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xAI to pay telegram $300M to integrate Grok into the chat app

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Re: xAI to pay telegram $300M to integrate Grok into the chat app

#281

Post by rchaud »

ryandrake wrote: post #155
jsheard wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the next logical step after companies shoving AI into every corner of their own products regardless of whether their users want it - now they're paying other companies to shove AI things into their products regardless of whether their users want it. Genuine user interest doesn't come close to justifying their insane valuations so they have to put their thumb on the scale by shoving it everyones face and then pre…

It's absolutely wild and scary watching how much money is being spent on pushing AI down the unwilling public's throats. Nobody wants this. Yet we're hiring expensive AI researchers and developers, buying datacenters full of GPUs, and now paying "partner" companies, to deliver this thing that nobody is asking for. What in the world is going on here? What am I not understanding?

What's not to understand? Enormous amounts of money have accrued to a tiny proportion of humanity in the past 30 or so years. There is no way there wouldn't be tons of waste when spending decisions are made by so few people.

Now add in the fact that these decision makers are often openly avaricious egomaniacs who don't even make symbolic efforts help the poor and vulnerable, that narrows the scope of their spending to wasteful, sometimes outright harmful investments.

Re: xAI to pay telegram $300M to integrate Grok into the chat app

#282

Post by areyourllySorry »

0xy wrote: post #270
SXX wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Telegram dont have E2EE by default. It's all you need to know. 99% of communications on Telegram are in plain text. Also Telegram banned or shadowbanned serveral protest channels / bots during elections and when war began.

WhatsApp isn't E2EE by default either, since default flow pushes you to backup your key to Google Drive. Signal isn't E2EE, given the security blunder in which private images from your gallery were sent to random contacts (which indicates a scary state management situation in the apps, this isn't easy to do). E2EE implies that you purposely send content to specific people which is encrypted, not that your app sends p…

i think we have different definitions of e2ee.

Re: xAI to pay telegram $300M to integrate Grok into the chat app

#283

Post by umbra07 »

jedberg wrote: post #250
hintymad wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's diplomacy? That does not mean that high officials and the richest people in the world bought Russia's propaganda machine, if any, or worse, get bought by Russia, right?

Well the side effect of everyone playing nice with Putin is that he's most likely a multi-billionaire, possibly even in the top 10 richest in the world. It's billionaires helping billionaires.

There's a massive jump from "multi-billiojare#" to "120 billion" (10th richest).

Re: xAI to pay telegram $300M to integrate Grok into the chat app

#284

Post by greenavocado »

SXX wrote: post #263
machomaster wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't know what you are talking about. Read on the multi-year attempts of Putin trying to ban Telegram and Telegram fighting back (technologically and also politically - demonstrations, etc). Telegram won the battle and Putin had no choice but to admit defeat. Similar things happened in other non-free coutries as well.

Telegram dont have E2EE by default. It's all you need to know. 99% of communications on Telegram are in plain text. Also Telegram banned or shadowbanned serveral protest channels / bots during elections and when war began.

Many Telegram groups are only Play Store banned or banned access is restricted based on the user's phone number. This is why you must install the APK from their website directly instead of using an App Store version.

Re: xAI to pay telegram $300M to integrate Grok into the chat app

#285

Post by greenavocado »

drdaeman wrote: post #268
troupo wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately it's also the most sleek and feature-rich messenger of them all :(

It sort of used to be, although not exactly as a messenger - it was never good for one-to-one private conversations, but as a social network with channels and groups. However, for the last couple years enshittification is in progress - it's not at Microsoft Teams levels yet, but they're really trying to get there, shoving more and more ads (third- and first-party both) into users' faces with increasing frequency.

The main Telegram enshittification is caused by spammers and scammers. They purchase lots of Telegram Premium credits and proceed to spam the hell out of users and they get away with it. Telegram Premium users are treated much more leniently than regular users when it comes to moderation affairs.

Re: xAI to pay telegram $300M to integrate Grok into the chat app

#286

Post by akurtzhs »

rchaud wrote: post #272
nickpsecurity wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought that. Then, I remembered PayPal straight up paying people to use their platform. We saw how that worked out. So, the question is whether they should pay to generate demand in a new market. Then, who to pay and how much? I'll also note that OpenAI took the market by offering an expensive service for free (ChatGPT). Then, they offered a monthly plan that may or may not have been profitable. One could argue th…

When was PayPal doing that? I remember having to create an account 20 years ago because they were the only payment processor option on Ebay, that seemed to be their moat. These days, I use Paypal as a "wallet" that's connected to my CC, to pay for stuff on sites where I don't want to put in my CC information.

Paypal paid people to open an account or to refer new accounts early on. Inspired Dropbox to do the same thing with free storage.

Re: xAI to pay telegram $300M to integrate Grok into the chat app

#287

Post by acjohnson55 »

troupo wrote: post #163
kklisura wrote: post #116

> Telegram is the most popular messaging app in Iran and Uzbekistan [1] > Telegram’s largest market is India, which accounts for more than 20% of its userbase. Telegram also has a large amount of users in countries with heavy censorship and surveillance, such as Iran, Russia, and Uzbekistan. [1] > Percentage of users via region: Asia 38%, Europe 27%, Latin America 21%, MEMA 8% [1] It sure is valuable data - if you ar…

Unfortunately it's also the most sleek and feature-rich messenger of them all :(

I agree. I need to migrate off, but I haven't figured out where to yet.

Re: xAI to pay telegram $300M to integrate Grok into the chat app

#288

Post by int_19h »

drdaeman wrote: post #268
troupo wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately it's also the most sleek and feature-rich messenger of them all :(

It sort of used to be, although not exactly as a messenger - it was never good for one-to-one private conversations, but as a social network with channels and groups. However, for the last couple years enshittification is in progress - it's not at Microsoft Teams levels yet, but they're really trying to get there, shoving more and more ads (third- and first-party both) into users' faces with increasing frequency.

Since the protocol is actually open, you don't have to use the official client.

I'm curious as to why you say it was "never good for one-to-one private conversations". I've been using it for this exact thing for many years, and still find it the best option currently on the market for a variety of reasons (e.g. unlike Signal it doesn't limit the number of devices which are linked to the same account).

Re: xAI to pay telegram $300M to integrate Grok into the chat app

#289

Post by int_19h »

rchaud wrote: post #276
phillipcarter wrote: post #137

Sad to say this as a formerly happy user of telegram: Boy that tracks. The shadiest AI model provider paying the shadiest chat app provider to integrate the racist slop machine into the scam and CSAM distribution machine. xAI engineers, I genuinely hope you get the bag soon and switch jobs back into a reputable AI lab.

Out of interest, why were you using telegram to begin with, considering that it's known for being a haven of shady content? Not just hate groups and paramilitaries, but also tons of pirated content? All that content browsed gets linked back to your phone number does it not?

Not OP, but Telegram is the only popular option with E2EE that has good clients across all desktop and mobile OSes (including Linux), doesn't tie your account to your phone number, and doesn't limit the number of devices which can use the same account.

Re: xAI to pay telegram $300M to integrate Grok into the chat app

#290

Post by timewizard »

bognition wrote: post #2

I can't help but think this means that all my telegram conversations will now be fed into grok. I'm curious how I'd go about verifying that this is or isn't going to be the case.

Looks like we're at the point where it's both convenient and useful to destroy and recreate entirely new digital identities every few months.

The only cheap way out for users is to generate noise. Clog up their systems with useless data.

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