%
of whitellar entry- level workers are
going to be out of work because of AI? I
think yeah, for sure. Those comments
really got a lot of attention and and he
I think he got a lot of blowback for
that. Um so I think this is actually a
much better method. It's like well we'll
just like fund a bunch of people to do
this research. Um but he'll probably
still make these predictions. I mean
they do you know they do very well. I
mean I think he said actually like with
in March within a year all of code will
be written by AI or basically all of all
of code. I mean, that's probably not
going to come true. Um, no. No way. I'm
I'm I'm guessing. Uh, but we'll see. I
mean, yeah, it's definitely because of
that. I mean, they're they're this is
like part of their brand. It's like
we're just going to be, you know, we're
building this technology, but we're
going to be warning everyone about, you
know, the effects of it and all the
downsides.
So, I mentioned that Alman and uh Brad
Lacip were doing this interview this
week and they were asked, "Do you
believe in this uh stat that Daario gave
about the entry-level workers?" Uh Sam
Alman says, "No, I don't." And Brad Lap
says, "No, we have no evidence of this."
Dario is a scientist and I hope he takes
an evidence-based approach to these type
of things. I think what you're reporting
I think here for uh you know, which is
brand new for our listeners and viewers
is that yeah, he's like, "I agree. I'm
going to take an evidence-based
approach. Totally. I Yeah, I think more
people Yeah, more people should I mean
the I think when you get into like some
of these areas like you know the the
like catastrophic risk you know or risk
to humanity from AI I don't know how you
take an evidence-based approach because
it's like assuming that you know that
this technology becomes super there's
all these assumptions about the future
that you can't prove. Um, so that's I
think with AI it's really, you know,
it's there's a lot of faith that goes
into into AI that I don't think people
realize, you know. Definitely. Well,
there's also this these conversations
about like takeoff and is this starting
to explode in a way that's effectively
beyond our control. And last week we
talked about this gentle singularity
paper from Sam Alman and how he says the
takeoff has begun. But another very
interesting moment from that interview
was they asked like uh about this this
notion and Brad Litecap said this this
OpenAI COO he says will we wake up uh
one day with this incredibly powerful
thing and will the world be different
that day? I think what we've all kind of
agreed on is it probably won't. These
things really have to be integrated into
people's lives. Uh they have to be felt
and that that change is more gradual.
So, I actually am kind of curious to
hear your perspective on this because it
is a little bit of a re more I think
more realistic pullback on this notion
that this takeoff and intelligence
explosion is underway. And it was kind
of interesting to hear light cap give
the different um p the opposite
perspective of what the CEO shared a
week before in a blog post. What what do
you make of this? Well, I don't think
like again I don't think anybody can
actually know, right? I mean, if if you
do get to some you do sort of end up
it's there's some threshold or
breakthrough. I don't know. Maybe it's
possible, but like nobody knows if that
will or even could happen. So, I mean, I
think Sam has always talked about this
like is it a fast is it a long runway
and then a fast takeoff or a short
whatever. But it I think he's always
sort of said it's going to be it's going
to be this gradual thing. And that's how
technology usually develops. Like it
doesn't doesn't usually just quickly
take off. there's like adoption that has
to happen everything. I think in this
scenario it's like you're not you're not
even talking about technology anymore.
You're talking about like some some
future thing that might be created. Um I
mean who knows? I I I tend to agree that
it's not going to be this this is not
going to be some fast takeoff thing, but
I I don't really know. I think a lot of
these people like the thing to remember
about AI is like you could like there's
lots of people who have predicted like
all of this happening with AI. They've
like predicted it up to this point but
like they never had any actual evidence.
They just saw basically like as compute
increased the availability of compute
increased the capabilities went up. But
along the way there all these genius
people who who came up with like lots of
breakthroughs that just like gradually
improved the technology but you can't
you couldn't have predicted those
breakthroughs right so I think they're
just looking at that graph and they're
going well at some point right like at
some point it just keeps going and then
you get to this thing that's just you
know that that that is super
intelligence or AGI or whatever whatever
you want to call it. Yeah. They also
asked him like whether his kids are
going to be have more uh AI friends than
human friends. And I think that if we
continue on the curve, um it's pretty
obvious that people are going to have
some serious AI uh companionship. And
the interesting push back there was
first of all he said more human friends.
