It's a shame because Perplexity is BY FAR the most useful AI tool out there. This shows they have clearly no vision and won't be able to keep afloat.
Deepseek's search is pretty much on par with perplexity already
Perplexity AI submits bid to merge with TikTok
61–70 of 141 posts
Re: Perplexity AI submits bid to merge with TikTok
#62Perplexity does everything to get some PR, no matter how stupid and unrealistic. This seems very desperate and raises some at least orange flags.
Re: Perplexity AI submits bid to merge with TikTok
#63To me this just shows that Perplexity is definitely being controlled by some other force other than AI developers, and different from what they publicly would admit to. Perhaps the US Gov't is involved? ...because I don't think any other investors would be able to hide their true funding source and motives quite like the Gov't.
i see what you did there
thanks. Be sure to like and subscribe.
Re: Perplexity AI submits bid to merge with TikTok
#64It's a shame because Perplexity is BY FAR the most useful AI tool out there. This shows they have clearly no vision and won't be able to keep afloat.
Or due to their power, they've already secretly been taken over by the US Gov't. That's not really a "big conspiracy theory" at this point. I was mocked by the left for years for saying that the Gov't was involved in Facebook censorship. Turns out I was right. The biggest battle our Gov't has to wage is the battle for hearts and minds, and the control of information, and so they're trying to get in as deeply rooted a…
Are you referring to the firehose of covid misinformation spewed out of Facebook, or some other grift?
Re: Perplexity AI submits bid to merge with TikTok
#65Earlier quoted context omitted.
They’re suggesting a merger, not a sale.
That doesn't really help here. TikTok is at an absolute minimum an order of magnitude more valuable than Perplexity, more likely two orders of magnitude. If ownership of NewCo was even roughly proportional to the market value each side is bringing, the ownership structure doesn't meaningfully change compared to TikTok. And when the ownership structure is the problem, it's obvious that this deal structured as a merger…
> TikTok is at an absolute minimum an order of magnitude more valuable than Perplexity, more likely two orders of magnitude
They don't need to buy TikTok, they need to buy out Bytedance.
If I had to structure it, I'd have Bytedance spin out TikTook to its U.S. shareholders and then arrange for Perplexity to buy enough of Bytedance's share that Bytedance holds a 49% (non-voting) interest.
Re: Perplexity AI submits bid to merge with TikTok
#66Re: Perplexity AI submits bid to merge with TikTok
#67Perplexity sounds desperate. They got early traction and have money but they seem to be lost.
Less desperate, more "there is a point where we needed to stop and we have clearly passed it but let's keep going and see what happens."
I think it is more of, holy shit, OpenAI is entering this space, and maybe Anthropic as well. What can we compete with:
- Name? No
- Technology? No because we rely on other LLMs
Do we have anything? No. We've taken in a lot of money from big-name investors, so let's see if we can turn ourselves into a complementary asset before people realize that LLMs are nowhere near what they are sold as.
Re: Perplexity AI submits bid to merge with TikTok
#68Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is there anything of value in TikTok videos?
If you're using the term "value" to refer to monetary value, yes. If you're using it to refer to some other kind of value, it probably isn't relevant to the viability of the proposed merge.
I guess the PP question was like "what real world problems could solve an AI trained on TikTok videos?". Sociology research, maybe.
Re: Perplexity AI submits bid to merge with TikTok
#69Earlier quoted context omitted.
I disagree. The same way ByteDance has strong relationship with public and private partners in China, it's the same with Perplexity among Indian organizations based on personal experience. Worst case, they pull an Ola
Bytedance is a Chinese company. Perplexity is an American company
Ik.
And Aravind has been fairly vocal about India, and is drastically expanding their lobbying and growth team in India as we speak.
Tbf, a lot of it is probably because of the IITM "mafia" - they have an amazing alumni network and are fairly close.
Re: Perplexity AI submits bid to merge with TikTok
#70A new low for Perplexity AI and will do anything for attention.