Tech Time by Tim #31

Don Quixote and Discord Dalliances start us off this week, followed by a look at why you’ll likely be waiting a while for GPT-5. There’s also the latest hotness in the industrial sector to discuss. More story time after that, looking at IP geese that lay poison eggs but might also poison the pond. Last but not least, a look at the fine line between regulation and oppression when it comes to social media.

At A Glance

A quick overview of this week’s content.

·??????The Week that Was: Don Quixote And The Future Of UGC, Discord Dalliances

·??????Go, Go Gadget: Economies Of Scale, Industrial Sustainability

·??????Rules of Engagement: The IP Geese, Is It Regulation Or Oppression?

The Week that Was:

A look back at the tech world of the past week.

Don Quixote And The Future Of UGC:

We need to talk about Don Quixote. Don Quixote is a famous Spanish literary figure most well-known for charging at windmills. There are two major aspects to this, the conviction with which he charges, and the pointlessness of his crusade. To me, Nintendo is the Don Quixote of gaming. Amidst legitimate efforts to counteract theft , the company continues its maddening campaign against its most devoted fans .

Most companies would kill for this level of loyalty and passion for their properties, open-sourcing or otherwise streamlining their proprietary technologies to make things easier on modders . Not Nintendo, whose windmill is User Generated Content (UGC). The very nature and scope of which is dramatically mutating as AI literacy and adoption continue to increase.

Company Databricks’ move to release a large language model based on open-source data can be attributed to an understanding of this change. Not just enterprises, but individual power users are increasingly demanding model control and coming up with hyper-specific use cases such as AI support for ghost-writing songs . Sadly, this isn’t all sunshine and rainbows, as not every executive can understand and appreciate the difference between creators and their tools. LINK

Discord Dalliances And Issues of Verifiability:

A funny/unfortunate coincidence this past week. Discord proudly announced that it was increasing file upload size limits for free users from 8 to 25 megabytes . It less proudly announced that it was cooperating with the FBI regarding the Pentagon leaks. Digging a little deeper, some anonymous members of the group claimed that the alleged culprit behind these leaks uploaded images as a means of verification. Supposedly, the leaker felt like his claims on military matters weren’t taken seriously, so he decided to show ‘proof.’

Indeed, whilst it makes for a catchy headline to say that Russia is trying to infiltrate gaming communities , a more pressing issue, and much more worrisome trend, is sloppy and/or frustrated insiders saving them the trouble. This brings us back to Twitter…or at least it would if Twitter still existed in the legal sense. It’s been absorbed into Elon Musk’s ‘X-Corporation’ holding company.

Musk’s blessing and curse is that he is often right about things in the most monkey’s paw way possible. This is proving to be the case with ‘verification ’ being rolled out across other social media companies. How do you prove who you say you are, or that the claims you are making are legitimate? Especially now that generative AI has entered the ring? By doubling down on Verification As A Service (VAAS) it seems. When talking about decentralized social networks and their lack of central control, it is even more important to verify things. Though not to the extent that evangelists of full centralization would like to see, semi-private group chats are already one of, if not the most powerful forces on the internet today. LINK

Go, Go Gadget:

Experimental technologies and newly released gadgetry that are worth keeping an eye on.

Economies Of Scale – Why We’re Not Getting GPT-5 Yet:

Alibaba and Amazon are late to the AI party. Alibaba, still reeling from being split up, faces additional complexities though. AI’s tendency to bite the hand that feeds it, so to speak, is a nightmare for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Mistakes, data leaks, forbidden information being given to users… all things any company wants to avoid. However, the tightly controlled cyberspace of China is much more high stakes in that regard. As such, analysts are wondering out loud whether it might be domestic restrictions , rather than those from abroad that end up kneecapping developmental efforts there.

Speaking of developmental efforts, though hardware is certainly important, and regulations also play their part, an even more limited resource is talented workers. Companies are raiding universities in search for that talent, with some billionaire owners going so far as to ‘buy ’ entire grad schools. Long-term, this will provide leverage over what talent gets recognised, and where it might end up. Technical and financial brute force aren’t enough to stay ahead of the AI curve anymore, it’s down to refinement now. That’s part of the reason why OpenAI aren’t working on GPT-5 yet. To elaborate:

1. AI capability has raced too far ahead of (potential) customer understanding and adoption. You can’t make money as an infrastructure provider if no one is building on top of you.
2. Training and operation costs have grown so exponentially that even the likes of Microsoft are starting to feel the burn. Further escalation is financially unsustainable.

The natural consequence is that giant the AI race is moving the goalpost from model size and parameters to precision and efficiency. The age of efficiency huh…oh dear. LINK

Industrial Sustainability, Things Are Heating Up:

One of the biggest issues with old coal mines is the contamination risk as ground water fills up old mineshafts and potentially carries pollutants (like heavy metals) into waterways. Cleaning is expensive and complicated, but it appears to also be a potential source of geothermal energy . In and of itself, using less fossil fuel is necessary, but the issue of what to do with the remains of old extraction operations has ever been an uncomfortable thorn in the side of plans for cleaner power.