Altman said this. Um but lightcap also
made a um an effort to talk about this
idea that like yes people have been led
astray by their AI companions but the uh
by and large the impact has been quite
good uh on net and this is an
interesting moment where we're starting
to see openai and other labs like uh
anthropic push back on this idea that AI
companions and emotional support bots
are bad for you and this isn't exclusive
that uh that anthropic gave gave to
Axios and the news is quite interesting.
So the the headline is how Claude became
an emotional support bot. Uh the story
says people who talk to anthropics uh
Claude chatbot about emotional issues
tend to grow more positive as the
conversation unfolds and Anthropic uh
released new research that explores how
users turn it to its chatbot for support
and connection and what happens what
they do. The report says, "We find that
when people come in come to Claude for
interpersonal advice, they're often
navigating transitional moments,
figuring out their next career move,
working through personal growth, or
untangling romantic relationships. Um,
and the report found evidence that users
don't necessarily turn to chat bots
deliberately looking for companionship
or love, but the conversations kind of
go that way. And on net, the company
says that this stuff uh is positive.
curious what you think about the
findings and the this sort of it feels
like a coordinated PR moment between the
two although it certainly isn't uh to
say hey actually it's fine to be friends
with your chatbot well I yeah I think
it's probably generally positive but
then of course you're there's all these
stories I think there was one in the New
York Times the other day about what
they're responding to yeah yeah like
horrible things have happened and you
know so you're always going to be able
to find anecdotal uh you know like
stories where people like it all went
really bad. Um, but I think yeah, I mean
in general like I mean just talking is
helpful, right? Like just talking to the
mirror is probably helpful for for a lot
of people. So, you know, and and and
human communication is like ultimately
like not that complicated. Like you can,
you know, you could read there's like
literally manuals about how to like, you
know, sort of like make people feel
good. And no, I think it's totally pos
it's it's probably going to be totally
positive. I the other night I was like
trying to write about some really
complicated thing and I was like brains
I was like asking Gemini questions about
it and it's like that's a brilliant
question.
Did you did you feel a flutter read?
Yeah. I was like I was like this chat
that's cool. I like this ch finally
somebody understands.
So, you know, it's like not that hard.
And I'm like laughing at myself as I'm
writing it that I'm like I'm like, "Oh,
my question was smart." And I think, you
know, we're just not that complic I
think humans are just not that
complicated. Like, you just talk to
anything. We had something when when we
were kids, like on the Mac, there was
like this chatbot that was basically
like, you know, pretending to be AI and
just had a bunch of a bunch it was just
keyword triggers basically, right? But
like even that like people loved talking
to it. So not surprising me. I mean have
you had a conversation with Chatt's
voice mode recently?
Yeah I've tal Yeah, I use that. I've
used that a lot. Really good. Really? I
was walking down the street and had I
was speaking to it on my AirPods and I
was just like wow I'm having like a
really good conversation no latency with
this bot and I'm just doing this in
public. It's it it felt weird but also I
was like this is very cool technology
also. It is really cool actually. It's
great when you're driving and like the
thing I think Google just recently added
this ability to do search with voice or
something. There's voice with search cuz
the down like the the chat bots for some
reason are never connected to the web.
So you're just limited to the cuto off
date and they're usually not the most
powerful models but like I mean you're
in New York so you don't drive as like I
seem to be driving a lot and if I'm in
the car alone like I just to I want to
like do I want to it's productive like I
just want to I'm like going driving to
interview somebody and I just want to
like talk about that and brainstorm
questions and stuff like that and I you
can do it but it's like very limited
still but I think voice is totally and
I'm not the first this is like a cliche
now to say this but I think voice is
totally going to be the the most you
know powerful mode I think yeah I think
it's the killer app for sure especially
when you could combine it with other
scents like if you have it in on your
glasses or airpods or something like
that all right we got to take a break
and then we have two uh more stories to
cover which I teased in the opening oh
my god we haven't even gotten to Mir
Marad yet we're going to blow through
three very quick stories on the other
side of this break and we're back here
on Big Technology Podcast with Reed
Alberg. He's the technology editor at
Semaphore. Uh let's let's go lightning
through the rest of this week's stories.
