Open AI: Why we should care about it, but what we can do about it? The comments of Elon Musk on OpenAI (and other commentators)

But there’s also this piece. We are sad that we have found ourselves in this situation with someone we admire, someone who encourages us to aim higher, and someone who has told us we will fail, started a competitor, and then sued us when we began making meaningful progress toward OpenAI.

It is my opinion that we should say that we have a $1B funding commitment. This is correct. Musk wrote in an email about how to introduce OpenAI to the world. He dismissed a suggestion to launch by announcing $100 million in funding, citing the huge resources of Google and Facebook.

Some commentators thought Musk had forwarded arguments that argued that Google had an advantage over Hassabis in the field of artificial intelligence.

The European Digital Media Act: Where are we, and how do we get there? What do we want to see in Europe? What can we do about it? What will we learn from it?

Well, it was my pleasure, Kevin. On this show, you are driving the train, and you do a good job. This is something that I really wanted to do because I think it matters; I get intimidated when I have to walk you through something.

And let me just kind of steel man the opposition here that you will hear from people in the tech industry and people who work at these companies and have you respond to it. People in the tech industry will say this is Europe trying to regulate because it can’t innovate. Europe has not built any companies that are the size and scale of Google or Apple. And the people in the tech industry who are skeptical of the DMA will say this is just them trying to clamp down on innovation, that Europe is sort of turning itself into a technological backwater. They don’t have a great startup scene because they have decided to regulate promising technologies rather than letting them play out. What do you say to that argument?

I am just saying that it is worth trying. There is a world that we don’t want to live in. We want to make them open up and play nice with others while also creating opportunities for other companies. And this is the most significant effort we have seen in the world to do that so far. I am not certain that it will get us closer to the finish line, but it is a place where we can start and build from.

Yeah, I agree. It’s very easy looking at any new tech regulation and figure out a million different reasons why it probably won’t work. It will not have the desired effect. It’ll have these unintended consequences. And that can be an excuse for tech companies to essentially throw up their hands and say, it’s not even worth trying.

What is the structure of the Apple App Store? How does it treat developers? How can I build an app for the iPhone? Like these are questions that I think a lot of people have not historically known the answers to and are now finding out through the process of watching these tech giants try to comply with this new law. So regardless of whether or not the DMA has the intended effect, I feel OK about its existence because we’re just learning so much more about how these companies operate. And I think if three or four or five years from now we look back and say, hey, the internet is actually kind of broken in Europe, it’s easy enough to undo the regulations there. I think there is nothing wrong with running the experiment.

Yeah. I would say that so far what I am feeling about the Digital Markets Act is sort of analogous to what I’m feeling about the lawsuit that Elon Musk filed against OpenAI, which is like, does this make a lot of sense on its face? Hard to tell, maybe I’m skeptical that the actual complaints here are valid. But I do think that there is a process of learning that is taking place here and of public education around, what is the structure of OpenAI?

It feels like the fate of humanity is in the hands of a few companies. That is what I actually want. We’re not going to go all the way there. But I do think it can get us some of the way there, right? There might be room for new competitors if Google is not putting its own results on top of so many different categories of searches. New kinds of businesses might be able to be created. So my hope is that this will create conditions where entrepreneurs can come along and build cool new businesses that mean just slightly less money goes into the coffers of a tiny handful of companies.

Source: Musk vs. OpenAI, Europe’s Tech Crackdown and a Month With the Vision Pro

The Good. What Have You Been Since You’ve Been Using the Vision Pro? An Interview with Joanna Stern, CEO of Apple

I want to discuss this because I’ve had a fantastic experience with this thing every single day since it arrived at my house. I believe it has better things than I anticipated. It also has things that are sort of puzzlingly bad and much worse than I expected. Since the thing came out, some people have been using it for a long time. I think it is time to look back and ask, What is the purpose of this thing that came out, that was so talked about, that was so excited? How are people liking it?

Correct. And so it took a while to get the necessary approvals and to get it shipped out. I have it. For about a week I have had it. And I was really excited to talk about it with you, except you don’t have one. Are the technology department not springing for one?

I want to talk to her about the past month of using this device and what she thinks about it, whether or not we think this thing is here to stay or whether it’s just a novelty item that isn’t going to be popular.

And so today, I thought we should bring in Joanna Stern. One of the early reviewers that Apple sent a review unit to, was a personal tech columnist at The Wall Street Journal named “Joanna,” who is currently working on a book. And she’s written a lot of great stuff about her experiences using it.

