Tech Brew Ride Home - Fri. 05/17 – Reddit Embraces Its AI Role

Starting point is 00:00:00 On April 4th, 2023, around 2 in the morning, a man was found stabbed multiple times on a sidewalk in downtown San Francisco. Hey, who did this to you? What happened next turned the story into a political firestorm. Reports have identified the victim as Bob Lee, the founder of Cash App. From Bloomberg Podcasts, this is Foundering, the Killing of Bob Lee, beginning April 16. Welcome to the Tech meme right home for Friday, May 17th, 2024. I'm Brian McCullough today. As telegraphed for the last year, Reddit is going all in on being an all-you-can-eat buffet for AI companies. Will new batteries give iPhones longer battery life like I want, or will they just make the phones thinner again?

Starting point is 00:00:50 A subtle but important improvement to chat GPT and in the long reads, a deep dive into what happened at Cruise. Here's what you missed today in the world of tech. Open AI and Reddit are partnering to bring Reddit content to chat GPT. via Reddit's data API. This deal also brings new AI tools to Reddit and makes OpenAI a Reddit ad partner, quoting Reuters. The deal underscores Reddit's attempt to diversify beyond its advertising business and follows its recent partnership with Alphabet to make its content available for training Google's AI models. Ahead of Reddit's March IPO, Reuters reported that Reddit struck its deal with Alphabet worth about $60 million per year. Investors view selling its

Starting point is 00:01:35 data to train AI models as a key source of revenue beyond Reddit's advertising business. The social media company earlier this month reported strong revenue growth and improving profitability in the first earnings since its market debut, indicating that its Google deal and its push to grow its ads business were paying off. Reddit's shares rose 10.5% to $62.31 after the bell. As of Wednesday's close, the stock is up nearly 12% since its market debut in March, end quote. And quoting the verge. Redditors have been vocal about how Reddits executives manage the platform before, and it remains to be seen how they'll react to this announcement. More than 7,000 subreddits went dark in June 2023 after users protested Reddits changes to its API pricing.

Starting point is 00:02:17 Recently, following news of a partnership between OpenAI and the programming messaging board stack overflow, people were suspended after trying to delete their posts there. No financial terms were revealed in the blog post announcing the arrangement, and neither company mentioned training data either. detail is different from the deal with Google, where Reddit explicitly stated it would give Google, quote, more efficient ways to train models. There is, however, a disclosure mentioning that OpenAI's CEO Sam Altman is also a shareholder in Reddit, but that, quote, this partnership was led by OpenAI's C.O. And approved by its independent board of directors, end quote. We have a date for the launch of Grand Theft Auto 6. Kind of. Well, actually, not really at all. Quoting the verge. In Take 2's

Starting point is 00:03:07 Q4-2020-rearnings report. The company stated when gamers can expect the next entry in the GTA series. What was previously a nebulous calendar year 2025 for Grand Theft Auto 6 is now a more specific but still a bit vague fall 2025. Quoting this paragraph from the earnings report, as we enter fiscal 2025 with positive momentum, we expect to deliver netbookings of $5.55 to $5.65 billion. Our outlook reflects a narrowing of rocksts. Game's previous established window of calendar 2285 to fall of calendar 2025 for Grand Theft Auto 6. We are highly confident that Rockstar Games will deliver an unparalleled entertainment experience and our expectations for the commercial impact of the title continue to increase, end quote.

Starting point is 00:03:53 In other GTA-related news, the company reported that GTA 5 has sold 200 million copies, a staggering feat making the game the second best-selling title of all time, but still 100 million copies short of the number one entry, Minecraft. quote. Ming Chi, Quo says Apple will use higher energy density battery cells for iPhone 16 Pro Max and stainless steel battery cases for better replaceability, which is an EU requirement now. This is directly relevant to my longer battery life bigger devices rant, possibly, quoting Apple Insider. In his full post about the report on Medium, Quo says that this could mean a longer battery life. However, it could also mean the same battery life if Apple has decided to use.

