There Are No Oligarchs

There Are No Oligarchs

We should all be amazed and happy that highly competitive technology leaders sat on the same stage at Trump's inaugauration. There has probably never been an inauguration like it. These are the world's most valuable companies, coming together, to celebrate innovation, and seeking to influence a US Government, to help make the future happen.

So far it seems to be working. Leaving aside all of the objectionable elements of Trump, he seriously seems to be a champion of growth and innovation across AI, Crypto, Space and much besides.

We are not looking at an oligarchy, but at a business mission with the right people in the room.

There's no question that artificial intelligence has taken center stage this week, though. The inauguration ran it a close second.

Mark Zuckerberg underscores Meta's colossal spending plans in a TechCrunch piece, stating, "We're committing more than ever to our AI infrastructure - 1.3 million GPUs is just the beginning."

According to a Reuters report, he also emphasized, "We expect to invest up to $65 billion in capital expenditure this year to power our AI goals."

This commitment echoes across other players in the industry. OpenAI's newly introduced "Operator" service (via TechJuice) is described as an "effortless task-handling" solution that could enable vast improvements in productivity for everyone from solo entrepreneurs to large corporations. Meanwhile, the Financial Times reveals a complex dance around how to price Microsoft's stake in OpenAI: "Valuations in the AI sector are moving so quickly that today's number can be outdated tomorrow," one investor said, highlighting the current sense of urgency - and opportunity.

The AI boom has an obvious political dimension. In the New York Times coverage of Elon Musk's doubts about Trump's $100 billion Stargate A.I. announcement, Musk is quoted as saying, "Big numbers are good headlines, but real AI leadership requires sustainable development and clear goals."

In doing so he was sending a silent 'FU' message to Sam Altman who seems to be the biggest beneficiary of Stargate - the $500 billion data center announced by Trump, Altman, Oracle, Masayoshi San and Microsoft among others.

The fact that Musk, Zuckerberg and Altman are fighting over what the future looks like. And that Musk would make fun of a $500 billion project announced by Trump, are signs that the so called Oligarchy is actually not.

They are businessmen seeking favor in Trump, all with their own goals, often conflicting.

In terms of importance this claim of Oligarchy is a mere sideshow compared to the substantial investments in AI. Moreover, the claim of oligarchy lacks credibility.

The concept has been invoked by President Biden and embraced by ideologues who lack critical thinking skills. Why would you not want the leading innovation companies in Washington, D.C.? And why would you not want them to make a positive impact (or, in the words of the ideologues, wield power)?

This week we saw DeepSeek, a Chinese AI model, jump to the front of AI attention. It used reinforcement learning to train a model very cheaply that can compete with the best models. Then they released it to open source.

In the same week OpenAI announced 'Operator' an AI agent approach that can use a browser to perform many manual tasks by being prompted.

Rohit Krishnan's essay - What would a world with AGI look like? - looks at the implications of AGI for society, as does this week's post of the week by Sam Altman.

"His post on X stated that AI will force a reconsideration of the social contract. His point is that there is going to be progress and it will have implications. We need to talk about that.

Trump and David Sacks are also opening up the US to crypto. A Davos headline from Trustnodes reads, "Bitcoin Will Surpass Gold Reserves Says Brian Armstrong." Whether or not such predictions prove correct, it's emblematic of a broader optimism about how decentralized finance might grow. Andreessen Horowitz, as covered by Coingape, is still betting big on U.S. crypto markets, with one partner remarking, "We see relentless innovation in American crypto startups, even amid regulation uncertainty."

Venture Capital: Shifting Gears, Finding Growth

Venture capital dynamics are also in flux. Larger seed rounds are not only surviving this market climate but sometimes thriving, as noted by Crunchbase: "Seed Rounds Got Larger Through The Downturn. Why Is That?" The answer lies in the faith investors place in disruptive technologies - particularly AI and robotics. Even though some sectors like food and cannabis are seeing funding drop, "robotics and AI remain bright spots for those with a stomach for risk and a vision for the future," another Crunchbase article suggests.