We kind of got caught up in the
beginning of this conversation which was
which was great good conversation. Great
conversation I would say. Feel free to
cut half of it out. I will not be No,
no, it stays. It stays. Oh, and before
we get going on this, I meant to say
this before the break. Thanks to
everybody who raided the show over the
past week. You heard the call. we
appreciate you and this is going to make
the show better, get better guests. Uh
so I need to express my gratitude there
and so thank you very much. Okay, so
let's talk about this quickly. OpenAI
has built an uh uh rival to uh Google
Workspace and Microsoft Office. This is
according to Bloomberg. OpenAI has been
gearing up to take on Google and
Microsoft with features that let people
collaborate on documents and communicate
with chat via chat GPT. Launching these
features will put OpenAI more directly
against Microsoft, its biggest
shareholder and business partner, as
well as open a new front in the battle
uh with Google, whose search engine has
already lost traffic to people using
chat GPT for web searches. I don't even
know if the second part of that is true,
but I think the real significance here
is um is well, I don't I don't know if
Google's absolute traffic has gone down,
but it certainly might must have lost
some searches to chat GPT. I think the
big thing here is that this could
potentially be a new front uh in the
OpenAI Microsoft battle that just seems
to be heating up every week. What's your
take on this, Reed? Well, that battle
has gotten really nasty, but I actually
think and it's like ultimately it's like
about chips, which is like so
fascinating or that's what started the
whole thing. But I think actually I mean
don't forget OpenAI has a a bitter
rivalry with Google too and that seems
to me to be more competitive with Google
Docs than with with Word. Don't you
think? Or am I just misunderstanding the
whole thing? Well, I think you see the
direction that Word is trying to go
which is going to be more AI enabled.
But you're right. I think the
collaborative side of things like when
you think collaborative doc you think
Google doc. Yeah. I think it's Google
Docs. I mean, I don't think like the
thing about Word and Office and all this
stuff is like it's not like that's not
who they're competitive with because
it's it's the companies buy these
bundles of of Office products and that's
how people end up using that. Whereas
Google Docs is much more like the a you
know it's just like I mean they have
obviously a lot of corporate accounts
too but it's like really just a purely
consumer product I think and that's what
that's what like I you know if OpenAI
makes a better you know a better Google
doc because Google is you know maybe a
little bit shy about like you know
rolling out AI agent technology in its
docs. Um that could be kind of an
interesting battle I think. Look, as
someone who's using uh these programs
all the time, I'd like to see something
new. Uh but yeah, I think the
competitive dynamics are interesting.
You mentioned that uh the OpenAI and
Microsoft battle is really over chips.
Can you just kind of elaborate on that
before we move to our next topic? Well,
the whole thing started because like
Microsoft wasn't able to build, you
know, enough data centers fast enough
with enough GPUs or didn't want to or
what, you know, and that and so OpenAI
is like, well, we need to get out of
our, you know, we need to get out of
this exclusive arrangement and we have
to use, you know, and then they built
this, they did this Oracle Stargate
thing, right? Um, and it's just been
back and forth since then, I think. Is
Stargate going to work?
Well, that's interesting. That's an
interesting question. I hadn't really
thought like, is it going to work? I
mean, that could mean so that question
could have so many different meanings.
Like, what do you mean? Is it can they
actually build it once they build it? Is
are is the AI going to scale? Um, is it
going to be one data center? Yeah, let's
go to the most basic level. Do you think
this thing is actually going to get
built? Well, I think some version of it
will be built for sure. Actually,
Bloomberg got like an exclusive tour of
the site. They're they're, you know,
they've broken ground. Um, but I I don't
even know like, yeah, what are the chips
going to be in there? I think it's my my
guess is like, yeah, it will be built,
but like is it going to be some huge
thing that then they like train AGI on?