You like traveling with this Vision Pro. You do not enjoy it as much as you thought you would. Let’s talk about the good. What did you like about it? What is it that you’re going to do for a month after using this thing?

Source: Musk vs. OpenAI, Europe’s Tech Crackdown and a Month With the Vision Pro

OpenAI: What Is Open in the Name of My Company? Two Trade-Notes: Musk vs. OpenAI, Europe’s Tech Crackdown and a Month With the Vision Pro

I think that it hasbroughtJoanna some joy as well. So I’m curious to hear you two trade notes, particularly because Joanna, as you point out, has had this thing for a lot longer, and if nothing else, I think she might have some pro tips for you. Bring her in!

Yeah, it does. At the very least, I think that we should continue to follow up on this story by taking ourselves on a European vacation later this year and seeing how the DMA is putting itself into practice. What do you think?

So Casey, there are a few topics on this show that one or the other of US has always been reluctant to talk about because we think it’s boring. For you, this is semiconductors.

So essentially, OpenAI is saying, look, you knew from the beginning, or very close to the beginning of OpenAI, that we were going to have to raise a bunch of money and probably lose our pure non-profit model. You knew that at some point we were going to have to stop releasing information to the public because it was going to be more powerful. We don’t have to share all of the code to achieve this mission of being open.

Like, Musk also hasn’t opensourced his AI stuff. Grok is not an open source AI model. Clearly, he doesn’t think that everything should be open. But I think if you put open in the name of your company, people are maybe going to assume that what you’re going to be doing is going to be open.

It’s not a good point and I don’t want to say it’s a good point. I think putting open in the name of the company has led to many misunderstandings. Since they are not called Open McDonald’s, Mcdonald’s should not give out the secret recipe for the Big Mac sauce.

Source: Musk vs. OpenAI, Europe’s Tech Crackdown and a Month With the Vision Pro

Apparently Elon Musk is Just Jealous, but What Do These OpenAI Emails Tell Us About DeepMind/Google? And why does OpenAI Matter? How OpenAI can lead to a Better Future

So that is basically the top line of their claim is that Elon Musk is just jealous. He’s just jealous. He’s just, basically, a hater who was instrumental in our founding. He did not think that we would be able to succeed. He is now suing us because of sour grapes. Their claim is, that’s it. But then they also include all these emails back from 2015 and 2018, sort of the early years of the company. What do these emails show?

Yeah. What do you think about this exchange? It is very dishy. It’s obviously full of sort of beef and feuding between these very powerful tech people, which makes it interesting to folks like us. Is there a real case for this, or is it just a bunch of rich tech guys arguing?

My favorite of the emails is from Elon in 2018. He sends this to Ilya Sutskever, Greg Brockman, and Sam Altman. And Elon says, my probability assessment of OpenAI being relevant to DeepMind/Google without a dramatic change in execution and resources is 0 percent, not 1 percent. I wish it were otherwise. Even raising several hundred million won’t be enough. This needs billions of dollars per year to be remembered.

And Ilya writes, “As we get closer to building AI, it will make sense to start being less open. Everyone should benefit from the fruits of artificial intelligence once it is built, but it is okay to not share the science. That email was replied to by Musk with a single word, according to this post. He says yes.

Yes. Although of course, Kevin, when we read that email where Elon Musk says, yep, the one question that the OpenAI blog post cannot answer is how much ketamine was in Elon’s system when he wrote that? Because depending on what the level, he may actually have no recollection that he wrote that.

Source: Musk vs. OpenAI, Europe’s Tech Crackdown and a Month With the Vision Pro

On a little bit of friction in the use of Vision Pro and muskvs. openAI, Europe’s tech crackdown and a month with the vision pro

Talk about some of the other friction that comes to mind when you think, I want to use this thing more, but I’m not actually doing it. What is the process to using the Vision Pro that will make you think, oh, well, I am just going to use a laptop?

I don’t want a brand new backpack. Buying backpacks for women is very tough. That’s a whole other podcast. There are some things where I am going to use it a lot more now that I didn’t think it was worth it. And that was more in the entertainment world.

I am going to have all these monitors. I’m going to bring it to and from the office every day. It is too heavy to do that every day. My backpack is not big enough. I would have to buy a new backpack.