At the same time, Andreessen Horowitz is pulling back from UK crypto projects, per the Financial Times, reflecting how rapidly shifting regulatory environments can create uneven global investment maps. But even this is reason for guarded optimism: as certain markets mature, capital flows to the places best equipped to nurture the next wave of breakthroughs.

Pro-Innovation Outlook

Rather than dwell on a mythological emerging Oligarchy, or the potential pitfalls of regulatory tussles, competitive pressures, or occasional missteps - I have an optimism-first approach.

If even a fraction of the advanced AI capabilities, decentralized finance projects, and next-generation robotics now being funded reach widespread adoption, the world will look very different. As Jowyang's Beehiiv newsletter frames it, "We're on the cusp of AI agents revolutionizing knowledge work, personal productivity, and even creative pursuits."

Innovation at scale is rarely a smooth ride, but the collective energy is staggering - and encouraging. Each step forward, from new GPU deployments at Meta to specialized AI agents managing everyday tasks, expands what humans can achieve. The winners, in a grand sense, are all of us, as tools become more powerful, customization becomes more accessible, and entire new industries take shape.

Yes, there will be challenges - data privacy, algorithmic fairness, and the ethics of automated decision-making among them. But these challenges also create fertile ground for the next wave of problem-solvers. A robust community of researchers, entrepreneurs, and policymakers, all engaged in harnessing AI for social good, can steer us toward solutions that are both profitable and beneficial.

From massive data-center investments to the explosion of specialized AI startups, the story of this week's headlines is one of rapid transformation. Venture capital is adapting, tech giants are spending, and brand-new AI agent services promise to upend what we thought was possible. Rather than fear these changes, we can channel them into positive momentum - building a future that is richer, more efficient, and surprisingly more human as technologies take on rote tasks and free us for deeper work and creativity.

As the author of one of this week's AI articles put it, "Innovation isn't a luxury - it's the fuel that drives human progress forward." Despite the hype, there's genuine excitement here grounded in real-world results. And that, in itself, should give us reason to be optimistic about what comes next.

Essays of the Week

What would a world with AGI look like?

Source: Strange Loop Canon | Published: 2025-01-22 | Reading Time: 11 min | Domain: strangeloopcanon.com

"Within a decade, it's conceivable that 60-80% of all jobs could be lost, with most of them not being replaced."

AI CEOs are extremely fond of making statements like this. And because they make these statements we are forced to take them at face value, and then try to figure out what the implications are.

Now historically the arguments about comparative advantage that has talked about have played out across every sector and technological transition. AI CEOs and proponents though say this time is different.

They're also putting money where their mouth is. OpenAI just launched the Stargate Project.

The Stargate Project is a new company which intends to invest $500 billion over the next four years building new AI infrastructure for OpenAI in the United States. We will begin deploying $100 billion immediately.

The Stargate Project is a new company which intends to invest $500 billion over the next four years building new AI infrastructure for OpenAI in the United States. We will begin deploying $100 billion immediately.

It's a clear look at the fact that we will be investing untold amounts of money, Manhattan Project or Apollo mission level money, to make this future come about.

But if we want to get ready for this world as a society we'd also have to get a better projection of what the world could look like. There are plenty of unknowns, including the pace of progress and the breakthroughs we could expect, which is why this conversation often involves extreme hypotheticals like "full unemployment" or "building Dyson spheres" or "millions of Nobel prize winners in a datacenter".....

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Predictions for AI and Robotics: Big Changes Ahead in the Next 5 Years

Source: TechJuice | Published: 2025-01-23 | Reading Time: 2 min | Domain: techjuice.pk

Renowned AI researcher Yann LeCun shared his vision for the future of artificial intelligence during a session titled "Debating Technology" at Davos 2025. LeCun critiqued the current state of AI, including generative AI and large language models (LLMs), noting that while they offer utility, they fall short of achieving the sophistication required for more advanced applications.