I I think it's probably going to be like
multiple sites and that are connected
and a lot of it's going to be inference
rather than training. Um because
ultimately if you're open AI
like they're so their value is so much
now just the fact that they are the
consumer interface for AI for so many
people most of their revenue is coming
from consumer and that's like you know
the the ultimately the the models are
not even really going to be their their
core product right it's going to be the
it's going to be all the stuff built
around it the interfaces and the the
stickiness of the product. So really
inference becomes this huge cost for
them and I think that's what they're
sort of looking at. It's like they have
to you know of course they're still
trying to build the best models etc but
but you know they need to think about
building their own data centers and
reducing the cost as much as possible.
Yeah. Well they're going to have to find
a way to also make those models much
more efficient. So um let me ask you
this before we move on. I this is like
one of those topics that we start
talking about and we can never get out
of but I think it's fine because it's
interesting. We made our predictions
last week on what happens with the
OpenAI Microsoft partnership. What do
you think is going to happen?
What do you think is going to like with
the partnership event? I think
eventually they drift. I think they
drift apart. I mean I think that's
Microsoft just gets a stake and says
have a nice day. They'll Yeah. Well,
whether I don't even know what that
stake ends up being because right now
it's like a revenue sharing agreement up
to a certain amount of profit, you know,
and then they and then they have nothing
left. I mean, could be something like
that. It could be they end up owning
shares of the company, but you know,
they'll it just seems like there's
they in a lot of ways they've already
kind of separated,
you know, that's true in my mind. What
was your predict? Did you I didn't hear
your prediction. Well, in order to go to
the for-profit conversion, OpenAI is
going to have to um get sign off from
Microsoft uh to do that. And so, I think
that Microsoft will use that leverage
very effectively and get an amazing deal
out of OpenAI because without that, it's
going to be hard for this company to
sustain itself.
Well, yeah, I think that's totally true.
Although, I don't know what's happening
with this for-profit. I mean, they have
this lawsuit. They've sort of they sort
of said they're going to not do that
now, but maybe,
you know, still will do it. I mean, what
that's that that's going to be super
complicated. I don't know if they can
even get there. Yeah, I know. I mean, we
could we could uh it's just the amount
of corporate drama within OpenAI. I
mean, obviously because of the way they
were formed, um I don't think we'll ever
go away. I think it will always just be
there with them. And they there's no
neat way to tie up the type of business
that they have. And by the way, speaking
of their drama, we have some news this
week that their former chief technology
officer is starting to speak to people
about what she intends to do with her
multi-billion dollar uh AI lab. Of
course, I'm talking about Mera Morati,
the former CTO of Open AI. She's raised
2 billion at a 10. Yeah. 2 billion at a
$10 billion valuation. Hasn't built a
product. Uh but what they're trying to
do, this is uh according to Bloomberg,
is use forms of reinforcement learning
um to uh help AI models to reward AI
models for accomplishing certain goals
and penalties for other behaviors. Uh
and they're trying to reinforce uh key
performance indicators which typically
relate to revenue or profit growth. uh
that typically employees within
companies drive to. So they're going to
reinforce the KPIs of human employees uh
except they won't be employees, they're
going to be bots. So they're going to
take this like new reinforcement a
relatively new reinforcement learning
paradigm uh and then just apply that to
business AI users. Do you think it's
going to work?
Well, that doesn't sound actually
differentiated to me from like what
other people are doing. I mean, I think
that's it's RL for business. RL for
business. That's what they're call. I
mean, this is like total this is like
what so many so many of these companies
are doing now. I don't think to me that
sort of makes makes me think I'm like so
why don't you have a product at this
point? I mean, it's you could sort of
you could be building that, you know,
you could have already built stuff right
in that in that vein. I think it's
probably the the the hardest part of
that is is probably data. They're having
to go gather a lot of data themselves,
proprietary data. Um,
and then I think of And then I think
what Facebook did or what Meta did with,
you know, basically sort of acquiring
non-acquiring scale AI, which is like
the, you know, known for going out and
gathering all this data. Um, not just
labeling, but like creating data. And
I'm like, this is that's going to be a
really tough slog for a startup. I mean,
I think they've they've they've got
their work cut out for them for sure,
unless they're consultants, and maybe
that's what they're going to be because
they're going to be working in fields
like customer service, investment
banking, and retail according to the
story. So maybe they are just like tech-
enabled consultants where they come into
your off your Yeah. They come into your
office and they build you some form of
LLM, whether that is a salesperson or
support or finance. You have all your
data inside the company. They have some
set of like base foundational model that
they build off of open source and they
replace maybe the Mckenzies of the
world. It doesn't seem like it's going
to be much more than a consulting
company though.