Source: Musk vs. OpenAI, Europe’s Tech Crackdown and a Month With the Vision Pro

What have you been saying lately about tech, and what are your first impressions? How did you get yours? A case study on muskov vs. openAI, Europe’s tech crackdown and a month with

The excitement wears off and that is not the only reason. It’s also that the use of it wears off. And so the things I find myself going towards it for now are not the things I actually thought I would. Like, working was one I thought that, oh, I’m going to work in this all the time. It’s going to be so great.

I think that what I’ve really been feeling is that I want to love this, and I want to wear it. I don’t wear it a month in. And so that honeymoon period of when you get a new gadget, and you’re like, this is awesome, it smells so good, it feels so good, I can do all these things I can’t do with my other things — and that’s just general tech excitement about any new product — it wears off here.

I only had this for a week, but you have been trying it for a month. And I would first love to ask you, like, what were your first impressions, and what are your impressions now, a month later?

You showed off how to make sure pots are hot when they are simmering on the stove. You went skiing in the Vision Pro, and you used these personas, these little 3D renderings of your face on a FaceTime call with some other early testers. And I just got mine, because for reasons that are not worth going into here, but it takes a little while in the New York Times procurement process.

Yeah. There are a number of reasons why it took a little while, but they have to do with how one gets a new piece of technology.

Source: Musk vs. OpenAI, Europe’s Tech Crackdown and a Month With the Vision Pro

Is GPT-4 really an AGI? (Is it hard to tell someone that GPT is AI) or what it is not?

I don’t agree. I actually think it’s going to be really hard to determine what does and doesn’t count as AGI. I think that if you showed GPT-4 to someone 10 years ago they would probably say that it was AGI. It can write papers on any subject. It can tell you about anything.

It can do well in the bar exam. Like, it is doing all of these things that researchers previously thought it would be impossible for AI to do, or that it would take decades for AI to be able to do. So I think the goalposts on this do keep shifting. I think there will be many debates and debates about AGI, and I think we’ll continue to talk about that. But let’s talk about how OpenAI responded to this lawsuit from Elon Musk.

I think that we are a long way away from that. I think that we should be able to tell who is qualified to make the decision, because it should be obvious. If you have a piece of software on your computer that can do any job in the world at a human level of competence, that should be enough for you to know whether or not it is true.

Source: Musk vs. OpenAI, Europe’s Tech Crackdown and a Month With the Vision Pro

What does it take to enforce a nonprofit? A case study about Musk vs. openAI, Europe’s tech crackdown and a month with the vision pro

Yeah. In his view, he created a nonprofit. And while there is a nonprofit board that controls the company, it also is doing a lot of commercial work. And in fact, its for-profit subsidiary is currently valued at $86 billion and is, we think, probably eventually going to make a lot of money for Microsoft, in particular. So it is a very different company today than it was when Elon Musk left.

So one of them is just breach of contract. You had this agreement to develop this technology as a nonprofit and open source it. You haven’t done that. GPT-4 is not open source, and OpenAI is partnering with Microsoft.

And one piece of legal analysis that I’ve read over the past week, Kevin, as we’ve been digesting this is legal experts say that if there is not a contract, it’s actually very difficult to enforce.

That’s true. That’s true. To sue for breach of contract and win, there has to be a valid contract. That contract needs to be written down in some form and enforceable.

Source: Musk vs. OpenAI, Europe’s Tech Crackdown and a Month With the Vision Pro

A Note on Proscribing What GPT, GPT-4 and DALLE Can Say About an Artificial Intelligence or a Security Threat

Alright, let’s take a moment to think about the possibility that this lawsuit also includes another charge, and perhaps one that’s just based around some weird legal terminology I have never heard of.

I asked what promissory estoppel was and it said buzz off, white boy. No, I’m just kidding. promissory estoppel is when you make a promise to someone and the other person relies on that promise to be fulfilled, and then you reverse that promise.

Yeah. So you may recall last year, Microsoft researchers wrote a paper after GPT-4 came out that said, we are already seeing sparks of an artificial general intelligence. Well, what does that mean? GPT-4 is the most generous, non hype-y reading of that statement, it is truly a general intelligence. You can throw a lot of different kinds of things at it and it can handle those tasks reasonably well.