"I think the shelf life of the current [LLM] paradigm is fairly short, probably three to five years," LeCun said. "I think within five years, nobody in their right mind would use them anymore, at least not as the central component of an AI system. I think [....] we're going to see the emergence of a new paradigm for AI architectures, which may not have the limitations of current AI systems."

According to LeCun, these "limitations" hinder the emergence of genuinely intelligent behavior in machines. This can be attributed to four primary factors: an insufficient comprehension of the physical world; an absence of enduring memory; a deficiency in reasoning abilities; and a lack of advanced planning capabilities.

"LLMs really are not capable of any of this," LeCun said. "So there's going to be another revolution of AI over the next few years. We may have to change the name of it, because it's probably not going to be generative in the sense that we understand it today."

Progress Toward Advanced "World Models"

Yann LeCun supports the utilization of "world models" as a means to enhance algorithms' comprehension of real-world scenarios. These models would enhance foundational pattern recognition technology by integrating memory with common sense and reasoning, while also incorporating intuitive capabilities. Previously, LeCun thought these advancements would require a decade to materialize. Recent forecasts suggest that they may materialize sooner; however, their capabilities still require assessment.

"LLMs are good at manipulating language, but not at thinking," LeCun said. "So that's what we're working on - having systems build mental models of the world. If the plan that we're working on succeeds, with the timetable that we hope, within three to five years we'll have systems that are a completely different paradigm. They may have some level of common sense. They may be able to learn how the world works from observing the world and maybe interacting with it."

Robotics in AI Innovation

Yann LeCun predicts that robotics will assume a pivotal role in the forthcoming surge of artificial intelligence applications, thereby broadening the influence of generative AI to encompass practical domains such as law and medicine. While Meta is engaged in robotics research, OpenAI has concurrently established a new robotics team dedicated to the development of adaptive and versatile robots possessing human-like intelligence for practical applications in the real world.

"We don't have robots that can do what a cat can do - understanding the physical world of a cat is way superior to everything we can do with AI," he said. "Maybe the coming decade will be the decade of robotics, maybe we'll have AI systems that are sufficiently smart to understand how the real world works."

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Meta to Increase Spending to $65 Billion This Year in A.I. Push

Source: NYT > Technology | Published: 2025-01-24 | Reading Time: 1 min | Domain: nytimes.com

Much of the capital investment, a big jump from 2024, will fund expansion of Meta's data centers, which provide the computing power needed by A.I. products and algorithms.

By Mike Isaac

Reporting from San Francisco. Jan. 24, 2025

Mark Zuckerberg spent all of 2024 telling investors that artificial intelligence would be key to the future of his company, Meta. In 2025, he plans to put his money where his mouth is.

On Friday, Mr. Zuckerberg said the company expected its capital expenditures in 2025 to come in at an estimated $60 to $65 billion, a big increase compared with the roughly $38 to $40 billion Meta spent in 2024.

Much of that amount will go building and expanding data centers, the warehouse-size buildings that provide the computing power that fuels Meta's A.I. products and algorithms across its apps, which include Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp.

"This is a massive effort, and over the coming years it will drive our core products and business, unlock historic innovation, and extend American technology leadership," Mr. Zuckerberg said in a post to his Facebook page.

He noted that the company also expected to own more than 1.3 million graphics processing units, or GPUs, by the end of the year. A GPU is a type of computer chip that excels in the type of computing power required for A.I. systems. As A.I.-powered apps and products have grown more popular in recent years, there is a shortage of GPUs across the industry, with tech companies big and small vying to purchase as many as they can from companies like Nvidia.

And despite many layoffs and cutbacks to the company's work force over the past three years, Mr. Zuckerberg said that he planned to continue hiring "significantly" to grow the teams responsible for working on A.I. and related products.

Meta's share price rose about 1.7 percent on Friday.

Silicon Valley's tech giants are locked in an infrastructure arms race, as they compete to build the future of artificial intelligence. Google, Microsoft and Amazon have all earmarked billions of dollars for data centers and infrastructure projects, and have signaled no slowdown in spending for the foreseeable future.

