The hottest Tech Giants Substack posts right now

And their main takeaways
Category
Top Technology Topics

Is the AI Boom Real?

The Asianometry Newsletter • 3553 implied HN points • 07 Mar 24
🕹 Technology AI Semiconductors Tech Giants Financial sustainability AI Applications
  1. The trillion-dollar investment in AI chips does raise skepticism, with questions about its sustainability and impact on the semiconductor industry.
  2. The concept of scaling laws, driving investments, presents interesting parallels to Moore's Law in the semiconductor industry, suggesting potential future impact on AI.
  3. Competition in AI chips, particularly against Nvidia, is heating up as tech giants aim for vertical integration, potentially shifting the landscape of AI chip design and market dynamics.

Last Week in AI #255: AI voice scams, flood of bad AI translations, self-rewarding LLMs, FTC probes AI partnerships of tech giants, and more!

Last Week in AI • 137 implied HN points • 29 Jan 24
🕹 Technology AI Language Models Tech Giants
  1. Scammers are using AI to mimic voices and deceive people into giving money, posing serious risks for communication security.
  2. Many sentences on the internet have poor quality translations due to machine translation, especially affecting low-resource languages.
  3. Researchers introduce Self-Rewarding Language Models (SRLMs) as a novel method to improve Large Language Models (LLMs) without human feedback.

Alexa, what happened?

Margins by Ranjan Roy and Can Duruk • 1043 implied HN points • 24 Feb 23
🕹 Technology Artificial Intelligence Tech Giants Innovation Monopolies
  1. Voice technology like Amazon's Alexa faced challenges in living up to the initial promise of being a transformative platform due to issues like annoying follow-up questions and closed-off ecosystems.
  2. Big tech companies often focused on 10x innovations rather than incremental improvements, leading to challenges in realizing the full potential of technological advancements.
  3. The economic incentives, user behaviors, and prevailing attitudes towards technology play crucial roles in determining the success and impact of innovations.
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Will the New York Times ever quit Twitter?

Silver Bulletin • 325 implied HN points • 05 Oct 23
🕹 Technology Social media Tech Giants Digital Publishing
  1. Nate Silver discusses mixed feelings about Twitter's impact on democracy and tribalism.
  2. Twitter's latest changes, like removing headlines from external link previews, raise questions about its future utility.
  3. The potential consequences if the New York Times, with its high editorial standards, decides to quit Twitter and influence other publishers to follow suit.

What is Microsoft's "cheap generative AI" team doing?

TechTalks • 58 implied HN points • 31 Jan 24
🕹 Technology AI Open-source models Tech Giants
  1. Microsoft is forming a team to work on cheaper generative AI systems to reduce dependence on expensive models like LLMs.
  2. They are focusing on developing more efficient open-source models and small language models for edge devices.
  3. Efforts are being made to run generative models more efficiently by reducing parameter sizes, which can lead to cost savings in running LLMs.

Techbros party on

imperfect offerings • 119 implied HN points • 01 Nov 23
🕹 Technology AI Regulation Tech Giants Ethics Innovation
  1. The 'Safer AI Summit' had predictable guest choices, with figures like Elon Musk and senior representatives of tech giants invited, focusing more on future AI developments than present issues.
  2. The summit had strict restrictions on discussion topics, limiting conversations solely to the risks and opportunities of frontier AI, ignoring broader societal impacts.
  3. Criticism was raised against the summit for being exclusive, favoring big tech corporations, and shutting out voices from trade unions, civil society groups, and organizations concerned about AI ethics.

Meta will limit news access in Canada

The PhilaVerse • 123 implied HN points • 23 Jun 23
🌍 World Politics Tech Giants Government Relations
  1. Meta will restrict news access in Canada due to the passage of the Canada's Online News Act.
  2. The Canada's Online News Act aims to ensure fairness in the digital news market by requiring platforms like Meta to negotiate commercial agreements and compensate news organizations.
  3. Meta and Google are opposed to the legislation and are planning to limit news access before the law takes effect.

The UK’s decision to block the Microsoft / Activision merger is courageous and right

The Counterbalance • 137 implied HN points • 28 Apr 23
💼 Business Mergers Regulations Competition Tech Giants Economy
  1. The UK's decision to block the Microsoft / Activision merger shows courage and defends against concentrated economic power.
  2. The UK's action signifies a global shift against the dominance of digital tech giants post-Brexit.
  3. Blocking the merger protects UK citizens, businesses, and consumers while promoting a more resilient economy.

Golden: California Becomes Third State To Enact Broad Right To Repair

Fight to Repair • 39 implied HN points • 12 Oct 23
🕹 Technology Repair Legislation Tech Giants Digital technology Competition
  1. California became the 3rd state to enact a broad electronics right to repair law, following New York and Minnesota.
  2. The California Right to Repair Act expands repair protections for consumers, guaranteeing access to repair materials for a wide range of products and setting minimum support periods.
  3. State right to repair campaigns are gaining momentum, with more states considering similar legislation to improve repair access and combat planned obsolescence.

How your team can use Open Source to improve productivity [Storytime Saturdays]

Technology Made Simple • 99 implied HN points • 07 May 23
🕹 Technology Open Source Productivity Tech Giants Software Development Business strategy
  1. Open source solutions can provide quick fixes to problems many consider major. They are readily available and already in use by people.
  2. Business leaders and managers often underestimate the significance of open source in technology. It's a powerful resource that can greatly benefit organizations.
  3. Utilizing open source software has become crucial in the tech industry. Knowing how to leverage it can be a game-changer for tech leaders and businesses.

