RIP to the AI grift industrial complex

Will AGI transform humanity into a multiplanetary species?

During a media tour to hype up Grok 3 ahead of its release, Elon Musk appeared at Welt’s Economic Forum in Germany where he put superintelligence among the top 10 most important milestones in the history of life on Earth.I explain the consequences of his statement in this week's newsletter: https://www.computerspeak.co/p/agi-making-humanity-multiplanetary

RIP to the AI grift industrial complex

The most meaningful achievement of the AI Action Summit in Paris is not what happened at the event, but in fact what we didn’t see. For the first time at a global AI event, the AI grift industrial complex, comprised of alarmists, doomers, skeptics, privacy and safety fanatics, and other conspiracy theorists, was relegated to where they’ve always belonged: at fringe events, preaching to their cleverly-named think tanks and foundations, without anyone who actually matters in the world of AI in attendance. Learn more at https://www.computerspeak.co/p/rip-to-the-ai-grift-industrial-complex

Are reasoning models becoming sounding boards for human thought?

In recent months, a new breed of reasoning models has begun to emerge from the research labs of the tech world. An early adopter of these reasoning models has been the software engineering community. Instead of expecting the models to autonomously produce flawless code, engineers are leveraging them as interactive partners—similar to having a knowledgeable colleague or an advanced debugging tool. Learn more at https://www.computerspeak.co/p/reasoning-models-as-sounding-boards

DeepSeek brings out the war hawks and Cold War rhetoric

When Chinese AI research lab DeepSeek released R1, an open weights AI model that was on par with OpenAI’s o1 reasoning model, the response from many in the American media and industry circles was swift and alarmist. The achievement was quickly framed as a "Sputnik moment"—a term evoking the Soviet Union’s launch of the first artificial satellite in 1957 and the subsequent Cold War space race. This analogy is misleading: R1 is not a disruptive step change with military and geopolitical implications, it’s just a great example of dogged engineering that produced a capable model. Learn more at https://www.computerspeak.co/p/deepseek-brings-out-the-war-hawks-cold-war-rhetoric

Doing the math on the Stargate Project

During a press conference held on Tuesday at the White House, Donald Trump, together with Larry Ellison from Oracle, Masayoshi Son from SoftBank and Sam Altman from OpenAI, announced the Stargate Project, a new company set to invest $500 billion over the next four years to build AI infrastructure in the United States. So what exactly does that get you in terms of real-world infrastructure? We do the math in this week’s Computerspeak: https://www.computerspeak.co/p/the-math-on-stargate-project [https://www.computerspeak.co/p/the-math-on-stargate-project] Also in the news this week: [*] Business Insider: Trump announces an AI infrastructure investment of up to $500 billion involving OpenAI, Oracle, and SoftBank [https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-ai-stargate-openai-oracle-softbank-technology-investment-2025-1] [*] Bloomberg: Stargate’s First Data Center Site is Size of Central Park, With At Least 57 Jobs [https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-01-23/stargate-s-first-data-center-to-be-located-in-texas-with-at-least-57-jobs?srnd=phx-ai] [*] Fortune: OpenAI’s Stargate may be tech’s biggest gamble ever, but here’s what’s really at stake [https://fortune.com/2025/01/22/openai-stargate-ai-sam-altman-donald-trump/] [*] WSJ: How Oracle Plays Cheaply in AI [https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/how-oracle-plays-cheaply-in-ai-30d84030?mod=ai_lead_pos1] [*] Sifted: ‘This must be a wake-up call for Europe’: Tech leaders urge EU to match Trump’s $500bn AI investment plan [https://sifted.eu/articles/eu-reaction-trumps-500bn-ai-plan] [*] The Information: Behind the OpenAI-Oracle Pact, an Elon Musk Threat Loomed [https://www.theinformation.com/articles/why-sam-altman-joined-forces-with-larry-ellison-and-took-a-step-back-from-microsoft?rc=xcohoi] [*] Bloomberg: AI’s $100 Billion Stargate Venture Touted by Trump Will Tap Solar Power [https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-01-23/ai-s-100-billion-stargate-venture-touted-by-trump-will-tap-solar-power?srnd=phx-ai] [*] Sifted: Winning in AI will require millions more GPUs. Can Europe get there? [https://sifted.eu/articles/karim-beguir-instadeep-interview] [*] TechCrunch: Meta’s Yann LeCun predicts ‘new paradigm of AI architectures’ within 5 years and ‘decade of robotics’ [https://techcrunch.com/2025/01/23/metas-yann-lecun-predicts-a-new-ai-architectures-paradigm-within-5-years-and-decade-of-robotics/] [*] The Information: Startups’ AI Revenue Is Booming. Some Investors Doubt It Will Last [https://www.theinformation.com/articles/startups-ai-revenue-is-booming-some-investors-doubt-it-will-last] [*] Wired: Game Developers Are Getting Fed Up With Their Bosses’ AI Initiatives [https://www.wired.com/story/video-game-industry-artificial-intelligence-developers/] [*] Fortune: ‘A sense of panic’: Immigrant AI talent worry Trump could make an already broken visa system worse [https://fortune.com/2025/01/21/trump-immigrants-ai-talent-visa-h1b-green-card/] [*] FT: Huawei seeks to grab market share in AI chips from Nvidia in China [https://www.ft.com/content/f18217d6-3796-4205-bbc5-309b8a526208] [*] MIT Technology Review: The second wave of AI coding is here [https://www.technologyreview.com/2025/01/20/1110180/the-second-wave-of-ai-coding-is-here/] [*] TechCrunch: Here are the types of AI companies enterprise VCs want to back in 2025 [https://techcrunch.com/2025/01/20/here-are-the-types-of-ai-companies-enterprise-vcs-want-to-back-in-2025/] [*] Washington Post: Amazon AI deal leaves ‘zombie’ start-up in its wake, whistleblower says [https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2025/01/18/amazon-antitrust-ai-whistleblower/] [*] Science News: Want your own AI double? There could be big benefits — and risks [https://www.snexplores.org/article/ai-double-digital-clone-benefits-risks]