Re the headline/lead-in, in the case of Microsoft, it’s a word game. Work with us here. The CEO of Microsoft “Suddenly not sounding too confident about AI not being a bubble,” Futurism reported. “Speaking at the World Economic Forum, (Satya) Nadella pontificated about what would constitute such a speculative bubble, and said that the long-term success of AI tech hinges on it being used across a broad range of industries — as well as seeing an uptick in adoption in the developing world where it’s not as popular, the Financial Times reports. If AI fails, in other words, it’s everyone else’s fault for not using it.”

“He also begged the public to stop using the term “slop,” the rapidly accepted new lingo for describing the shoddy text, images, and videos churned out by AI models. Nadella’s thesis seemed to be that we should stop being mean about AI as it refines its “jagged edges” — which could take a while, by his own admission.”

Fine. We’ll wait. Remember, a huge number of first-to-market Web 1 companies disappeared when the bubble burst. The internet didn’t go away then, either.

Then there’s OpenAI, is a company still in search of a revenue model and pay attention, founders. OpenAI founder/CEO Sam Altman is hardly new to the startup game/business. He was president of Y Combinator from 2014 to 2019, and considering that the accelerator runs both winter and summer cohorts, that’s a lot of startups that went through the program on his watch. As a very active mentor at Founder Institute, we will tell you that a key focus placed on every startup in the program is: what’s your revenue model? You can’t have a business without having a revenue model for the business to survive.

As we mentioned in last week’s newsletter, OpenAI is open to testing an advertising model, but now there’s OpenAI’s new business model: “A finder’s fee for success you found yourself”, MSN reported. A post by OpenAI’s chief financial officer, Sarah Friar, seems to suggest that “OpenAI is open to the idea of taking a share of customers’ AI-aided discoveries.”

Do note that she said it in a post, as she could not possibly have stood up on any podium and said it with a straight face considering all the online and even copyrighted content OpenAI has been scraping and continues to scrape to train its AI (Eight US newspapers sue ChatGPT-maker OpenAI and Microsoft for copyright infringement, AP reported and that’s just one case)

“OpenAI hopes to quietly begin reframing its relationship with enterprise customers from simply being a “tool provider” to one of a long-term infrastructure partner and that they hope would eventually include AI agents deployed in a workplace,” MSN continued.

In other words, it’s tech as usual. Consider the amount of personal information the tech cartel has collected, no doubt on nearly everyone on the planet, directly or indirectly, and what choice did third parties who never opted in have? It’s the unspoken Big Tech code: “what’s mine is mine and what’s yours is mine” (Can you truly opt-out of AI data collection?)

Speaking of the games people in Big Tech and even the media covering tech play, in case you missed it, “A group of US investors bought TikTok,” Morning Brew et al reported. “The three managing investors will own US user data and be tasked with moderating US content… Your experience on the app likely won’t change much…immediately. But you’ve probably already seen new service terms pop up. These have alarmed some users and pushed some to delete the app, because TikTok will now collect your precise location—not just your approximate location—if you agree to the new terms.”

Which in Big Tech is yesterday’s news.

“TikTok bans hate speech and inappropriate content, but with the new owners moderating, its standards could change (see also: Elon Musk buying Twitter). Some critics claim that the concern that necessitated the sale—that the Chinese government could manipulate the algorithm and spread propaganda—could simply shift to worry about the messages favored by the app’s new ownership, who are pretty close with the current US president.”

How quickly they forget. We take no sides. We simply report: “Weaponization Committee Exposes the Biden White House Censorship Regime in New Report”, the Judiciary reported. Here’s the full report from the US House of Representatives: THE CENSORSHIP-INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX: HOW TOP BIDEN WHITE HOUSE OFFICIALS COERCED BIG TECH TO CENSOR AMERICANS, TRUE INFORMATION, AND CRITICS OF THE BIDEN ADMINISTRATION.

Then there are the games one can play thanks to AI. As @DavidSacks tweeted, “Replaced my NYT subscription with a Mac Mini and Clawdbot. Told it to gather as much factual information as possible, then rewrite it as left-wing propaganda. Works perfectly.”

And thanks for playing. Onward and forward.