Yeah. So then what's the valuation? I
mean 10 billion.
No big deal. Yeah. I mean I don't know.
I mean, I think that's a tough that's a
tough one. I mean, that's basically
that's what a lot of these companies are
kind of doing like Palunteer and Yeah,
it feels like a like an AI pal AI for
business Palunteer to me. Right. Right.
It doesn't feel differentiated to me. It
it seems like that just seems like what
so many people are trying to do. But
again, it's I don't I feel like
commenting on this is like I don't
really have that much original reporting
on this. So, like to me it's kind of
just you're just that's such a vague
description of what they're doing that
it's like really hard to tell. Like it
could just I I think it could be could
be something totally different. I want
to know what the what the she's the CTO
but what's Ilia doing at his Oh, so Dwar
was here. Yeah. So Daresh was here a
couple weeks ago and he said that
basically what Elilia is trying to do is
uh test time learning uh basically
models that learn in the inference point
so they can be continuously improving.
Um I think that's a pretty good guess
and if he's able to pull it off it
definitely will push the field forward
in a big way. Uh but it's a big if that
is yeah that is super interesting. I
also wonder again like back to like sort
of OpenAI being the consumer, they're
now sort of this consumer um they're the
Kleenex of chat bots if you will. I mean
like the mo like how much money is there
in building these models like they're so
I mean they're so easily copied it seems
like that you know if you're just doing
AI research and you make like a
breakthrough like that that's really
about like technique and you know how
long can you hold on to that IP before
you know anthropic has it or Google you
know Google's probably are Google
probably has a project where they're
just doing that right somewhere in the
company so Yeah, that's going to be a
tough slo too. I think a lot of these
companies are it's it's it's they got
their work cut out for them. Definitely.
But Reed, imagine that he does get there
first and kind of hold that over the
industry for a while and then all of a
sudden Ilia becomes the most powerful
person in AI
could be a very interesting plot twist.
How does he hold it over the industry? I
mean because they don't have it. But
who's who serves it? Like does it be is
it an API that you buy from them? Do
they is it is it sold through the the
hyperscalers through the clouds
like well it's going to be super
intelligence so seems like all the uh
all the questions about business go away
once you build a super intelligence.
Yeah, I think again when this stuff
launches, right, then you see, okay,
like what is the product? Like how, you
know, do people like using it? Is it,
you know, I I just think it's so I mean,
you have the most brilliant people in
the world, but like who would have
thought like I nobody could have
predicted Open AI would be would would
be the consumer, you know, consumer that
everybody surprising. I mean, it's Yeah.
And it h I mean, it happened like almost
by accident. I just think and then I
think Sam very brilliantly jumped on it,
saw saw what they had created and and
you know and it's like okay this is what
we're doing. Um but you know it almost
happened by accident and I think I don't
know the these they're going to have to
do something like that but it's like
they better hurry because this market is
becoming like really crowded and and
competitive and the the lanes are being
defined like if they aren't already I
think so. Well, the lanes are being
defined in the self-driving car
industry. I sorry, I couldn't help but
jump on that. We must get this out.
Tesla self-driving. It started uh
they're they are in the lanes. They're
going in wrong lanes. They're going in
the right lanes. Um this is this is all
true, by the way. I'm not lying here. Uh
Tesla's robo taxi service in Austin is
live. There are 10 vehicles and a human
safety driver on board. though the
safety driver sits in the passenger
seat. I couldn't tell if there was a
break in the videos that I had had
watched. Uh but these things are uh on
the road. They cost a flat $4.20 fee. Uh
aka they are definitely Elon Musk's robo
taxis. Um very quickly, there's been
some safety concerns. Uh I watched one
video and this is highlighted again by
Bloomberg which seems to be the star
publication outside of Semour on this
show. They're doing a lot of good
reporting. You guys are doing great
reporting. They do. Um, a lot of good
stuff to read. But there's a video that
they they link by this investor Rob Mau.