Starting point is 00:04:43 a smaller battery. Seemingly based on information from his sources in the supply chain, Quo says that Apple is redesigning the battery to use a stainless steel case. Reportedly, stainless steel is poorer at dissipating heat than aluminum, but is stronger. Consequently, Quo says that the new case will provide better protection for the battery and for the iPhone as a whole. Plus, this new battery case design is said to make it easier to remove the battery, which is to help Apple comply with EU requirements. Quo says that it is solely the iPhone 16 Pro Max that will get this new battery, but the intention is that it will then be used throughout the lineup in 2025's iPhone 17 range. This report may back up a claimed leak in November 2023, although that was said to be for the iPhone 16 Pro.

Starting point is 00:05:26 Photographs in the purported leak showed the same J-shaped battery as in the current model, but it appeared to be in case in what was described as a frosted metal shell. Separately, a dubious rumor in February 2024 claimed that there was to be a redesign. battery for the iPhone 16 Plus. However, in this case, it was specifically claimed that the battery life of the phone would be reduced, end quote. OpenAI says chat GPT can now directly import files from Google Drive and Microsoft OneDrive, available now to Plus Team and Enterprise users. Quoting Venturebeat, users can find the new integration by clicking the tiny paperclip icon to the left of their prompt slash text entry bar at the bottom of the chat GPT default interface on desktop. You'll need to grant access from your Microsoft OneDrive or Google Drive accounts in order to make use of the feature.

Starting point is 00:06:19 But once you do, you can select a range of file types, including spreadsheets, presentations, and documents to import directly into ChatGPT. Then OpenAI has updated the ChatGPT interface to allow you to see spreadsheet files in particular in a full-screen view, and with an interactive interface showing any changes you make to them using the underlying AI model in real time. Once you're finished, you can also download a copy. of your chat GPT edited spreadsheet or document directly from the chat GPT interface. As OpenAI writes on its blog, you can now customize and interact with bar, line, pie, and scatter plot charts in the conversation. Hover over chart elements, ask additional questions or select colors. When ready, download to use in presentations or documents, end quote. For privacy-minded users, open AI notes in its

Starting point is 00:07:06 blog that, quote, we don't train on data from chat GPT team and enterprise customers, and chat GPT plus users can opt out of training through their data controls, which are available in the settings menu, end quote. X has officially adopted X.com for all of its core systems, but testing shows some Twitter.com URLs still do not redirect depending on the browser and login status, quoting the verge. The social network formerly known as Twitter has officially adopted X.com for all its core systems. That means typing Twitter.com in your browser will now redirect to Elon Musk's favored domain, or should. At the time of publication, we're seeing a mix of results depending on browser choice and whether you're logged in or not. A message now also appears at the bottom of

Starting point is 00:07:57 the X login page that reads, we are letting you know that we are changing our URL, but your privacy and data protection settings remain the same. The domain transition has been one of the more awkward aspects of Elon Musk's move to rebrand the company, although many aspects of X migrated to the new branding long ago, including its official account, its mobile apps, and its X premium F-K-A-Blue subscriptions, the platform's URLs have remained Twitter.com ever since Musk officially initiated the switch to X. The URLs started to change way back in August of last year when some Verge staffers were able to copy X.com links from the share sheet inside of X's iOS app. The clumsy transition has been a gift to fishing attacks, said Brian Crabs last month. Musk has a long history with the

Starting point is 00:08:39 X.com URL, launching a business under that name in 1999 that eventually merged with what would become PayPal for this modern-day version of the company Musk envisions that it will become a we-chat-like-everything app. Maybe, but one thing's for sure, it's not Twitter anymore, end quote. Time for the weekend long-read suggestions, and first up, I can't do better than this lead to this fortune piece I'm about to tell you about. In a single night, self-driving startup cruise went from sizzling startup to cautionary tale. Here's what really happened and how GM is scrambling to save its $10 billion bet. Quoting from the piece, An exhaustive internal investigation reconstructed nearly every detail of the accident,

Starting point is 00:09:26 but it couldn't clear up exactly what Cruz's remote assistance team saw that evening. One thing is certain. The incident, while not fatal, was the most serious in Cruz's history, and it immediately thrusts the Robo Taxi Company and its 80% owner, General Motors, into a spiral of federal scrutiny and investigations as well as public outrage and condemnation. Before the end of October 2023, regulators were alleged, that Cruz had withheld important details of the incident from them. California's Department of Motor Vehicles had rescinded Cruz's operational permit, leading crews to voluntarily pull its vehicles off the streets across the U.S.

