Cloudflare: Data without Context Are Semi-Helpful for PR
December 5, 2025
Another dinobaby post. No AI unless it is an image. This dinobaby is not Grandma Moses, just Grandpa Arnold.
Every once in a while, Cloudflare catches my attention. One example is today (December 5, 2025). My little clumsy feedreader binged and told me it was dead. Okay, no big deal. I poked around and the Internet itself seemed to be dead. I went to the gym and upon my return, I checked and the Internet was alive. A bit of poking around revealed that the information in “Cloudflare Down: Canva to Valorant to Shopify, Complete List of Services Affected by Cloudflare Outage” was accurate. Yep, Cloudflare, PR campaigner, and gateway to some of the datasphere seemed to be having a hiccup.
So what did today’s adventure spark in my dinobaby brain? Memories. Cloudflare was down again. November, December, and maybe the New Year will deliver another outage.
Let’s shift to another facedt of Cloudflare.
When I was working on my handouts for my Telegram lecture, my team and I discovered comments that Pavel Durov was a customer. Then one of my Zoom talks failed because Cloudflare’s system failed. When Cloudflare struggled to its very capable and very fragile feet, I noted a link to “Cloudflare Has Blocked 416 Billion AI Bot Requests Since July 1.” Cloudflare appears to be on a media campaign to underscore that it, like Amazon, can take out a substantial chunk of the Internet while doing its level best to be a good service provider. Amusing idea: The Wired Magazine article coincides with Cloudflare stubbing its extremely comely and fragile toe.
Centralization for decentralized services means just one thing to me: A toll road with some profit pumping efficiencies guiding its repairs. Somebody pays for the concentration of what I call facilitating services. Even bulletproof hosting services have to use digital nodes or junction boxes like Cloudflare. Why? Many allow a person with a valid credit card to sign up for self-managed virtual servers. With these technical marvels, knowing what a customer is doing is work, hard work.
The numbers amaze the onlookers. Thanks, Venice.ai. Good enough.
When in Romania, I learned that a big service provider allows a customer with a credit card use the service provider’s infrastructure and spin up and operate virtual gizmos. I heard from a person (anonymous person, of course), “We know some general things, but we don’t know what’s really going on in those virtual containers and servers.” The approach implemented by some service providers suggested that modern service providers build opacity into their architecture. That’s no big deal for me, but some folks do want to know a bit more than “Dude, we don’t know. We don’t want to know.”
That’s what interested me in the cited article. I don’t know about blocking bots. Is bot recognition 100 percent accurate? I have case examples of bots fooling business professionals into downloading malware. After 18 months of work on my Telegram project, my team and I can say with confidence, “In the Telegram systems, we don’t know how many bots are running each day. Furthermore, we don’t know how many Telegram have been coded in the last decade. It is difficult to know if an eGame is a game or a smart bot enhanced experience designed to hook kids on gambling and crypto.” Most people don’t know this important factoid. But Cloudflare, if the information in the Wired article is accurate, knows exactly how may AI bot request have been blocked since July 1. That’s interesting for a company that has taken down the Internet this morning. How can a firm know one thing and not know it has a systemic failure. A person on Reddit.com noted, “Call it Clownflare.”
But the paragraph Wired article from which I shall quote is particularly fascinating:
Prince cites stats that Cloudflare has not previously shared publicly about how much more of the internet Google can see compared to other companies like OpenAI and Anthropic or even Meta and Microsoft. Prince says Cloudflare found that Google currently sees 3.2 times more pages on the internet than OpenAI, 4.6 times more than Microsoft, and 4.8 times more than Anthropic or Meta does. Put simply, “they have this incredibly privileged access,” Prince says.
Several observations:
- What does “Google can see” actually mean? Is Google indexing content not available to other crawlers?
- The 4.6 figure is equally intriguing. Does it mean that Google has access to four times the number of publicly accessible online Web pages than other firms? None of the Web indexing outfits put “date last visited” or any time metadata on a result. That’s an indication that the “indexing” is a managed function designed for purposes other than a user’s need to know if the data are fresh.
