Microsoft says OpenAI is now a competitor in AI and search | Hacker News Reader

Microsoft says OpenAI is now a competitor in AI and search

cnbc.com

61 pointsbelter20 comments

This is to prevent securities fraud (frivolous) lawsuits. OpenAI launched a search thing so If MSFT don't list it as a competitor, then someone would one day sue them for securities fraud https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-06-26/everyt...

From article:

> Nadella remains close to Altman.

> “One of the things I love about Sam is every day he’s calling me and saying, ‘I need more, I need more, I need more,’” Nadella told The New York Times in a recent interview.

That’s… certainly a double meaning indeed.

Wasn't it the Godfather who said "Keep your friends close but your enemies closer" ?

Maybe it's not just the Mafia way, or something ;)

The next thing you know there will be an offer made that can't be refused.

Who's your daddy now?

more money ? more compute ? more fame ? more what ?

Yes

Competition and partnership aren't necessarily mutually exclusive. Apple still has a major dependency on Samsung for components.

With Meta giving out models for free, I wonder what competition even means in this space now.

OpenAI is trying to create AGI, but it's unclear whether or not that will pan out.

They're also scrambling to create lots of products, but they don't seem to have a moat thanks to open models and fierce competition.

OpenAI has the most diverse assortment of models, APIs, and products, but that won't matter if other verticals or platforms can out-compete with hyper focus.

So half of the company is trying to will a new FAANG into existence within a few short years. That's pretty wild, honestly, and I wish them the best of luck.

The other half of the company is trying to create an AGI god. It feels like DeepMind is much better poised to make progress here.

This assumes they don't just run out of money.

I imagine if they keep raising capital then they won't, but if FB keeps releasing high quality open models they might suck the air out of the room.

I think Meta's long game is to have it's own AI products as they only AIs allowed in the Meta ecosystem. Right now it's a silly chatbot, but advanced AI + Metaverse could change everything.

Imagine an AI model of the world's best Italian tutor, students with Quest headsets taking virtual trips to Rome.

Even a cheap language tutor is 20$ an hour. With AI it'll basically be free.

And that's one subject, think about physics, mechanics, medicine? All taught in VR with advanced AI.

It's a trillion dollar opportunity. If I was a bit younger I'd be prototyping this right now and trying to get a startup going. I'm older and fully understand such software will take hundreds of millions to build...

Still , Meta has that potential. I'm very excited for the future of this space.

> Even a cheap language tutor is 20$ an hour. With AI it'll basically be free.

Only until you drive the last tutors out of work. Then somehow it will be $40 an hour again.

Our lack of foresight 20 years ago about how emerging technologies like social media and ad tech would eventually be used against us can be forgiven, we were naive.

There's no excuse for not seeing it now.

Except that today you can run top class models on your own hardware. Granted, you need a lot of compute, but this will only go down in price.

This is pretty dystopian. Facebook doing free classes, financed by ads.

meanwhile Ed Zitron makes a convincing case that MS basically owns OpenAI...

Ed Zitron the PR man?

Of course they say that: Microsoft wants to avoid another high-profile antitrust case.

Right. They're not a competitor, they're a "competitor".

It's like that time Microsoft gave $150M to their "competitor" Apple.

MS just got their butt handed to them on the Nasdaq. I expect they're scrambling.

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