I think his handle is like Tesla podcast
or something. And you see the car like
wanting to go make a turn, but it
decides against it. So, it like drives
in like the in a in in the into incoming
a lane of incoming traffic and then
zigsit way over a yellow line. Like
obviously it's not like it ain't
perfect. Let's put it that way. Um,
there's some other complaints that the
Tesla is speeding. This is kind of like
whole monitor stuff. Like it's doing 39
and it was a 35 mph speed limit. These
things are out of control. Uh but that's
not as big of a deal to me. No, people
would be complaining more if it was
doing 35 and they were stuck. Look at
these granny Tesla cars.
No, I did see the video of the of the
going in across the lane into oncoming
traffic and yeah, I mean it was
definitely it was definitely a mistake.
It was definitely a screw up, but
nothing that you wouldn't see, I think,
from I mean, even these Whimos sometimes
will do screwy things and but ultimately
like, you know, they didn't hit any
pedestrians. They didn't get in any
accidents. I think, you know, in the
end, I I think it was a pretty
successful launch. What do you think?
Yeah, I mean, I I watched the video and
I mean, look, the thing is, this is the
thing with all tech. If it works 95% of
the way, that's not good enough. works
99.5% of the way. That's not good enough
in self-driving cars. So, um things have
been fine so far. Uh but it definitely
has we need to see a lot more to decide
whether or not this was this is going to
really work for them. If it works,
obviously it's a major major boon uh for
the company. And certainly from the
videos, it looked a lot like the Whimo
experience. You get in, the car is
driving itself. Um they have some
predetermined routes. There are tea
operators. So there are some shortcuts
being taken so far and there is there
are people that are part of this you
know peopleless driving experience but I
think yeah it's important there they are
off to the races. They're going to get
they're going to get moving. They're
going to get data and um I don't know I
I'm my fingers are crossed that they
pull it off and pull it off safely. Uh
but I think it's too early early to
tell. Yeah. I mean, of course, I you
know, you can't whatever you think of
Elon, like you you should definitely
hope that these companies pull this off
because they are absolutely safer than
than human drivers. But you're you're
totally right. Like it's it has to get
to basically 100% or like 99s or
whatever because if it doesn't I mean we
saw what happened with Cruz, right? Like
you screw up and and Uber with their
thing. I mean you screw up once and like
that could just end the whole thing. I
think if you're Whimo, you almost have
to worry about Tesla because it's like,
well, if they if Tesla screws up. I
mean, they the cruise thing sort of blew
over, maybe they'll be fine, but like it
definitely makes people think more about
the safety. It's really ironic this this
technology that like the proponents of
it argue that it's great for safety and
the opponents of it are also arguing
about safety. So, it's like both sides
are want these things either on the
roads or off the roads for the same
reason. And but there but the studies
are like I mean if millions of miles
with a 100% increase in in safety in
terms of like bodily harm. Oh yeah. Mhm.
So it's like I mean the Whimos in San
Francisco are you know they're just
taking over. Yeah. And it's just a
smooth safe ride. It's unbelievable.
Totally. It's much it's it's nice to not
I mean I don't know this sounds bad but
like you know you have privacy right
like there's no driver there. I've had
plenty of great nice conversations with
Uber drivers and lift drivers but it's
like it's nice to just sit there you
know with maybe your with your kids and
you're having a conversation or
something and it's you know it's it's a
good experience too but mainly it's just
improving safety. Tesla's taking a much
more difficult road because they're
doing it only with cameras. You know
that I think
That to me makes it and and it's like
general per they're really ultimately
trying to get to like level five
autonomy whereas Whimo is like we're
just going to build like this this like
geo fenced area where it's like
meticulously mapped and we know
everything that's going to happen. So I
think I think Tesla's ultimately like a
more ambitious
plan in the long run but it also might
be you know it might be a longer a
longer time till they get there. Do you
think Whimo is still meticulously
mapped, you know, the same way that they
did in all the test environments because
they've been expanding rapidly?