- The numbers for Microsoft are equally interesting. Microsoft, based on what I learned when speaking with some Softies, was that at one time Bing’s results were matched to Google’s results. The idea was that reachable Web sites not deemed important were not on the Bing must crawl list. Maybe Bing has changed? Microsoft is now in a relationship with Sam AI-Man and OpenAI. Does that help the Softies?
- The cited paragraph points out that Google has 3.2 more access or page index counts than OpenAI. However, spot checks in ChatGPT 5.1 on December 5, 2025, showed that OpenAI cited more current information that Gemini 3. Maybe my prompts were flawed? Maybe the Cloudflare numbers are reflecting something different from index and training or wrapper software freshness? Is there more to useful results than raw numbers?
- And what about the laggards? Anthropic and Meta are definitely behind the Google. Is this a surprise? For Meta, no. Llama is not exactly a go-to solution. Even Pavel Durov chose a Chinese large language model over Llama. But Anthropic? Wow, dead last. Given Anthropic’s relationship with its Web indexing partners, I was surprised. I ask, “What are those partners sharing with Anthropic besides money?”
Net net: These Cloudflare data statements strike me as information floating in dataspace context free. It’s too bad Wired Magazine did not ask more questions about the Prince data assertions. But it is 2025, and content marketing, allegedly and unverifiable facts, and a rah rah message are more important than providing context and answering more pointed questions. But I am a dinobaby. What do I know?
Stephen E Arnold, December 5, 2025
An SEO Marketing Expert Is an Expert on Search: AI Is Good for You. Adapt
December 2, 2025
![green-dino_thumb_thumb[1]_thumb](https://www.arnoldit.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/green-dino_thumb_thumb1_thumb-1.gif "green-dino_thumb_thumb[1]_thumb")
Another dinobaby post. No AI unless it is an image. This dinobaby is not Grandma Moses, just Grandpa Arnold.
I found it interesting to learn that a marketer is an expert on search and retrieval. Why? The expert has accrued 20 years of experience in search engine optimization aka SEO. I wondered, “Was this 20 years of diverse involvement in search and retrieval, or one year of SEO wizardry repeated 20 times?” I don’t know.
I spotted information about this person’s view of search in a newsletter from a group whose name I do not know how to pronounce. (I don’t know much.) The entity does business as BrXnd.ai. After some thought (maybe two seconds) I concluded that the name represented the concept “branding” with a dollop of hipness or ai.
Am I correct? I don’t know. Hey, that’s three admissions of intellectual failure a 10 seconds. Full disclosure: I know does not care.
Agentic SEO will put every company on the map. Relevance will become product sales. The methodology will be automated. The marketing humanoids will get fat bonuses. The quality of information available will soar upwards. Well, probably downwards. But no worries. Thanks, Venice.ai. Good enough.
The article is titled “The Future of Search and the Death of Links // BRXND Dispatch vol 96.” It points to a video called “The Future of Search and the Death of Links.” You can view the 22 minute talk at this link. Have at it, please.
Let me quote from the BrXnd.ai write up:
…we’re moving from an era of links to an era of recommendations. AI overviews now appear on 30-40% of search results, and when they do, clicks drop 20-40%. Google’s AI Mode sends six times fewer clicks than traditional search.
I think I have heard that Google handles 75 to 85 percent of global searches. If these data are on the money or even close to the eyeballs Google’s advertising money machine flogs, the estimable company will definitely be [a] pushing for subscriptions to anything and everything it once subsidized with oodles of advertisers’ cash; [b] sticking price tags on services positioned as free; [c] charging YouTube TV viewers the way disliked cable TV companies squeezed subscribers for money; [d] praying to the gods of AI that the next big thing becomes a Google sandbox; and [e] embracing its belief that it can control governments and neuter regulators with more than 0.01 milliliters of testosterone.
The write up states:
When search worked through links, you actively chose what to click—it was manual research, even if imperfect. Recommendations flip that relationship. AI decides what you should see based on what it thinks it knows about you. That creates interesting pressure on brands: they can’t just game algorithms with SEO tricks anymore. They need genuine value propositions because AI won’t recommend bad products. But it also raises questions about what happens to our relationship with information when we move from active searching to passive receiving.
Okay, let’s work through a couple of the ideas in this quoted passage.