Starting point is 00:09:59 GM, which had largely let the company run independently, despite its close communication with senior leadership and operations, swept in to replace nearly all of Cruz's management, shuffle up its board, and lay off nearly a quarter of its almost 4,000 employees in a bid to salvage Cruz's reputation and preserve the more than $10 billion that GM has plowed into the company over the last eight years. Cruise, once a crown jewel of General Motors CEO, Cruise Chair, Mary Barras' broader strategy to rival electric competitor Tesla, suddenly had become an outsized liability, just as General Motors was simultaneously

Starting point is 00:10:32 trying to manage the six-week union strike by workers of the Big Three U.S. automakers that was threatening its business. Those labor strikes were unprecedented, but the revelations around Cruz's back and forth with regulators were also unnerving GM shareholders. As a financial analyst put it during GM's first earnings call that mentioned Cruz's permit being revoked, the company's handling of the whole debacle was very un-GM-like. I agree with you, Barrer responded. It was uncharacteristic, and it definitely is something that we're working to manage well. But unlike a startup that implodes and then closes its doors, GM is unfurling the full force of a Fortune 500 giant to resuscitate the project, whereas GM had previously taken

Starting point is 00:11:08 more of a backseat approach with Cruz. It is now intimately hands-on in its subsidiaries day-to-day and in the sensitive task of rolling cruise robotaxies back onto the streets. To report this story, Fortune spoke with 11 former cruise employees or contract workers in addition to cruise investors, analysts, and San Francisco politicians. Fortune also interviewed Cruz's newly appointed chief safety officer, Steve Kenner. What is clear, the moves GM and Cruz's new leadership team make next will be a roadmap of how a giant corporation can rescue an innovative startup or be driven off course trying to save it, end quote.

Starting point is 00:11:44 Then one of the areas, the combination of AI and robotics has people excited are for things like education of young children and elder care. On the elder care front, MIT technology review looks at how cuddly robots could change dementia care. Quote, as robots go, golden pup is decidedly low tech. It retails for $140. For around $6,000, you can opt for Perro, a fluffy robotic baby seal developed in Japan, which can sense touch, light, sound, temperature, and posture. Its manufacturer says it develops its own character, remembering behaviors that led its owner to give it attention. Golden Pup and Paro are available now, but researchers are working on much more sophisticated robots for people with cognitive disorders, devices that leverage AI to converse and play games.

Starting point is 00:12:34 Researchers from Indiana University Bloomington are tweaking a commercially available robot system called QT, to serve people with dementia and Alzheimer's. The researcher's two-foot-tall robot looks a little like a toddler in an astronaut suit. Its round white head holds a screen that displays two eyebrows, two eyes and a mouth that together form a variety of expressions. The robot engages people in conversation, asking AI-generated questions to keep them talking. The AI model they're using isn't perfect, and neither are the robot's responses. In one awkward conversation, a study participant told the the robot that she had a sister. I'm sorry to hear that. The robot responded. How are you doing? But as large language models improve, which is happening already, so will the quality of the

Starting point is 00:13:14 conversations. When the QT robot made that awkward comment, it was running OpenAIs GPD3, which was released in 2020. The latest version of that model, GBT40, which was released this week, is faster and provides more seamless conversations. You can now interrupt the conversation, and the model will adjust. The idea of using robots to keep dementia patients engaged and connected isn't always an easy cell. Some people see it as an abdication of our social responsibilities. And then there are privacy concerns. The best robotic companions are personalized. They collect information about people's lives, learn their likes and dislikes, and figure out when to approach them. That kind of data collection can be unnerving, not just for patients but for medical staff.