If Microsoft can achieve AGI, they can license GPT- 3.5, GPT-4 and DALLE, but they won’t be allowed to use newer technology if they don’t. They did this as a safety measure because they think eventually we’ll build something like AGI. That thing is going to be huge and powerful, not just for doing people’s jobs, but also for some of the reasons. And we don’t want to be in a position where we are forced to give that over to Microsoft.

Source: Musk vs. OpenAI, Europe’s Tech Crackdown and a Month With the Vision Pro

The worst citizen’s arrest is remote piloting a tech giant and driving into a prison: “Musk vs. open AI, Europe’s tech crackdown and a month with the vision pro”

Yeah. This just feels like the latest case of a tech giant getting so rich that it can afford to have its own research department, and then the research department doing nothing but embarrassing the company. How many times have we seen this before, whether it’s like the researchers at Google’s AI division that created all sorts of headaches for them? Or researchers inside Facebook being like, sure seems like this is harmful to a lot of people. Let’s be careful when you create those research divisions, tech companies.

This transcript was created using speech recognition software. While it has been reviewed by human transcribers, it may contain errors. Before quoting from the transcript and email transcripts@ny Times.com, you should review the episode audio.

Yeah, this is real. A few days ago this happened in Los Angeles. The guy who had gotten into the self-driving machine as someone else was getting out appeared to be this one. The police officers say he tried to drive it away but couldn’t do that because of the controls.

And then a Waymo employee who was like watching on the closed-circuit TV that they have was basically like sir, please leave the car. And the guy would not leave the car. And so the Waymo employee just like called the police and the guy got arrested.

That is unfortunate, Kevin, because there is a funnier way to resolve that issue, which is you locked the doors, and just have the car drive itself to jail.

Like, if I’m the Waymo employee, that’s the most fun day you’ve ever had. Usually, you’re trying to help it — oh, it got stuck on a curb or whatever. This is your chance. The best citizen’s arrest is remote piloting this man and taking him directly to prison.

Source: Musk vs. OpenAI, Europe’s Tech Crackdown and a Month With the Vision Pro

Do I Have a Right to Know? Does the GDPR Data Privacy Law in Europe apply to Is It Really Important that I am not from Europe?

Does this apply to European users? Changes to the apps and services will be seen by people who aren’t in Europe.

There are some things that are really silly. But look, I think GDPR had one really good idea in it, which is that if a company is out there somewhere collecting data about you, you just have a right to know that. You should be able to file a petition with any company that has been gathering data about you and ask for it to stop.

We live in California so the law was copied there after it was passed. Which means that if you’re worried that one of these companies, like Clearview AI, is collecting a million pictures of your face and then selling it to a police department, you as a Californian, can now go to a regulator in the state and say, hey, I want you to tell me everything that about me and possibly even delete those things.

Sometimes tech companies will fail to comply with a new law and get fined or slapped with wrist slaps, but the fines are not enough to force them to change their practices, it is just kind. So is that the kind of thing that we can expect to see more of here with the DMA is just like companies violating this law, getting fined by European regulators, paying a fine that’s chump change, and then they continue to go on with their lives?

Yeah. Well so the DMA has a provision where if they’re found to be in severe violation of the rules, they can be fined up to 20 percent of their global revenue, or as they call revenue in Europe, turnover. Did you know revenue turnover is called in Europe?

I guess it’s just because you got the money coming in, you’re turning it over and putting it into a bank. Like who knows? Who knows why they do things? I am not from Europe. Wow.

Source: Musk vs. OpenAI, Europe’s Tech Crackdown and a Month With the Vision Pro

The Best Use Case for the Apple Vision Pro on an Airplane: Yeah, I’m glad you’re able to use it a little bit

Exactly. It’s like I’m complying with the letter of the law, but not the spirit of the law. Like the example is like, if your kid asks can I have a bowl of ice cream They like to take out the salad bowl, it’s like the biggest bowl in the house. They went and said you didn’t say what size bowl. Like that is malicious compliance, and that is essentially what Apple is doing here.

I think that it is the biggest. It is not as bad in the first couple of days of use because you are really getting used to it. It isn’t as wearing.

And so then, after you wear it for a number of days in a row, you’re like, I kind of need a break from this thing. It was the main thing. There are some things that come towards the steps of setting that up, right? So I’ve got to take it out, which not a big deal. I could keep it on my desk, right? I need to make sure the battery is charged and all the other things are set up. If you are traveling to and from work, then it isn’t like plug-and-play since you need to set it up so it is ready to go. I come and go from the office a lot.