First, clicking on links is indeed semi-difficult and manual job. (Wow. Take a break from entering 2.3 words and looking for a likely source on the first page of search results. Demanding work indeed.) However, what if those links are biased by inept programmers, the biases of the data set processed by the search machine, or intentionally manipulated to weaponize content to achieve a goal?
Second, the hook for the argument is that brands can no longer can game algorithms. Bid farewell to keyword stuffing. There is a new game in town: Putting a content object in as many places as possible in multiple formats, including the knowledge nugget delivered by TikTok-type services. Most people it seems don’t think about this and rely on consultants to help them.
Finally, the notion of moving from clicking and reading to letting a BAIT (big AI tech) company define one’s knowledge universe strikes me as something that SEO experts don’t find problematic. Good for them. Like me, the SEO mavens think the business opportunities for consulting, odd ball metrics, and ineffectual work will be rewarding.
I appreciate BrXnd.ai for giving me this glimpse of a the search and retrieval utopia I will now have available. Am I excited? Yeah, sure. However, I will not be dipping into the archive of the 95 previous issues of BrXnd “dispatches.” I know this to be a fact.
Stephen E Arnold, December 2, 2025
Palantir Channels Moses, Blue Chip Consulting Baloney, and PR
December 2, 2025
Another dinobaby original. If there is what passes for art, you bet your bippy, that I used smart software. I am a grandpa but not a Grandma Moses.
Palantir Technologies is a company in search of an identity. You may know the company latched on to the Lord of the Rings as a touchstone. The Palantir team adopted the “seeing stone.” The idea was that its technology could do magical things. There are several hundred companies with comparable technology. Datawalk has suggested that its system is the equivalent of Palantir’s. Is this true? I don’t know, but when one company is used by another company to make sales, it suggests that Palantir has done something of note.
I am thinking about Palantir because I did a small job for i2 Ltd. when Mike Hunter still was engaged with the firm. Shortly after this interesting work, I learned that Palantir was engaged in litigation with i2 Ltd. The allegations included Palantir’s setting up a straw man company to license the i2 Ltd.’s Analyst Notebook software development kit. i2 was the ur-intelware. Many of the companies marketing link analysis, analytics focused on making sense of call logs, and other arcana of little interest to most people are relatives of i2. Some acknowledge this bloodline. Others, particularly young intelware company employees working trade shows, just look confused if I mention i2 Ltd. Time is like sandpaper. Facts get smoothed, rounded, or worn to invisibility.
We have an illustration output by MidJourney. It shows a person dressed in a wardrobe that is out of step with traditional business attired. The machine-generated figure is trying to convince potential customers that the peculiarly garbed speaker can be trusted. The sign would have been viewed as good marketing centuries ago. Today it is just peculiar, possibly desperate on some level.
I read “Palantir Uses the ‘5 Whys’ Approach to Problem Solving — Here’s How It Works.” What struck me about the article is that Palantir’s CEO Alex Karp is recycling business school truisms as the insights that have powered the company to record government contracts. Toyota was one of the first company’s to focus on asking “why questions.” That firm tried to approach selling automobiles in a way different from the American auto giants. US firms were the world leaders when Toyota was cranking out cheap vehicles. The company pushed songs, communal exercise, and ideas different from the chrome trim crowd in Detroit; for example, humility, something called genchi genbutsu or go and see first hand, employee responsibility regardless of paygrade, continuous improvement (usually not adding chrome trim), and thinking beyond quarterly results. To an America, Mr. Toyoda’s ideas were nutso.
The write up reports:
Karp is a firm believer in the Five Whys, a simple system that aims to uncover the root cause of an issue that may not be immediately apparent. The process is straightforward. When an issue arises, someone asks, “Why?” Whatever the answer may be, they ask “why?” again and again until they have done so five times. “We have found is that those who are willing to chase the causal thread, and really follow it where it leads, can often unravel the knots that hold organizations back” …
The article adds this bit of color:
Palantir’s culture is almost as iconoclastic as its leader.
We have the Lord of the Rings, we have a Japanese auto company’s business method, and we have the CEO as an iconoclast.
