41–50 of 123 posts
I’ve always thought “man it would have been a great job selling shovels and pickaxes during the gold rush” back in the day.” I know, I know, it’s really hard having these insights. We all have our crosses to bear.
Even the original gold rush pickaxe guy Sam Brannan went broke, and he practically had a monopoly on pickaxes by buying up the entire supply: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Brannan
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Saying this about a compute rental service is hilarious They have the power to do what exactly? Sell you some EC2 instances at reasonable prices? lol There’s organizations that have the power to openly kidnap and execute people and we’re being melodramatic about a few buildings with computers in them
They'll buy your politicians who will give them zero checks on raising energy prices or poisoning your children's minds
I so hope that Google goes down. (And I pray the same for Facebook and a couple others).
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Yep. They can make every mistake imaginable and not work as hard but still win. It’s the power of concentrated capital and monopolistic behavior and what people call “moats” but really is just an unfair advantage. Why should Google or Apple be allowed to copy everyone’s AI tech and just win because of distribution through Chrome or iPhones? We need new antitrust laws and heavy taxes just on the megacorps worth $500B…
Not that I'm opposed to new laws, but just having enforcement of the laws we already have would go a long way to fixing the problems. The problem is how to get to the point where there is enforcement. It definitely isn't going to happen with Republicans in power, and it also isn't a sure thing with Democrats in power either. Lina Khan was a good start for a bit there, but she certainly didn't have universal Dem suppo…
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Yep. They can make every mistake imaginable and not work as hard but still win. It’s the power of concentrated capital and monopolistic behavior and what people call “moats” but really is just an unfair advantage. Why should Google or Apple be allowed to copy everyone’s AI tech and just win because of distribution through Chrome or iPhones? We need new antitrust laws and heavy taxes just on the megacorps worth $500B…
You mean, the inventor of the transformer technology that made ChatGPT possible, is copying ChatGPT’s technology?
Google entered the competition in AI products late. And now they will use their power unfairly to try and make it win. When they bundle an AI Chatbot into their existing contracts for Google workspace, they are competing unfairly. When the Chrome browser steers you towards Google properties by default, they are competing unfairly. Etc. Those unfair monopolistic actions let them come into the market years late with a viable competitor to ChatGPT or other products.
And let’s not give them too much credit for transformers. A handful of researchers were paid by Google while they came up with that paper. Google didn’t really do anything to push for it and neither Google leaders nor shareholders cared much about it at the time. Not to mention, transformers themselves were just a continuation of other prior steps in ML, from what I’ve read.
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> Any sane nation would have banned it decades ago Why?
AdSense uses a sealed-bid auction system with arbitrary number of lots that Google controls. It's a FOMO market driven by artificial scarcity, and since Google contractually forbids AdSense-enabled websites from using competing services, it forces ad buyers to go through their closed, controlled system.
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> Any sane nation would have banned it decades ago Why?
AdSense uses a sealed-bid auction system with arbitrary number of lots that Google controls. It's a FOMO market driven by artificial scarcity, and since Google contractually forbids AdSense-enabled websites from using competing services, it forces ad buyers to go through their closed, controlled system.
Whenever I read about how powerful these companies are, it sends chills down my spine.
Whenever I read about how powerful these companies are, it sends chills down my spine.
Saying this about a compute rental service is hilarious They have the power to do what exactly? Sell you some EC2 instances at reasonable prices? lol There’s organizations that have the power to openly kidnap and execute people and we’re being melodramatic about a few buildings with computers in them