It is one of the reasons that I find it easier to just keep it next to the side of my bed, Kevin, do you have a travel case for it?

That is only a small part of it. That is a good moment to say I need to pick this case up. I’ve got to pack everything in it. I’ve got to make sure the batteries connected, everything’s right.

I just picked up my phone. I could just open the lid of my laptop. I mentioned that a bit in the comment. I do think this thing is great for public transit and for flying. It was a pleasure to fly with this thing. You are right, the plane is much worse than we thought it was. Like —

Yeah, talk about your experience flying with the Vision Pro on, because this is something that we’ve talked about — is like — these things are starting to show up on airplanes, and other reviewers have said this is the single best use case for the Apple Vision Pro — is being on an airplane. What was your experience like?

It was that. I had to go down to Florida for business. I decided to bring it with me. And I just thought, oh, I’ll watch something quick on it. I will try it out. And then I ended up wearing it for the three-hour flight, because it really took me out of the seat. I will explain it here a bit, as well as describe it in the column. Because it was a miserable flying situation. I got to my seat in 24 hours, and there was a woman and her husband who both wanted to sit on the window seat.

Source: Musk vs. OpenAI, Europe’s Tech Crackdown and a Month With the Vision Pro

The Worst Flying Scenario: Is It Really That Easy? Streaming It on United Wi-Fi and the Future It Was

I am in the middle of them. There’s no wiggle room. They do not want to move. I’m okay. And I sit down, and they — like, she wants to talk to me and be friends with me. Things are being sent back and forth between me. It was like, out of — it was out of a script.

Wait, this is truly the worst flying situation. Because people do that now. They book the window and the aisle if they’re flying together, because they think, well, no one’s going to want that middle seat between us, and then people end up booking the middle seat. You are stuck between this couple that is passing snacks and trying to talk to each other.

I put this thing on, and I was blown away by how simple the United wi-fi was. Because those words had never come out of my mouth before. I quickly get on United Wi-Fi. I already visit their free entertainment tab.

480P is what I am streaming, so it is the future we were promised. And it just — it takes you out of that situation. You can change the dial to see me in a place like the moon or Mars. And it’s great.

Really watching stuff. I mention this in the column but my wife likes to watch “Love is Blind”, and I don’t. I do not care for the show. No offense was given to any of you.

Source: Musk vs. OpenAI, Europe’s Tech Crackdown and a Month With the Vision Pro

I Wanna Be There, but I Cannot Sleep With You. (Musk vs. OpenAI, Europe’s Tech Crackdown and a Month With the Vision Pro)

I find it very off-putting. Sometimes I will put on the headset to keep her off the couch. I put on the headset, I put my AirPods in, and we can be together, but we’re not together.

See, this is — I do think this is one of the use cases that I am most excited about. We like to watch TV together, but we also have different tastes. She appreciates the franchise of “The Real Housewives” I don’t invest in that series.

But so I have also used it this way, as kind of a way to say, like, I want to be in bed, next to you, watching TV, both of us, but I’ll watch my show, and you watch your show. And we’ll sort of happily coexist with each other.

Source: Musk vs. OpenAI, Europe’s Tech Crackdown and a Month With the Vision Pro

Where Did It Go? Why Aren’t Those Apps There Now? What Happened When You Were Seeing It?

Yeah. We were doing a review of Vision Pro, and I had talked with Neil about how wives should get together and talk about the reviewers. Because I — same exact situation, and it does sound dystopian and sad, but also, it’s nice. We still want to be next to each other, but we’re just not watching the same thing.

Yes. So because the video, the original video I did, really, I did wear it for an unhealthy amount of hours in a row. And when I would take it off, I would actually — there was something that happened with my consciousness and mind where I was — wait, is there supposed to be an app there?

I think some of the future stuff is really compelling when you consider the fact that it does. You get used to seeing digital stuff in your real world, and you’re like, where did it go? Why isn’t it there anymore? You are like, I went to the living room. I left — I thought I left a window in there. I think I call it Windows but an app. They should have called the windows.

It seems like we should shut down all the technology to hear what happens when you explain to us what you are making for yourself inside your machine. Like, I don’t know, you guys.

Source: Musk vs. OpenAI, Europe’s Tech Crackdown and a Month With the Vision Pro

What Happens When You Wear a Vision Pro: How Do You Get What You Want? What Have You Don’t Know About Your Vision Pro?