Let’s think about this type of PR. Obviously Palantir and its formal and informal “leadership” want to be more than an outfit known for ending up in court as a result of a less-than-intelligent end run about an outfit whose primary market was law enforcement and intelligence professionals. Palantir is in the money or at least money from government contract, and it rarely mentions its long march to today’s apparent success. The firm was founded in May 2003. After a couple of years, Palantir landed its first customer: The US Central Intelligence Agency.
The company ingested about $3 billion in venture funding and reported its first profitable quarter in 2022. That’s 19 years, one interesting legal dust up, and numerous attempts to establish long-term relationships with its “customers.” Palantir did some work for do-good outfits. It tried its hand at commercial projects. But the firm remained anchored to government agencies in the US and the UK.
But something was lacking. The article is part of a content marketing campaign to make the firm’s CEO a luminary among technology leaders. Thus, we have the myth building block like the five why’s. These are not exactly intellectual home runs. The method is not proprietary. The method breaks down in many engagements. People don’t know why something happened. Consultants or forward deployed engineers scurry around trying to figure out what’s going. At some blue chip consulting firms, trotting out Toyota’s precepts as a way to deal with social media cyber security threats might result in the client saying, “No, thanks. We need a less superficial approach.”
I am not going to get a T shirt that says, “The knots that hold organizations back.” I favor
From my point of view, there are a couple of differences between the Toyota and it why era and Palantir today; for instance, Toyota was into measured, mostly disciplined process improvement. Palantir is more like the “move fast, break things” Silicon Valley outfit. Toyota was reasonably transparent about its processes. I did see the lights out factory near the Tokyo airport which was off limits to Kentucky people like. Palantir is in my mind associated with faux secrecy, legal paperwork, and those i2-related sealed documents.
Net net: Palantir’s myth making PR campaign is underway. I have no doubt it will work for many people. Good for them.
Stephen E Arnold, December x, 2025
An AI Outfit Promises Something Infinite: Er, Really? Infinite?
November 28, 2025
Another dinobaby original. If there is what passes for art, you bet your bippy, that I used smart software. I am a grandpa but not a Grandma Moses.
Venture Beat publishes some write ups that strike me like marketing collateral. I am not sure what to make of an article that asserts an “infinite” service. Let’s not skip over the idea of infinity. I think a couple of mathy types drove themselves crazy thinking about infinities of infinities working two ways: Bigger numbers and then smaller numbers. Yep, those close to these mathy types checked them into a facility for those sufficiently unusual. Would this article “Anthropic’s Claude Opus 4.5 Is Here” Cheaper, AI, Infinite Chats, and Coding Skills That Beat Humans (sic).”
Georg Cantor makes an appearance at the Happy Valley Rest Home. He tells the nurse delivering his scopolamine that he wants to talk about the central infinite-cardinality problem before he is placed in isolation. Thanks, Venice.ai. Close enough, although the setting does not look too much like a 19th century facility. Oh, well.
The first step on what will be a short journey I assure you. Let’s let Anthropic Claude 4.5 define “infinite”, shall we? Here’s the response:
Infinity represents unboundedness—a concept of endlessness without limit. In mathematics, it describes quantities exceeding any finite value or processes continuing indefinitely. Infinity isn’t a number but an abstract notion of limitlessness, fundamental to calculus, set theory, and cosmology.
Notice that Claude 4.5 did not mention marketing and PR speak. This is important for “Anthropic’s Claude Opus 4.5 Is Here: Cheaper AI, Infinite Chats, and Coding Skills That Beat Humans.” Note the two-word phrase “infinite chats.” Nope, I don’t think so. Not even Amazon’s money pipe can serve “infinite chats.” Come on, Claude. Get real. Amazon cannot even keep its system online if my memory serves me. But infinite? Hmmm.
The write up says that Venture Beat engaged in an exclusive interview with Alex Albert, “Anthropic’s head of developer relations.” (I think this means a marketing job. What do you think?) Here’s a statement that caught my attention:
The new model, Claude Opus 4.5, scored higher on Anthropic’s most challenging internal engineering assessment than any human job candidate in the company’s history, according to materials reviewed by VentureBeat. The result underscores both the rapidly advancing capabilities of AI systems and growing questions about how the technology will reshape white-collar professions. The Amazon-backed company is pricing Claude Opus 4.5 at $5 per million input tokens and $25 per million output tokens — a dramatic reduction from the $15 and $75 rates for its predecessor, Claude Opus 4.1, released earlier this year. The move makes frontier AI capabilities accessible to a broader swath of developers and enterprises while putting pressure on competitors to match both performance and pricing.
