While there are threats to break up big tech companies in the US, Apple is once again hit by the EU. Google appears to have another problem implementing AI, with Steve Wozniak back as an unlikely critic of the TikTok ban, but this is a new open-source AI that runs on computers, and Amazon Executives have different views on artificial general intelligence.
These and other articles from the “Breakups are Hard” edition of Hashtag Trends. I'm your host, Jim Love. So let's get down to business:
Big tech companies have been hit so hard on so many fronts that one wonders if the ultimate end game is to break up some of the giants like Meta, Google, and even Apple. There are some too.
Apple also came under fire from the European Union this week. The EU is not satisfied that Apple's App Store changes comply with the Digital Markets Act, and the company has announced that it is now under formal investigation for possible violations.
After all, the bottom line is that the EU isn't convinced that Apple is complying with antitrust laws. These laws are designed to prevent big tech companies from using their market advantages to give their products and services an unfair advantage over their competitors.
Apple has been admonished for some of what the EU considers anti-competitive behavior in that it forced developers to not be able to recommend payment methods other than the Apple Store, and the EU also warned Apple In response, Apple has made it impossible to recommend payment methods other than the Apple Store. Sell software for iPhones and other devices.
But each time, the “solutions” provided by Apple were criticized as, to put it kindly, nothing resembling true compliance with EU requirements.
The rules and restrictions were so complex that it took regulators a lot of time to analyze them.
But for some companies, navigating the complex rules left Apple's competitors worse off than they were before the change. For example, one of the provisions they put in place to allow developers to join another app store could potentially bankrupt a small developer just by managing to gather a large number of downloads. It contained clauses.
The EU then reacted loudly and launched a new investigation into Apple's potential “non-compliance.”
This is a serious situation for the EU. Apple was fined $1.8 billion for violating what appeared to be anti-competitive rules in music streaming. But these latest charges could carry even greater penalties. Companies can be fined up to 10% of their global turnover, or what the law calls “turnover”, and up to 20% in case of repeat offenses. .
And to add to the bad news, Apple is under investigation in the United States after the Department of Justice, along with 15 state governments, filed a lawsuit against the company for what also appears to be anti-competitive practices.
But unlike the EU, which relies on fines, the United States has a history of breaking up companies that engage in anticompetitive behavior. The biggest event dates back to the dissolution of AT&T in the United States. AT&T he was split into seven different companies, the so-called Baby Bells.
But Google and Meta are not smug. The EU is also paying attention to them. The news release states:
Today, the European Commission launched a non-compliance investigation under the Digital Markets Act (DMA), investigating Alphabet's rules for operating on Google Play and self-prioritization in Google Search, operating on the App Store and Apple's rules, Safari and We have started investigating violations regarding the Meta selection screen. “Pay or Consent Model.”
And while the EU is leading in this area, so far the US has traditionally moved in the same direction, although it may take longer, as with Apple.
Sources: Reuters, 9to5Mac, BBC
Google's new AI-powered Search Generative Experience is set to be a major step forward in AI-powered search. However, it has been discovered that this new service appears to be promoting fraudulent and spam sites.
This new feature provides a summary of your search query and then recommends sites to visit. However, as one of his SEO consultants, Lilly Ray, pointed out, these conversational responses have been found to make people more susceptible to scams and sites with malicious behavior.
Bleeping Computer conducted some of its own tests and found similar results. Many sites are part of so-called SEO poisoning, where legitimate sites are hijacked and used to promote fraud with seemingly legitimate ads and links. It can also get infiltrated through a series of redirects to fraudulent sites.
Whatever the tactic, Google's new feature appears to be promoting these sites, marking another “intervention” by Google in an attempt to promote the use of AI.
Sources include: Bleeping Computer
A new open source AI caught my attention. I was recently interviewed by Red Hat for a series called Todd Talks and talked about open source AI and its potential to democratize AI by making it available to everyone.
Jan is described as an open source ChatGPT alternative that works completely offline on regular computers.
Developed by a team of researchers at Jan Labs, Jan aims not only to democratize AI but also to give users more control over the privacy of their information. It is described as having the power of
Jan can run on a variety of computers, from Apple's M series to Nvidia GPUs.