Starting point is 00:13:54 Lillian Hung, creator of the innovation in dementia care and aging or idea lab at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada, told one reporter about an incident that happened during a focus group at a care facility. She and her colleagues popped out for lunch. When they returned, they found the staff had unplugged the robot and placed a bag over its head. They were worried it was secretly recording them, she said. On the other hand, robots have some advantages over humans in talking to people with dementia. Their attention doesn't flag. They don't get annoyed or angry when they have to repeat themselves. They can't get stressed. What's more, there are increasing numbers of people with dementia and too few people to care for them. According to the latest report

Starting point is 00:14:31 from the Alzheimer's Association. We're going to need more than a million additional care workers to meet the needs of people living with dementia between 2021 and 2031. That is the largest gap between labor supply and demand for any single occupation in the United States, end quote. And finally, Sherwood News has a piece up that is absolutely full of great graphs and charts. We talk about the freeze these last few years has had on IPOs. IPOs, of course, create more publicly traded companies that mainstream investors can get a piece of, not just insiders and early investors. Frankly, publicly traded investable companies are an increasingly scarce resource. In 1996, there were more than 8,000 publicly listed companies on U.S. stock markets. Today, there are just

Starting point is 00:15:15 4,642, a decrease of 43%. Why? Consolidation. Companies swallowing other companies in search of growth, and this includes our own tech industry, quote. Just a handful of giant financially powerful technology companies have snapped up literally hundreds of smaller firms since the late 90s. Data from Crunchbase shows that Google, Microsoft, Apple, Meta, Amazon, and Nvidia have together acquired an eye-watering 875 companies. Google, under its parent Alphabet, has been the most acquisitive. Alphabet gobbled up 263 companies eight more than Cloud Rival Microsoft, which has done 255 deals. Apple, Meta, and Amazon have all had similarly sized appetites while Invidia, the newest member of the Mag 7 has done relatively few deals,

Starting point is 00:15:59 requiring just 25 companies. Tesla has done just 10. Of those 800 and plus deals, lots were acquisitions of small companies, but many of them were not. YouTube, LinkedIn, Instagram, Fitbit, Whole Foods, double-click, Skype, Audible, GitHub, Beats Electronics, Zappos. Absent their acquisitions by the aforementioned tech behemists, they would almost certainly all be tradable stocks today, or at least knocking on the doors of the public markets. It's not impossible to imagine that some, YouTube and Instagram especially, could have posed a major competitive threat to their current parent firm if they were operating independently. It stands to reason that such competitive dynamics are a big part of the reason these

Starting point is 00:16:37 companies get purchased in the first place, even if execs don't characterize their thinking quite that explicitly. Mark Zuckerberg, for example, even went out of his way on an email chain to distance himself from any implication that they were buying Instagram, quote, to prevent them from competing with us in any way. The broader question is whether the calling of the public markets is a good thing or a bad thing. And of course, it really depends on where you stand. If you're a shareholder in meta, it's undoubtedly a good thing that it bought Instagram. If you're a company looking to place your digital advertisement, you probably would have been better off with an independent Instagram as an option outside the Zuckerverse.

Starting point is 00:17:11 If you're a consumer, you still have access to both, though it's likely there are some innovations in independent Instagram and slightly threatened Facebook wouldn't have been incentivized to come up with that you're missing out on. As for the economy as a whole, Santee recently co-authored a research paper looking at the potential effects of the drop in publicly traded stocks, suggesting that public companies are better than private equity firms at turning investment into higher revenues and innovations quantified via patent filings. It suggests the shrinking universe of publicly traded stocks might be a problem. The growth rates in the economy, Santee said, kind of depend on the existence of healthy public markets, end quote. No weekend bonus episodes for you this weekend, but some are coming down the pike, so either next

Starting point is 00:18:00 weekend or the week after. Until then, talk to you on Monday.

Tech Brew Ride Home - Fri. 05/17 – Reddit Embraces Its AI Role

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