I want to ask you about the reaction of other people to you wearing a device. When I bring the Vision Pro to a gathering of friends like I did this weekend, it is because of my experience with it so far.

I was going to take some spatial videos. I’m going to demo it, pass it around. And I would say, half the people at this gathering wanted to try it and put it on, and the other half were completely repulsed by it, or like, get this thing out of my field of vision. The device makes me want to be in a different room. Have you had similar reactions from other people?

You don’t have any of the loving people. I wore this very quickly because I had the early review unit in my office before the embargo, and I was able to say I had it. And people were always just coming by and pointing, and I have an office with a glass window. I can hear them, but they think I can’t see them. And I just would keep telling people, yes, I can see you, and you’re naked.

It is just, like, useless. Nobody is taking me seriously. And I haven’t tested the beta, which is supposed to make some improvements. But you call people, and they are laughing. They are a joke, and you’re not getting anything done.

Source: Musk vs. OpenAI, Europe’s Tech Crackdown and a Month With the Vision Pro

What feature do you use to capture spatial photos and video on a device (like an iPhone?)? A case study with MSKI (Europe’s Tech Crackdown and a Month With the Vision Pro)

Yeah. Everyone is laughing and mocking you, saying you look like a baby on hell. And I’ve just — terrible things have been said to my persona. It’s just —

The other thing that I really do think a lot about is the way to capture video on this thing. I don’t know, Kevin, if you’ve done that at all. You are a recent parent.

I wore Ray-Bans the entire time I was recording and shot a video on my car and the same car as the one I just shot. Right? I pick those up a lot now to get first-person video, whether I’m doing it for work or I’m doing it with my kids. I don’t want to be holding a phone while I go skiing. There is a lot that is coming with head computers.

Yes, I agree. If you spend all the money on one of these things, you are probably going to use the feature the most, because the spatial photos and videos are. That feature is something I am most excited about. I’ve taken a number of spatial videos. These are these 3D videos.

When you watch them in the Vision Pro, it feels like you’re in the memory. It’s very sort of uncanny. And yeah, I’ve been using that a lot. You can also take those on a new iPhone. You don’t have to be wearing the headset in public. But that, I feel like, is a feature that Apple should tout more. That is different from what is out there on other devices.

Source: Musk vs. OpenAI, Europe’s Tech Crackdown and a Month With the Vision Pro

What are you waiting for? Tell us about Vision Pro, and what are you looking for in a new watch? What do you want to know?

But at the end of the day, I feel like what I’m hearing both of you say is, if you were inclined to just ignore this thing for now, you can absolutely just ignore it. Is the assessment fair?

A week test is the most enjoyable for me and I feel a twinge. I stated on the show that if I had this thing, I would use it for entertainment. I wanted that stuff, watching the video, and doing the little virtual dinosaur experience, which seemed to be the most compelling.

At the same time, Joanna, I kept thinking about my experience using the Meta headsets, which was, I would use them for a month, and I would put them in a drawer, and I would never get them back out. And I just thought, I’m not willing to spend almost $4,000 to have that experience.

And I still think that is the case. I like to play video games. I love to play my PlayStation 5. The moment that I can play, like, a PS5 game and project, like, the entire world of Diablo IV, the game I’m playing right now, on a wall and play it with my PlayStation controller, that’s amazing.

In the camp there is, yes, there is a there there. It feels like we are several years away from being able to use it and it is hard for me to use it often.

So does this rollout, the Vision Pro, remind you at all of the Apple Watch? And is there anything that we could learn from watching earlier generations of pundits sort of scratching their head, trying to figure out what that was for?

Why do I need a new screen? I don’t know why I need something to charge every day. Why do I need to hear my text messages?

It took Apple a couple years to realize the benefits of the device, which included fitness and step tracking and other features. And now, it’s the bestselling watch in the world, and it makes billions of a year for Apple, and it’s a huge success.

Yes, and no. Right, do you think you hit on the ways that it does? They didn’t know what the killer app was, but it was going to be for watches. Fitness, certainly, became one of them. I think fitness is going to be one on the headset as well. I think that’s just something Apple wants to push throughout its product line. But I think one thing I do keep saying with this is, with the iPhone, we absolutely knew what its purpose was before it came, right?

The categories were already used to establish phone calls, texting, and email. We knew that watches could be used for telling time and for working out. Fitbits had been around. They had already seen the category grow.

