Tech Time by Tim #21

This past week the AI-avalanche buried me in articles to sift through and The US announced a strategic partnership with India. New research came out that verified sustainability’s economic viability, whilst a balloon sparked a diplomatic incident. The Dutch police hacked a private phone network popular with criminals. This made me extra curious about the different ways states now interact with cyber security. And finally, I revised an earlier take on the ‘Big Tech Bloodfest’. Rather than sacrifices, I now believe big tech companies are conducting these firings like investments.

At A Glance

A quick overview of this week's content.

·??????The Week that Was: The AI-Avalanche – A Huge Amount Of New AI Tools And Strategic Moves, India’s Culture War Complicates Its Ambitions.

·??????Go, Go Gadget: Sustainability Advocates Put Their Money Where Their Mouth Is, Chinese Weather Balloon – Sky High Ambitions And Concerns.

·??????Rules of Engagement: The State In Tech – National Security vs. Device Security, Pay To Purge – Big Tech Firings As Investment.

The Week that Was:

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

The AI-Avalanche – A Huge Amount Of New AI Tools And Strategic Moves:

Turns out it was a good thing the newsletter was delayed this week because my god, did the developments come hard and fast. All of my predictions for 2023 have come true now. Microsoft managed to seize the initiative, releasing, among other things, integration for Teams and Bing. Announcing them during a closed event was likely done to further pressure rivals.

Google countered by revealing its ChatGPT rival, Bard. The reveal of Google’s AI strategy was livestreamed on YouTube. It was confirmed at this time that Bard would be integrated into Google search.

OpenAI had some noteworthy announcements outside of Microsoft as well. First was the confirmation of ChatGPT Plus ($20 per month, US only at the start). Second was the open sourcing of a speech transcription feature called ‘Whisper’.

Meanwhile, a member of the Stable Diffusion community released an attribution tool for images. The timing was quite helpful, since in the same week researchers found that Stable Diffusion can, in fact, memorize and reproduce training images (though its relatively rare).

And this backdrop against which the great question of AI continues to be asked “who will own THE generative AI platform of the future?”. LINK

India Wants To Be The New China, Its Culture War Complicates Things:

The White House recently announced a partnership with India. The partnership is intended to focus on military equipment, telecom, and the ongoing chip war between the US and China. Apple also had its first earnings call of 2023. The US and Apple are similar in that they want to reduce their dependency on China. India seemed like a logical alternative.

However, India is in an odd place strategically. On the one hand, it is a very appealing growth market. On the other hand, the culture war raging in the nation presents a major risk. Companies are too easily blindsided by controversies and by powerful individuals. These are some of the same problems that made companies want to reduce their presence in China. India now risks making tech companies feel unsafe about major long-term investments before it has properly locked them in. LINK

Go, Go Gadget!

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

Sustainability Advocates Put Their Money Where Their Mouth Is:

Some more sustainability news this week! Researchers can now pull hydrogen directly from seawater without any extra steps in between. A new material for housing construction was also found that can enable houses to better regulate their temperatures. I cover a lot of experimental tech, especially when it comes to sustainability.

Is it fair for sceptics to ask if people will actually pay for this stuff though? Well, as new market research appears to show, yes. Yes, they will ‘put their money where their mouth is’.

For those not familiar with the saying, here’s a brief explanation. The saying refers to people not just promising to do something, but actually doing it even it this costs them something. LINK

Chinese Weather Balloon – Sky High Ambitions and Concerns:

You know that cliché of a kid losing their helium filled balloon? The scene zooms out and we follow the balloon on its epic journey. This past week the American air force shot down a Chinese surveillance balloon with a missile. The Chinese claimed it was surveying the weather, the Americans claim it was surveying classified facilities. Some are worried over potential military escalation.

What I personally find more interesting is another possibility. It’s an open secret that both China and the US are working on space militarisation. I believe China’s explanation that they lost control over the balloon and didn’t mean to spy on the US. However, I also think they want the balloon back so badly because it might show a glimpse at future espionage plans/capabilities. LINK

Rules of Engagement:

Ethics and legal matters regarding tech engagement.

The State In Tech - National Security vs Device Security:

Some overlapping cybersecurity events stuck out to me this past week:

1.????The US National Security Agency (NSA) is trying to hire lots of former big tech employees.

2.????The Taliban can’t seem to stop TikTok.

3.????Apple was forced to remove new app Damos from the Chinese app store 2 days after launch.