On Tuesday, President Trump announced a joint venture between OpenAI, SoftBank and Oracle called Stargate, which aims to invest at least $100 billion in U.S. data centers. The group behind the project said it could invest as much as half a trillion dollars in Stargate over the next four years. Elon Musk, who runs a competing artificial intelligence start-up, later cast doubt on that figure.

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OpenAI Introduces Operator for Effortless Task Handling

Source: TechJuice | Published: 2025-01-24 | Reading Time: 5 min | Domain: techjuice.pk

At the beginning of this year, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman predicted in a blog post that artificial intelligence agents - tools capable of automating tasks and acting on behalf of users would make a major impact in 2025. That vision is now taking shape.

Finally, OpenAI made its first serious effort.

Thursday, OpenAI unveiled a research preview of Operator, a general-purpose AI agent capable of autonomously controlling a web browser and carrying out specific tasks. The operator will be available to ChatGPT Pro subscribers in the US for $200 initially. OpenAI has stated its intention to expand the availability of this option to additional users in the future across its Plus, Team, and Enterprise levels.

"[Operator] will be [in] other countries soon," stated OpenAI CEO Sam Altman during a livestream on Thursday. "Europe will, unfortunately, take a while."

Visit operator.chatgpt.com to get this early research preview; however, OpenAI plans to integrate Operator into all of its ChatGPT clients in the near future.

Features of Operator

Online shopping, making restaurant reservations, and arranging travel lodgings are just a few of the operations that Operator claims to automate, according to OpenAI. Within the Operator interface, users have the option to select various task categories that offer various forms of automation. These categories include shopping, delivery, eating, and travel, among others.

A small window will appear when ChatGPT users enable Operator. It will show the agent's dedicated web browser and explain what the agent is doing as they complete tasks. Due to the Operator's usage of its own dedicated browser, users retain control of their screen even while the Operator is functioning.

In order to power the Operator, OpenAI claims to have used a Computer-Using Agent (CUA) model that integrates the reasoning powers of their more advanced models with the vision capabilities of their GPT-4o model. The CUA may access various services without using developer-facing APIs because it is designed to work with website front ends.

In simpler terms, the CUA is capable of interacting with online forms, menus, and buttons in the same way that a human would.

To make sure that the Operator follows the rules set out by firms like Uber, StubHub, DoorDash, eBay, Priceline, and Instacart, OpenAI claims to be working with these companies.

"The CUA model is trained to ask for user confirmation before finalizing tasks with external side effects, for example before submitting an order, sending an email, etc., so that the user can double-check the model's work before it becomes permanent," OpenAI explains in a Techjuice report. "[It] has already proven useful in a variety of cases, and we aim to extend that reliability across a wider range of tasks." ...

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OpenAI's 'Operator' Shows Why They'll Build a Web Browser

Source: Spyglass | Published: 2025-01-24 | Reading Time: 6 min | Domain: spyglass.org

Summary: The article discusses the innovative approach of OpenAI's new product, 'Operator', which is its first real agent. Unlike its predecessors from Anthropic and Google, Operator outsources tasks to OpenAI's cloud-based computer, utilizing a web browser to execute commands. The author finds this method both clever and obvious, as it allows users to free up their own computers while the agent works remotely. However, this setup also strikes the author as somewhat peculiar, likening it to watching a performance from a distance.

MG argues that OpenAI should develop its own web browser to better accommodate Operator's needs. This suggestion stems from the observation that Operator currently runs on a customized version of Chrome. While Chrome's popularity and compatibility make it a logical choice for now

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OpenAI struggles to price Microsoft stake in deal to become for-profit company

Source: Technology sector | Published: 2025-01-24 | Reading Time: 1 min | Domain: ft.com

Cristina Criddle and George Hammond in San Francisco

OpenAI's board is locked in complex negotiations to become a for-profit company, struggling to determine the price of Microsoft's stake in the start-up while holding talks to value its newly formed charitable arm at $30bn.