You have gaming, right? I mean, what are the real reasons people buy VR headsets right now? Gaming. So Apple’s got to break out into those other categories, because it’s not — Casey, you hit on it before.

If you could play some of your PS5 games in here, maybe you’d be really excited about. But guess what? You can buy a headset through Sony. Right? Like, so what is that thing? I think it is different there.

Source: Musk vs. OpenAI, Europe’s Tech Crackdown and a Month With the Vision Pro

The time: how fast can a mouse walk in the room? A note on musk vs. openAI, Europe’s tech crackdown and a month with the vision pro

OK, this has been upgraded to a legitimate suggestion. Show the time. You know, on the small part of the mask where the eyes are, just show me, you know, 1:05 PM.

Great idea. I was going to mention the clock in the first review, but it fell out. It was cut along the way. It is difficult to understand. You lose track of time in there due to the fact that it was on purpose, so what time is it? Oh, my gosh, I’ve been in here for three days.

Source: Musk vs. OpenAI, Europe’s Tech Crackdown and a Month With the Vision Pro

The Times, I’m with stupid: How do I get rid of the New York Times? (And what happens if you lose it)

The New York Times is in charge of Vision Pro. Unless they pry it away from me, I will keep it. We’ll see. (LAUGHING) We will see how this goes.

It is good for trolling your co-host, I’ve found. I had a good experience making an “I’m with stupid” sign and just hovering it over her face.

Yeah. I was on this week to discuss the debacle over its image-generating capabilities. You can also listen to that episode on The Daily feed.

Source: Musk vs. OpenAI, Europe’s Tech Crackdown and a Month With the Vision Pro

The Hard Fork Podcast: Radio Mixer vs. Open AI, Europe’s Tech Crackdown and a Month With the Vision Pro

“Hard Fork” was produced by Rachel Cohn and Davis Land. We’re edited by Jen Poyant. We’re fact-checked by Caitlin Love. Today’s show is engineered by Daniel Ramirez. The original music was composed by Elisheba Ittondo, Diane Wong, and Dan Powell.

Our audience editor is Nell Gallogly. Video production by Ryan Manning and Dylan Bergersen. If you haven’t already, check out our YouTube channel. The video is at thehardfork.com. Thank you to Paula Szuchman, Pui-wing Tam, Kate LoPresti, and Jeffrey Miranda. As always, you can email us at hardfork@nytimes.com.

Source: Musk vs. OpenAI, Europe’s Tech Crackdown and a Month With the Vision Pro

“We Shouldn’t Prefer Google Flights Unless You’re the First”: What If We Do? How Can We Stop the Tech Giants?

The majority of people use the default. All sorts of travel revenue can just be funneled into the company’s coffers. It does mean that if you want to open a business where you sell flights, you’re in a disadvantage against the company that you want to compete against. Think about if you bought a Windows PC because you wanted to play a game.

It would be my great privilege and honor to explain to you some of the provisions of this law, Kevin. Look, the overarching principle here, which I bet you would agree with me about this, is that if you were one of the real tech Giants — so we’re talking about Google, Apple, Amazon, Meta — you shouldn’t really preference yourself all the time. Like, you know if you ever just like look up a flight on Google, you immediately see a box that says Google Flights.

We live in a country that has offered essentially no answer to this question. And there’s been endless hearings and screaming and people write laws that go nowhere. But what if I were to tell you that just across the ocean there was another democracy that had big ideas for how you could maybe start to chip away at that power and maybe distribute it a little bit more broadly across the land? What if I told you that, Kevin?

Kevin, it is a fair question. Since you and I started to write about them, the tech companies have done nothing but get bigger and more powerful, so that’s a question that undergirds a lot of journalism. Maybe we should try to stop that power in its tracks. And if so, how could we do it?

Source: Musk vs. OpenAI, Europe’s Tech Crackdown and a Month With the Vision Pro

GDPR is not a Big Sweeping Privacy Law in Europe and Apple is going to roll out these changes for iOS developers and developers in Europe

I don’t think that was it. It was a big sweeping privacy law. I interviewed a bunch of European tech regulators who explained how they kept dignity and privacy for their citizens, while keeping data separate from the EU. It sounded like they were storming the Bastille. And then fast forward a couple of years and the only tangible effect that I have felt as a user from GDPR is that whenever I go to Europe, I have to spend like half my day clicking through little buttons that say like accept cookies or reject cookies. Like that is the only thing, honestly, that has changed as a result of GDPR for me.