4.????Germany has a new cybersecurity chief.

5.????Iran appears to have targeted French magazine Charlie Hebdo with a cyber attack.

Dutch authorities cracked another encrypted phone company called Exclu. This company was extremely popular with criminals. Many high-profile hacks are now done by governmental agencies. Dutch police proudly boasted about their hacking tools on the mainstream news.

We of course look a lot less favourably upon hacking efforts by the Taliban or Iranian governments. Yet I find potential areas of overlap deeply fascinating to keep in mind when reading cybersecurity reports. LINK

Pay to Purge – Big Tech Firings As Investment:

Alphabet (Google) and Amazon, had their earnings calls this past week. And they revealed to me something I’d previously missed. I, along with many others, initially thought the firings were a cost cutting measure. I now disagree with my past self. I think they are instead an investment.

Big tech firings are extremely expensive. Meta alone is rumoured to have spent $88,000 per person fired, for example. In last week's newsletter, I touched upon a potential (morally dubious) benefit of mass firings. This ‘benefit’ was having a convenient excuse to purge workers that wanted to unionise.

But there’s also a more practical side. It also becomes harder to control and optimise work forces as they grow. Streamlining then, makes a lot of sense. What worries me though, is the talent gap for minorities getting worse. LINK

A Nice Cup of Serendipity:

Cool bits and bobs from around the web.

Cosmic Web LINK

Third arm LINK

Anime Missile Test LINK

A Bit Batty LINK

Botanical Collages LINK

Pok-AI-mon LINK

Minecraft Zelda LINK

Sounds Scary LINK

Entering Inflatables LINK

Gaming Body Count LINK

The Deep End:

A weekly batch of longform content recommendations.

A History Of Computer Graphics And Animation:

A free online reference work on the history of computer graphics and animation. Very convenient for those interested in the topic, or for people that just want a more thorough understanding of how we got to where we are today in terms of graphics and animation. LINK

The Lincoln Highway: Across America On The First Transcontinental Motor Route:

Several parts of a travel documentary all rolled into one giant 7.5-hour behemoth of a video. Entertaining and informative. Also a window into American history and psychology that’s otherwise hard to come by in such a convenient form factor. LINK

Hardware Trojans Under A Microscope:

Ever wanted to go super in-depth on the topic of hardware trojans? These are pieces of hardware hidden inside of other hardware. When triggered, they compromise the safety and functionality of connected systems. I think this is worth reading for those with interests in tinkering and cyber security. LINK

Who Owns The Generative AI Platform:

An elegantly presented article covering one of my most important beliefs about AI. That belief is that the ‘AI War’ is an ‘Infrastructure War’. The section ‘Infrastructure Touches Everything’ is particularly relevant in that regard, but the whole piece is worth your time. LINK

One More Thing…

I finished my training course this week. Next week I’ll be back to the regular Thursday morning publication schedule now. At least until the scheduling devil farts in my face again. For new readers that joined after the LinkedIn migration, I was taking a course about writing the most appealing possible invoice. That might not sound particularly relevant or interesting, but that’s what I liked most about it.

A lot of thought and care actually goes into writing a high-quality invoice, like any other piece of writing. I’m definitely not considering a career switch anytime soon, but the tips and tricks I picked up have proven very useful. I was pleasantly surprised.

Speaking of pleasant surprises. I walked a lot this past week. There were public transport strikes again. No Bus? No Problem! I managed to make it from my home to the central station each time. I managed this by simply getting up early enough to wait out the one bus that actually went. However, I never managed to catch a bus to or from work. So I just walked to and from the central station each time. The weather was great, the distance was doable, it was honestly kind of nice.

I can’t help but laugh at the fact that the only bus I caught on time was the private one my company chartered. We had to go to an event together on Thursday 2nd. My colleague was doing a rollcall, and no one seemed to know where I was. The look on her face as I approached her was priceless. She was marking people off on a list in the double decker’s stairwell. She could not process that I’d come to her from above rather than from below.

Come to think of it, the longest I actually travelled by vehicle this past week was to pick up my new Puppy, Millie! She’s an absolutely adorable little chaos gremlin. We’ve made a cosy spot for her in our kitchen, but her adventurous spirit cannot be contained. Nor can her bloodlust it seems. Milly has sworn on her honour as a pup to end my clogs.

For those that aren’t Dutch, clogs are basically shoes made of wood. No, they don’t give you splinters. Why not? Hell if I know, perhaps clogs are a bigger black box than AI?