Jan's founders envisioned AI as an “augmentation of human intelligence” and developed it based on four principles:
- Ownership: Users maintain full ownership of Jan after being freed from external data tracking and storage. Jan is a tool created by users and for users that promotes independence and self-determination.
- Privacy: Jan prioritizes user privacy by minimizing dependence on external servers that primarily operate in the local context. Your device stores your data securely and offers unparalleled privacy controls.
- User Support: Jan takes a community-driven development approach, allowing users to access, modify, and add to its codebase. This collaborative approach ensures that Jan is modified according to the user's requirements and preferences.
- Ethical Design: Jan maintains user well-being and agency by prioritizing ethical design principles over deceptive techniques and proprietary lock-ins.
Jan is available under the AGPLv3 license and is developed through collaborative platforms like Discord and tools like Kanban boards to encourage what the team says is information sharing and creativity.
Python runtime and mobile platform support are some of the planned additions.
Source: Martech Post
Apple Computer co-founder Steve Wozniak is back in the news as an unlikely TikTok advocate. Or at least as someone who thinks it's hypocritical to single out TikTok while also letting big companies like Meta and Google collect our data and track us. As he said in an interview with CNN,
“If there is a principle, [that] Individuals should not be tracked without their knowledge. This applies equally to any company and any country. You don't say, “Here's one case where we're going to outlaw the app, but we're not going to do it in other cases.” So, I don't like hypocrisy, but it clearly comes from the political realm. ”
He went on to say, “And tracking you, tracking you is questionable. But, well, look at what we're blaming TikTok for, and then… You go look at Facebook and Google, and that's how they make their business, I mean, Facebook was a great idea. But they make all their money just by tracking you and advertising. But Apple doesn't really do that much.”
In fact, Wozniak was very supportive of Apple's “walled garden” approach to better protect users' data and privacy.
Mr. Wozniak has been at the cutting edge of Apple since its founding. He has served as head of digital rights as one of the founders of the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
But you might be forgiven for seeing him as TikTok's unlikely champion. But in fact, Wozniak has stated that he prefers it over other social networks.
In this CNN interview, he said he mostly avoids the “social web” but enjoys watching TikTok “even if it's for things like dog rescue videos.”
There was another bright moment in Wozniak's interview. He was hospitalized in Mexico City last fall after suffering a stroke, but to the delight of his fans (myself included), he appears to have made a full recovery.
Source: The Register
What is artificial general intelligence? Is AI smarter than us? Is the AI self-aware? Or is it simply an AI that can do the job?
The problem is that there are no agreed standards for distinguishing between what we think of as algorithms and what we think of as more human types of intelligence.
The lines become more and more blurred. We have already talked about autonomous agents, which can plan, learn, and perform tasks. As I follow conversations with Anthropic's Claude and Inflection's pi.ai, it becomes increasingly difficult to convince myself that there isn't some kind of emergent behavior that is at least possible.
There's a certain fear element associated with AGI, visions of it taking over humans like something out of a bad science fiction novel. A report prepared for the US government also warned of the dangers of AGI.
But while there may be no consensus on the definition of artificial general intelligence, that doesn't stop Amazon from predicting what role it thinks it will play in our future. .
For Amazon, AGI is less a monolithic intelligence and more personal, potentially a set of capabilities that serve humans.
Vishal Sharma, Amazon's vice president of artificial general intelligence, announced at the South by Southwest conference that “the future is personal AGI for everyone.”
The personification of this concept of “ambient intelligence,” if that's the right word, is the Alexa assistant. This is an AI that appears when needed and then fades into the background.
Currently, Alex has something like “30 models that power over 130,000 skills,” Sharma said. Also, according to Amazon, 40% of smart home interactions are initiated by Alexa.
Sharma says this is a path to what he calls “embodied AI,” or more than just a speaker in a room. Amazon is experimenting with Astro, his AI-powered residential robot named after the futuristic 1960s cartoon “The Jetsons.”
But closer to reality are services like Alexa's Intuition, which locks your door if you forget.
Sharma believes that AGI is still a long way off, and that the language may prove too abstract to train AI to achieve AGI and may hit a ceiling in its development. said.
But it's a brighter future than we hear, more Jetsons than Terminators.
Sources include: Axios
That's today's show.
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I'm your host, Jim Love. Have a great Wozniak Wednesday.