Yeah. When I see Apple say something hurting consumers, I always use the word consumers with profits because I think they’re really mad about it. It’s like wow, if we have to implement these rules it’s really going to harm profits and profits are not going to be happy about this. Profits are going to be banging down our door saying, we hate this.

Which is such a cop out because yeah, it’s like the very small percentage of developers who make the absolute most money for Apple. It is like most app developers make no money at all for Apple, but there are a few who do, and that is who Apple wants.

Apple said that you were forcing them to open the App Store and use this other method of payment. We are going to impose something called a core technology fee. This is something they have never done before. Basically, if you are a developer making an iPhone app and you choose not to use Apple’s default payment processing system and pay them the associated fee, Apple is instead going to charge you an annual install fee for everyone who downloads and installs your app over a million downloads per year. If you make more than a million downloads on the service, you’ll have to shell out 50 euro, or $0.50 of a euro. Is that what it is?

So every time someone installs one of your apps — every year, so this could amount to millions of dollars a year that these developers would have to pay Apple.

And they respond by rolling out this series of changes for iOS users and developers in Europe. They make some changes in the way that they do payment processing for apps according to a post that I read. So basically right now, if you want to process payments inside an app on an iPhone, you have to use Apple’s payment processing system, and they charge a fee for that. Apple no longer requires that you use their payment processing system. People have to be allowed to use other methods of payment.

This law does many things. Among them, it makes it illegal for certain tech companies, the really, really big ones that the EU has designated as gatekeepers, to self preference their own products and services ahead of competitors on apps that they own or platforms or app stores they control.

Not yet, but let me tell you, Kevin, regulators around the world are paying attention. Japan, South Korea, Turkey, and the United Kingdom are all contemplating their own versions of this law according to Bloomberg. If we passed something similar at the federal level in the United States, I’m not sure how it would be received by other states, but I am not surprised if they implement similar rules in their own states.

Source: Musk vs. OpenAI, Europe’s Tech Crackdown and a Month With the Vision Pro

Looping for Understanding: An Option for a New Speaker on the Digital Multimedia Adversarial Media (DMAM) Program at the ILC

Those are big ones. Look, there’s a lot in there. I could give more examples, but I think that’s a pretty nice little package of stuff that might actually affect you, the listener, or you, Kevin, in your life that is going to happen as a result of the DMA.

It is from a friend of mine who is writing a book about communication, and he says looping for understanding is part of being a good communicator. I will repeat what you have said to me.

You are doing a great job convincing me that I need to pay attention to this. So I recently learned about something called looping for understanding. Do you remember about this?

Source: Musk vs. OpenAI, Europe’s Tech Crackdown and a Month With the Vision Pro

What Do You Want to do When You Cannot Use the NFC Chip? What Will You Do if You Decide to Use a Phone? The Case of Europe

Guess what? You can not do it because Apple said no. You are the consumer. You paid a lot for a phone. Apple is just deciding that you can only use the NFC chip for what Apple wants. Not in Europe anymore, my friend. Who knows what crazy payment solutions we are going to get over there in Europe.

You could double click on the button on the side of your phone to make a payment with a card that has access to the Near Field Communication network. That’s a nice experience. If you ran your own payments company, what do you think? Do you think you might want to put your own payments application on the phone? That might be cool, right?

Yes. I’ve heard bits and pieces of this, and I actually have heard much more about the Apple piece of this for reasons that we should go into because they have been sort of rolling out all these changes in a way that strikes me as sort of undermining the spirit of the DMA. But I do think this is like starting to show up in real products that real people, at least in Europe, are using all the time.

That is correct. There are a lot of changes here. That is no longer the case, since I mentioned it. The flights box will no longer be available in Europe and other companies that are selling air travel will have to fight to keep it. Microsoft is no longer going to be able to set Bing as the default search in Europe.

Source: Musk vs. OpenAI, Europe’s Tech Crackdown and a Month With the Vision Pro

The DMA: a big helping hand for the tech giants of the future. So how does the DMA come into existence in the 21st century?

Right. But my point is, there was something you had to manage because one of these tech giants said, hey, we’re just going to give ourselves a helping hand. Our market cap is in the trillions, we’re going to give ourselves another helping hand up. And then along comes the DMA, Kevin.