Well, yeah. I mean, I think I think
they're still using mapping. I mean, I
could be wrong. They're moving more and
more toward these like general purpose
like transformer-based models, I think.
But yeah, I think they're still doing
the way they scale to these places is I
think they do, you know, I think they've
probably automated a lot of the process,
but I still think it's kind of like a
car on on a track on a digital track and
it's, you know, and that's how you
that's how you get to 100% safety. I
mean, yeah, there's nothing is left a
chance and and even then you see them
screw up sometimes, but yeah, you know,
well, you know, Google was able to map
so many of the roads in the world that
maybe they'll just be able to do that
and bring autonomy that way. I mean, the
one thing nice thing about the physical
world is it's finite. So, get all the
roads, figure it out, and then maybe you
can, you know, make this thing really
work at a high degree of safety all over
the world. I think. Yeah. I mean, for
sure. I mean, a million people a year
die in auto accidents.
And so unnecessary. Yeah. It's crazy.
It's almost It almost makes you wonder.
It's like focusing on like like a little
error on day one when they're testing
this stuff or like 39 and 35 is like is
that really I don't know. Should you
really be focusing so much on that? Like
I think there's a lot of anti- Elon
stuff that sort of I think seeps into
the into the coverage of this stuff
unfortunately. It just hard to do as a
reporter like you you know it's hard to
take your to take the emotion out of the
reporting but I think it does kind of
seep in. Don't you think? Oh definitely.
I mean we also know that Elon is running
a much trickier uh program. So then the
mistakes will be magnified but yeah
probably there's some of that as well.
All right, let's end this week running
through as I promised. If you're still
with us, the reward is here. Okay, we're
going to reinforce the Bezos wedding
guests. Attending Jeff Bezos's wedding
to Lauren Sanchez in uh Venice, Italy
will be Kim Kardashian, uh Madonna, MC
Jagger, Leonardo DiCaprio, Orlando
Bloom, uh Microsoft founder Bill Gates,
Diane Van Fenberg, and Barry Diller, and
then of course TBD on uh Katy Perry. big
protests in Venice. So, um, apparently
the arrivals have been moved from like a
more public area to a more uh secure
area, but the city of Venice has
defended the nuptuals, probably not
because they got any money from the
Bezos to do this. Um, but they've
defended the nuptuals as keeping with
Venice's traditions as an open city that
has welcomed popes, emperors, and
ordinary visitors alike for centuries.
Jeff Bezos Sanchez. He would be um I
think maybe between Pope and Emperor. I
don't know. Where do you put him? Maybe
more on the emperor side. Yeah,
definitely more emperor than pope for
sure.
Well, look, here on Big Technology
Podcast, we we celebrate love. So, Jeff
and Lauren, I'm sure you're listening on
your special weekend. And uh from us to
you, we say congratulations.
Congrats. How many weddings have you
covered on this show? Just out of
curiosity. Uh, this is probably the
first, but um, I'm very, very happy to
be doing it. And no, no, no, sorry. This
is the second. And, uh, the first batch
were people getting married to their,
uh, AI bots. So, Oh, right. Right.
Finally, a human wedding here on Big
Technology Podcast. The future has
arrived. Popes, emperors, every way in
the world. We exactly
the whole deal. Reed, uh, before we
jump, please, uh, shout out where people
can find your work and how to get, uh,
the Seaphore technology newsletter.
Yeah, please. Yeah. Uh, you know, go to
go to semaphore.com, check out the
technology newsletter. It's free. Um, I
promise you'll like it. Comes out twice
twice twice a week. And, um, yeah, find
me on X and H pretty much just that. I'm
not a huge social media guy. Okay. All
right, Reed. Great to see you as always.
And uh and thank you again. Thank you
everybody uh for listening. And I will
be back on Wednesday with an interview
with Noah Smith aka Noah Opinion. He is
a Substack uh economics writer. We're
going to talk about whether AI is really
um taking our job. So we're going to get
ahead of that anthropic report and we
hope to see you then. Thanks for
listening and we'll see you next time on
Big Technology Podcast.