Does this strike you as what I caller a “better, faster, cheaper” approach. I like to add cheaper is the operative word. Yep, buy the market and raise prices later. Does this surprise me? No. From a company that promises to deliver something that costs money infinitely, cheaper does not surprise me one whit.
Here’s another statement I found interesting:
Albert said employee testers consistently reported that the model demonstrates improved judgment and intuition across diverse tasks — a shift he described as the model developing a sense of what matters in real-world contexts. “The model just kind of gets it,” Albert said. “It just has developed this sort of intuition and judgment on a lot of real world things that feels qualitatively like a big jump up from past models.”
To test this statement, I fired up Claude 4.5 again and asked, “Is it possible for a commercial enterprise supported by modest customer sales and venture capital to deliver an “infinite service”; for example, infinite chats for users?”
Here’s what the “just kind of gets it” Claude told me:
No, it’s not sustainably possible. Here’s why:
- Real Costs Scale with Usage: Every chat consumes computational resources (servers, energy, bandwidth). Even efficient models incur marginal costs per interaction that accumulate with heavy users.
- Finite Capital: Venture funding and modest sales provide limited runway. Without usage caps, a small subset of power users could drain resources disproportionately, making the business model unsustainable.
- Economic Reality: “Unlimited” offerings typically include hidden constraints (throttling during peak times, deprioritization, or eventual tier upgrades). True infinity would require infinite capital and infrastructure.
- Tragedy of the Commons: Without limits, rational users maximize personal use, collectively overwhelming the system—forcing either service degradation or imposed restrictions.
Practical Outcome: Most companies offer generous but capped services (e.g., “50 free messages/day”) or tiered pricing. Marketing terms like “unlimited” often mean “more than typical users need,” not literally infinite. Would you like examples of how AI companies balance accessibility with sustainability?
I think that Mr. Albert might want to check his assertions with his product that “infinite” is a tough promise. But let’s not stop with the infinite. What about this statement in the write up?
Opus 4.5 outscores all human candidates on company’s toughest engineering test.
For me, the sticking point is the word “all.” Categorical affirmatives are problematic. Black swans aside, “all” is a cousin of infinite. Its use implies a rather sweeping approach to those who take a tough engineering test. What’s the sample? One, 100, 10,000? Yeah. Oh, well.
What’s the proof? Here’s the chart that did not knock me over with shock. I know it is difficult to read. Navigate to the cited article on a boat anchor computer with a big screen, and you can sort of read the numbers. Look for this:
Claude 4.5 is better than also-rans like Google and OpenAI. Well, why not? Anthropic has whipped infinite and tamed all. Dealing with weak wristed systems like Googzilla and ChatGPT is trivial.
Mr. Albert offered a statement which Venture Beat uses to complete this remarkable feat of content marketing, hyperbole, and logical impossibilities:
When asked about the engineering exam results and what they signal about AI’s trajectory, Albert was direct: “I think it’s a really important signal to pay attention to.”
Yep, pay attention. I did.
Stephen E Arnold, November 28, 2025
IBM on the Path to Dyson Spheres But Quantum Networks Come First
November 28, 2025
This essay is the work of a dumb dinobaby. No smart software required.
How does one of the former innovators in Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt respond to the rare atmosphere of smart software? The answer, in my opinion, appears in “IBM, Cisco Outline Plans for Networks of Quantum Computers by Early 2030s.” My prediction was wrong about IBM. I thought that with a platform like Watson, IBM would aim directly at Freeman Dyson’s sphere. The idea is to build a sphere in space to gather energy and power advanced computing systems. Well, one can’t get to the Dyson sphere without a network of quantum computers. And the sooner the better.
A big thinker conceptualizes inventions anticipated by science fiction writers. The expert believes that if he thinks it, that “it” will become real. Sure, but usually more than a couple of years are needed for really big projects like affordable quantum computers linked via quantum networks. Thanks, Venice.ai. Good enough.
