Attenuating Innovation (AI)

Fantastic paragraph:

"The point is this: if you accept the premise that regulation locks in incumbents, then it sure is notable that the early AI winners seem the most invested in generating alarm in Washington, D.C. about AI. This despite the fact that their concern is apparently not sufficiently high to, you know, stop their work. No, they are the responsible ones, the ones who care enough to call for regulation; all the better if concerns about imagined harms kneecap inevitable competitors."

The Steve Jobs quote in response to Walt Mossberg's question:

The core functions of the device form factor formerly known as the cellphone, whatever we want to call it — the pocket device — what would you say the core functions are five years out?

at the centerpiece of Ben's argument is lovely.

I don’t know.

The reason I don’t know is because I wouldn’t have thought that there would have been maps on it five years ago. But something comes along, gets really popular, people love it, get used to it, you want it on there. People are inventing things constantly and I think the art of it is balancing what’s on there and what’s not — it’s the editing function.

Contrast it with Bill Gates' answer to the same question:

How quickly all these things that have been somewhat specialized — the navigation device, the digital wallet, the phone, the camera, the video camera — how quickly those all come together, that’s hard to chart out, but eventually you’ll be able to make something that has the capability to do every one of those things. And yet given the small size, you still won’t want to edit your homework or edit a movie on a screen of that size, and so you’ll have something else that lets you do the reading and editing and those things. Now if we could ever get a screen that would just roll out like a scroll, then you might be able to have the device that did everything.

It makes me reflect on how important it is to remain humble about the possibilities of AI and what developers can create using it (and the tools that they will use to create it). "And we are just getting started".

What I don't understand is why Windows continues to ignore mobile. OK sure, you missed the start, but I think there is plenty to room for a 3rd seat at the table. They just don't want to do the hard work and grind it out. Sure 10 years of hard grind, but mobile is not going anywhere.

Build a tight integration with the online stuff the are trying to push. Bing, AI, Office Online. Enterprise will eat it up! They could just give the phones out free with your Microsoft online life subscription.

Its like nobody at windows really gives a fuck any more.

While current Large Language Models (LLMs) offer impressive capabilities, they exhibit significant limitations, particularly in decision-making and planning. Establishing a robust orchestration mechanism to guide LLMs' 'intelligent but error-prone intuition' remains a considerable challenge. Realizing such a system might take decades, if it is even feasible. The author contends that utilizing fear as a marketing tactic is a facile means to generate hype and solidify market dominance, often with state support.

Success in human endeavors is a confluence of intelligence, timing, and fortuitous events. Extrapolating this to hypothetical future AI entities, it is unlikely that they would be exempt from similar complexities. An AI capable of negating the factor of 'luck' would likely require vast computational resources in a short period, rendering it vulnerable and fragile

Tbf, the windows screenshot can totally serve as a precursor to the iphone: It has "the one button" (start) that gives hierarchy to the interface, the top/bottom bar and full-width menus. It doesnt really look like desktop. The missing link is the lack of decent touchscreen that gave life to all of it.

I think innovation cannot be stopped. This is a classic problem of attack and defense. Stronger attack robots will force the creation of stronger defensive robots and time is the key.

America will be the loser in this high-handed government approach to regulate and stifle innovation.