tag > Business
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Is it a triumph or a tragedy that top western AI firms are merely psyops facades for the military-industrial complex? It could be comedic gold, if only the scripts and actors weren't so lackluster.
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Marc Andreessen's Techno-Optimist Manifesto as redaction poetry
In "The Techno-Optimist Manifesto" (2023), Marc Andreessen cites Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, author of "Fascist manifesto" (the OG Italian one) as well as neo-reactionary accelerationism father Nick Land, and he quotes the Futurist manifest approvingly - a document which says that war is the only true hygiene of the world and that museums and libraries (and feminism) should be destroyed. It was a proto-fascist text that inspired Mussolini. History does not repeat itself but it does rhythm...
Interesting related read: Why can't our tech billionaires learn anything new? On Marc Andreessen's "techno-optimist manifesto" - by Dave Karpf
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The current tech industry is dominated by MBA & Finance types. Had this been the case during the golden age of innovation in the 20st century, would the birth of computers, the internet, and various other breakthroughs ever had happened - or would the suites have rejected it all?
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Work as Play?
Want: A heavily modified browser for remote workers, that frames every work interaction as part of a fun video game: Meeting participants are rendered as Goblins, Docs are converted into spell scrolls, Tasks presented as Quests & Company metrics as level ups. Less work, More play
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Google recently pinned a post "Our principles for partnering with the music industry on AI technology" Despite the vague jargon being thrown around like "responsible AI use", it is clear that the emerging model they are proposing is tailored to, and dominated by, corporate giants like Google and UMG. Their commitment to supporting artists seems to be a mere platitude, with main focus being on creating a closed source system, optimized for their profit and control. This potential 'generative land-grab' is a chilling prospect in an already highly centralized media landscape.
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It's amazing how giant orgs (big tech, intel, etc.) where everything is highly compartmentalized and on a strict "need to know" basis manage to get anything done at all. This modus operandi might work ok to manage specialized savant geniuses, but is dysfunctional for most else.
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IKEA's corporate structure is a marvel.
Their business is technically owned by two foundations; one of which does an IP leaseback to the other to shroud profit via royalties. Report estimates they avoided $1b in taxes between 2009 and 2014.
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Audio Reality Check
The vast majority of audio consumed in the past 20y+ is just a component of other media artifacts & has little todo with the music industry & art. The vast majority of audio is industrially created today & has little todo with artisanal processes. AI audio is a natural evolution
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Sam Altman from OpenAI VS Carter Burke, character from the movie "Aliens". "Templates"
Carter Burke is a representative of Weyland-Yutani, one of the mega-corps that runs the colonies outside the solar system. It consistently exhibits the worst aspects of corporate profiteering, seeming willing to sacrifice decency & human life in pursuit of profit.
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Google MusicLM WTF
Someone please help me understand: Google's MusicLM seems to be trained on many years of music taken from YouTube. Pirate style, no rights cleared at all? But they added an inference filter that prevents the most obvious copyright crimes? Is that a legit biz strategy now? What's the message Google is sending to the music industry & artists with its MusicLM demo? "We'll exploit giant amounts of your music for AI training & watermark outputs - you get nothing in return"? A perplexing stance for a company preaching responsible AI?
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The combination of opensource with remote teams is incredibly powerful. It is a glimpse of the future of work in a world beyond artificial borders.