As far as industrial trends go, even though some individual countries continue to struggle, the broader production growth across the wider Eurozone was relatively strong despite overall demand remaining weak. On the US side of the pond, Intel is using the CHIPS act to subsidise its push towards becoming a leading chip foundry again. Chip foundries use extreme amounts of resources, making it that much more important for new build projects to look towards the future.

The previously mentioned usage of old mine maintenance as a new source of geothermal energy is an example of heat management. Proper heat management has always been a critical aspect of every industry, but it’s always been considered a problem to navigate instead of a possibility to explore. If countries wish to hit emission goals in time, they’ll need to warm up to new, innovative thermal tactics. LINK ?

Rules of Engagement:

Ethics and legal matters regarding tech engagement.

The IP Geese That Lay The Golden Eggs:

What does goose poop have to do with portfolio diversification and the complexities of Intellectual Property (IP) management? Let me introduce you to Aesop’s fable of the goose that laid the golden eggs . Aside from laying eggs, Geese are also full of shit, literally. They shit a lot. This is problematic because goose excrement contains excess amounts of nutrients such as nitrates, as well as potentially carrying harmful bacteria. The risk? Bacterial contamination and algae blooms devastating aquatic ecosystems.

Historically, Sony Entertainment and SEGA have relied heavily upon golden goose properties to distinguish and sustain themselves. Unfortunately for them, it isn’t just young generations that consume an increasingly broad range of media . Cross-media projects have finally broken through in Hollywood , thus, media companies are being forced to diversify and strengthen their portfolios. This is behind the seemingly weird choice of SEGA to acquire angry birds maker Rovio, and of SONY Entertainment to not just expand its mobile game efforts, but to also look into a new portable gaming console.

Those that can’t diversify as easily in terms of new properties are doubling down on cross-media productions using their existing geese, hoping they’ll keep laying golden eggs. This can be a problem when the golden egg laying goose’s other ‘output’ is indeed toxic, a situation Warner Bros. now faces . Ecosystem contamination is a real risk for them.

So what about killing the goose, as was the case in the actual story? Halo Infinite’s troubled development and ongoing post-launch problems remind me of that. Halo Infinite was supposed to be a 10-year project, much like Warner Bros.’ new Harry Potter series is intended to be, but we’ll see how that goes. LINK

Is It Regulation Or Oppression?

There’s a very fine line between regulation and oppression. The fiercest opponents of social media regulation argue that government oversight of online content is authoritarian . Proponents of social media regulation often counter with examples of individual whims filling that particular power vacuum instead.

An example of how these frictions play out can be seen by news organisations such as NPR and PBS leaving Twitter after being labelled NPR as state-affiliated media. This label was previously reserved for state propaganda accounts. Critics of this labelling decision were quick to point out that Space X and Tesla are more suitable for the label if it is to be more loosely defined by how much government money an organisation has received.

Both sides of this debate have valid points and criticisms to make, and both ultimately want what they think is the greater good. Either way, they have to contend with the ingenuity of users in escaping notice via methods like so called ‘algospeak ,’ whereby particular phrasing for banned subject matter is used to evade detection algorithms. Algospeak works because, much like the humans that generate it, data is never truly objective. There will always be biases and blind spots. LINK

A Nice Cup of Serendipity:

Cool bits and bobs from around the web.

Tinnitus Frequencies LINK

Magic The (Greater) Gathering LINK

GitHub Popularity Poll LINK

Hibernation LINK

Pygmy Octopus Prints LINK

Hyper Light Interview LINK

Dumpster Build LINK

Windows Deck LINK

MSI Breach LINK

Open-Source Security LINK

The Deep End:

A weekly batch of longform content recommendations.

The Place Of Placebos In Medicine:

An article detailing the mental health benefits placebos can have when used in the right circumstances. LINK

Survival Strategies For Depressed AI Academics:

A paper about the mental and emotional toll the extreme pace and dynamism of AI development are taking on academics, along with some survival strategies. LINK

The Power Of Defaults:

What the game animal crossing can teach you about the power of defaults. LINK

Parasocial Activity:

An article about the wild, sometimes terrifying nature of ‘meta-content’ and parasocial relationships. LINK

Truth Serum And Superheroes:

A look at how superheroes were influenced by the US obsession with truth serum. LINK

One More Thing…

This past week I walked in just in time to hear an explanation by a highly knowledgeable music lover at work. He explained and demonstrated to another colleague how needle pressure affects the sound of a record player. I didn’t quite catch the details properly because I was too busy thinking to myself whilst enjoying the music demonstration. I thought how the pressure we are under at work can also be seen as a needle, whilst our minds could be the records.

When the work pressure is too high, it becomes grating and unpleasant. When the work pressure is too low, you’re just scraping the surface of your capabilities and not really getting all you can out of the experience. I’ve been thinking about this a lot because I’ve been manically tweaking and fidgeting with my workflows. Ultimately, it is a means to an end. The goal is to become more productive in a manner that can be sustained long term. Yet the puzzle element of this process, in and of itself also holds a certain appeal, perhaps it’s the optimizer in me that enjoys adjusting the needle pressure just to see what happens.