The ChatGPT maker, which is overseen by its not-for-profit board, has been discussing a restructuring since September that would split the start-up in two. Its charitable arm, tasked with OpenAI's original mission of "benefiting humanity", would be given a stake in the newly formed public benefit corporation (PBC).

One obstacle to the conversion has been determining how much equity the start-up's biggest backer, Microsoft, would hold in the PBC, according to people with knowledge of the talks. Other considerations, such as how much equity chief executive Sam Altman will be granted in the new company, must also be ironed out.

According to three people familiar with the negotiations, the charitable arm could be valued at about $30bn, but a final price is yet to be determined. The majority of that value would be realised in the form of equity in the PBC, one person added, with the remainder paid in cash....

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Stargate artificial intelligence project to exclusively serve OpenAI

Source: Technology sector | Published: 2025-01-24 | Reading Time: 1 min | Domain: ft.com

George Hammond and Tabby Kinder in San Francisco and Madhumita Murgia in London

Stargate, a high-profile artificial intelligence infrastructure project trumpeted by US President Donald Trump this week, will exclusively serve ChatGPT maker OpenAI, according to people familiar with the matter.

The venture planned to spend $100bn on Big Tech infrastructure projects, with the figure rising to as much as $500bn over the next four years, OpenAI and SoftBank, Stargate's two main backers, said on Tuesday. Oracle and Abu Dhabi state AI fund MGX are also founding partners.

Trump lauded the SoftBank-backed initiative on Tuesday at a White House event attended by OpenAI chief Sam Altman and other tech executives as "a resounding declaration of confidence in America's potential under a new president".

Despite the flashy announcement, Stargate has not yet secured the funding it requires, will receive no government financing and will only serve OpenAI once completed, the people familiar with the initiative have said.

"The intent is not to become a data centre provider for the world, it's for OpenAI," said one of the people....

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Elon Musk Casts Doubt on Trump's $100 Billion Stargate A.I. Announcement

Source: NYT > Technology | Published: 2025-01-22 | Reading Time: 1 min | Domain: nytimes.com

Mr. Trump had claimed the A.I. announcement as an early trophy, taking credit for the companies' decision to spend up to $500 billion building data centers.

By Theodore Schleifer and Cecilia Kang Reporting from Washington Jan. 22, 2025

Elon Musk is casting doubt on the first major tech investment announcement made by President Trump, openly questioning the administration he now serves.

On Tuesday, Mr. Trump announced a joint venture between OpenAI, SoftBank and Oracle to create at least $100 billion in computing infrastructure to power artificial intelligence, some of which is already underway.

But in two late-night messages on X, Mr. Musk said that the venture, dubbed Stargate, did not have the financing to achieve the promised investment levels.

"They don't have the money," Mr. Musk wrote in reply to an OpenAI post on the announcement. "SoftBank has well under $10B secured. I have that on good authority."

The dismissal by Mr. Musk, who is one of Mr. Trump's closest advisers and will head up an agency created to slash the nation's budget, is one of his first public breaks with the administration. It's also an unusual move for any senior policy official to question an initiative trumpeted by the president.

Mr. Trump claimed the A.I. announcement as an early trophy, taking credit for the companies' decision to spend up to $500 billion building data centers, which are huge buildings full of servers that provide computing power. Mr. Trump promised to clear regulatory hurdles for the development of A.I. and to make the United States a global leader in the technology, beating out China.

"The American people should take President Trump and those C.E.O.s' words for it," Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, told Fox News on Wednesday. "These investments are coming to our great country, and American jobs are coming along with them."

Stargate already has $100 billion in hand, two people familiar with the venture said. SoftBank, OpenAI, Oracle and MGX, an investment group in the United Arab Emirates that focuses on A.I., provided the financing.

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Joe Biden Was The Last President of the 20th Century - And the TV Era

Digital and social are replacing TV as America's dominant medium - Democrats must evolve to win

THE BIG PICTURE AND TRISTAN SNELL JAN 23, 2025

A Teleprompter reflects the decorative ceiling of the East Room in front of U.S. President Joe Biden. Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images.