✍️ New Jobs and the Twitter Files ✍️ — February 20

Inside The Newsroom • 98 implied HN points • 20 Feb 23
📰 News Jobs Media Coverage Social media Tech Giants
  1. The Twitter Files contain important revelations about Twitter's past actions and decisions.
  2. The lack of media coverage around the Twitter Files may be due to the age of the revelations and selective distribution of documents.
  3. The Twitter Files have sparked discussions about freedom of speech, ethics, and the influence of tech giants like Twitter on society.

Pentagon quietly re-awarded its $9 billion Joint Warfighting Cloud Capability contracts to U.S. tech giants

All-Source Intelligence Fusion • 40 implied HN points • 18 May 23
🕹 Technology Cloud Computing Government Contracts Tech Giants
  1. Pentagon re-awarded $9 billion cloud contracts to U.S. tech giants like Google and Oracle.
  2. The replacement for canceled JEDI program is Joint Warfighting Cloud Capability (JWCC) with better risk mitigation.
  3. The contracting process has been a major obstacle with reversals in payouts and lack of transparency.

Microsoft to integrate Open AI products [Finance Fridays]

Technology Made Simple • 39 implied HN points • 21 Jan 23
🕹 Technology AI Data Business Machine Learning Tech Giants
  1. Microsoft integrating Open AI products won't instantly level the playing field against Google and Meta; Microsoft has been a strong player in Machine Learning before this integration.
  2. Microsoft's business data from MS Office is a key advantage, but handling business data can be tricky; understanding business rules can make you valuable in AI development.
  3. Integration of Open AI products may increase the stickiness of MS Office for existing clients, but may not attract new customers; in the long run, consulting-based revenues might increase.

Who's Who in A.I.

Gradient Ascendant • 18 implied HN points • 01 Mar 23
🕹 Technology AI Tech Giants Startups Academia Biotech China
  1. OpenAI is a major player in the AI industry, led by controversial figures like Elon Musk.
  2. Microsoft has made a comeback in the AI field through partnerships and investments, notably with OpenAI.
  3. An increasingly vibrant AI ecosystem is emerging with startups, enthusiasts, and established companies all contributing to the field.

Stack Overflow's Uncertain Fate and Overflow AI

Machine Economy Press • 4 implied HN points • 03 Aug 23
🕹 Technology AI Online Communities Artificial Intelligence Internet Tech Giants
  1. Stack Overflow's traffic has been decreasing due to the rise of AI models like ChatGPT and tools like GitHub Copilot.
  2. Overflow AI is an attempt to compete with AI-driven platforms, but may not be enough in the face of changing consumer behaviors.
  3. The shift towards Generative A.I. like ChatGPT raises concerns about the future of human-generated data and interactions online.

Turnaround #7: More on games and pitching VCs in India

Turnaround • 39 implied HN points • 07 Oct 19
🕹 Technology Gaming Podcasts Tech Giants Tech Trends
  1. The vision for India's growth and prosperity by 2020 inspired many, even if not all aspects were realized. A vision like this can motivate and unite people.
  2. Books and podcasts can provide valuable insights and information on trends and developments in various industries. They can offer foresight and connect dots in a seemingly effortless way.
  3. Gaming significantly impacted tech companies' trajectories in China compared to India, leading to innovative features in non-gaming apps inspired by gaming. Understanding pricing dynamics in gaming can be complex and crucial for investors in the space.

Daily AI Snapshot: Tech Giants Unite Against AI Election Misuse

The AI Observer • 0 implied HN points • 17 Feb 24
🕹 Technology AI Tech Giants Election interference Collaboration Misinformation
  1. 20 tech giants including OpenAI, Meta, and Microsoft are collaborating to combat AI's misuse in election interference.
  2. The joint effort aims to tackle fake AI-generated content influencing elections globally by developing detection tools and running awareness campaigns.
  3. Challenges include implementing measures to identify AI-generated content using watermarks or metadata, with details on execution still unclear.

The generative AI boom is hitting some turbulence; the BBC mulls opening its archives to AI companies; AI spots tiny cancers missed by doctors; UN adopts first AI resolution

Computerspeak by Alexandru Voica • 0 implied HN points • 22 Mar 24
🕹 Technology AI Tech Giants Funding Open Source Large Language Models
  1. The generative AI boom is facing challenges with startups burning through cash quickly and struggling to find sustainable business models.
  2. Developing and operating compute-intensive large language models is costly, making it difficult for many startups to sustain long-term operations.
  3. Generative AI startups are racing to pivot towards enterprise applications and differentiate their value to survive in the changing landscape of the AI industry.

What does it take to build European Tech Giants ?

Venture Prose • 0 implied HN points • 10 Aug 18
💼 Business Tech Giants Venture Capital Startup Ecosystem Investors Ambition
  1. Venture Capital in the US is 5 times bigger than in the EU, showing a significant difference in investments.
  2. European tech giants have emerged mainly from the UK, Nordics, and Germany, with specific factors contributing to their success.
  3. Building tech giants requires ambitious founders, diversity, and sufficient capital for growth and success.