As we continue to reflect on the election result and how to move forward in this new and troubling political era, we welcome guest author Tristan Snell for his take on the changes Democrats must make to win the 21st Century Digital Media age. This piece also appears at TristanSnell.com. - The Big Picture Team

For all the analyses and think pieces on why Donald Trump won and how the Democrats are doomed, the vast majority of such commentaries completely overlooked the most fundamental change affecting politics in America - and indeed, around the world.

The deeper paradigm shift is not about politics per se. It is about media.

It propelled Donald Trump and JD Vance to national office - and it is the primary reason why they won.

By contrast, Joe Biden was the last president of the 20th Century and its TV Era, and if Democrats want to elect the next president, they will need to adapt to the new Digital Era. Immediately.

Joe Biden using a teleprompter in 2024. It went from a standard indispensable tool of the TV Era politician to a point of criticism and weakness.

The internet killed TV

The TV Era is now ending. It began in 1951: the first-ever national live TV event was, fittingly, a presidential address, from Harry Truman. Only nine years later, TV had arguably swung a national election, with the first-ever live televised presidential debate in 1960 between JFK and Nixon.

Since then, American politics has been dominated by the institutions of TV, the set pieces we know so well: presidential debates, White House press conferences, the occasional primetime presidential address, the national party conventions, the Sunday morning talk shows, the exclusive interviews, the late-night talk shows, hosting Saturday Night Live, cable news talking head shows, and the ritual of election nights with their live reporting of results.

TV forced politics to adapt, to reshape itself. Before TV, a national party convention was a series of closed-door meetings to horse trade and cut deals, followed by marching and singing in the convention hall - it was a messy, turbulent process in which the candidate was chosen right there in a four-day period. We now think of that as an anachronism: the dreaded "contested convention."

Why? Because in 1968, there were literal fistfights on the floor of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago - and it was all broadcast on live TV. It made the Democrats look fractured and out of control, helping lead to Nixon's eventual victory that year. Since then, every national convention has looked the same: choreographed down to the millisecond, nothing left to chance, the outcome already decided months before, all to make a shiny perfect surface for the TV cameras.

TV demanded this perfection: it is a hallmark of the medium. Film has many of the same attributes, as did theater before that to a great degree. All aim to present an artificial world, to hide the stitching and the seams, to engage in a form of magic, a sleight of hand. This is the entire goal of special effects - and of makeup and costumes. It is all artifice, and the artifice must be hidden (one must believethat the planet is a planet and not a styrofoam sphere). This imperative extends to the actors and anchors as well. Never let them see behind the curtain. Never break character. Don't break the fourth wall. Don't show how the sausage is made...

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We're getting the social media crisis wrong

Source: www.programmablemutter.com | Published: 2025-01-18 | Reading Time: 14 min | Domain: programmablemutter.com

This post lays out some ideas that I've been thinking about for a long while. You should treat my claims with appropriate skepticism - I'm saying that a lot of public thinking and academic research about social media is chasing after the wrong target, on the basis of (a) my idiosyncratic reading of social theory, and (b) my partial understanding of current events. But at the least, my approach provides a superficially coherent account of how the relationship between social media and democracy is changing in the U.S. and other countries.

Over the last few weeks, we have seen Elon Musk transforming X/Twitter into a kind of deranged parallel universe out of a Philip K. Dick novel, in which the political realities of the US, UK and Germany are re-arranging themselves around the obsessions of an unelected individual. Now, Mark Zuckerberg seems to be taking the guardrails off Meta's social media services.

My explanation of what is happening is this. We tend to think of the problem of social media as a problem of disinformation - that is, of people receiving erroneous information and being convinced that false things are in fact true. Hence, we can try to make social media better through factchecking, through educating people to see falsehoods and similar. This is, indeed, a problem, but it is not the most important one. The fundamental problem, as I see it, is not that social media misinforms individuals about what is true or untrue but that it creates publics with malformed collective understandings. That is a more subtle problem, but also a more pernicious one. Explaining it is going to require some words. Bear with me.