The write up from the “trust” outfit Thomson Reuters says:
IBM and Cisco Systems … said they plan to link quantum computers over long distances, with the goal of demonstrating the concept is workable by the end of 2030. The move could pave the way for a quantum internet, though executives at the two companies cautioned that the networks would require technologies that do not currently exist and will have to be developed with the help of universities and federal laboratories.
Imagine artificial general intelligence is like to arrive about the same time. IBM has Watson. Does this mean that Watson can run on quantum computers. Those can solve the engineering challenges of the Dyson sphere. IBM can then solve the world’s energy requirements. This sequence seems like a reasonable tactical plan.
The write up points out that building a quantum network poses a few engineering problems. I noted this statement in the news report:
The challenge begins with a problem: Quantum computers like IBM’s sit in massive cryogenic tanks that get so cold that atoms barely move. To get information out of them, IBM has to figure out how to transform information in stationary “qubits” – the fundamental unit of information in a quantum computer – into what Jay Gambetta, director of IBM Research and an IBM fellow, told Reuters are “flying” qubits that travel as microwaves. But those flying microwave qubits will have to be turned into optical signals that can travel between Cisco switches on fiber-optic cables. The technology for that transformation – called a microwave-optical transducer – will have to be developed with the help of groups like the Superconducting Quantum Materials and Systems Center, led by the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory near Chicago, among others.
Trivial compared to the Dyson sphere confection. It is now sundown for year 2025. IBM and its partner target being operational in 2029. That works out to 24 months. Call it 36 just to add a margin of error.
Several observations:
- IBM and its partner Cisco Systems are staking out their claims to the future of computing
- Compared to the Dyson sphere idea, quantum computers networked together to provide the plumbing for an Internet that makes Jack Dorsey’s Web 5 vision seem like something from a Paleolithic sketch on the wall of the Lescaux Caves.
- Watson and IBM’s other advanced AI technologies probably assisted the IBM marketing professionals with publicizing Big Blue’s latest idea for moving beyond the fog of smart software.
Net net: The spirit of avid science fiction devotees is effervescing. Does the idea of a network of quantum computers tickle your nose or your fancy? I have marked my calendar.
Stephen E Arnold, November 28, 2025
Coca-Cola and AI: Things May Not Be Going Better
November 27, 2025
Coca-Cola didn’t learn its lesson last year with a less than bad AI-generated Christmas commercial. It repeated the mistake again in 2025. Although the technology has improved, the ad still bears all the fake-ness of early CGI (when examined in hindsight of course). Coca-Cola, according to Creative Bloq, did want to redeem itself, so the soft drink company controlled every detail in the ad: “Devastating Graphic Shows Just How Bad The Coca-Cola Christmas Ad Really Is.”
Here’s how one expert viewed it:
“In a post on LinkedIn, the AI consultant Dino Burbidge points out the glaring lack of consistency and continuity in the design of the trucks in the new AI Holidays are Coming ad, which was produced by AI studio Secret Level. At least one of the AI-generated vehicles appears to completely defy physics, putting half of the truck’s payload beyond the last wheel.
Dino suggests that the problem with the ad is not AI per se, but the fact that no human appears to have checked what the AI models generated… or that more worryingly they checked but didn’t care, which is extraordinary when the truck is the main character in the ad.”
It’s been suggested that Coca-Cola used AI to engage in rage bait instead of building a genuinely decent Christmas ad. There was a behind the scenes video of how the ad was made and even that used AI VoiceOver.
I liked the different horse drawn wagons. Very consistent.
Whitney Grace, November 27, 2025
Watson: Transmission Is Doing Its Part
November 25, 2025
Another dinobaby post. No AI unless it is an image. This dinobaby is not Grandma Moses, just Grandpa Arnold.
I read an article that stopped me in my tracks. It was “IBM Revisits 2011 AI Jeopardy Win to Capture B2B Demand.” The article reports that a former IBM executive said:
People want AI to be able to do what it can’t…. and immature technology companies are not disciplined enough to correct that thinking.
I find the statement fascinating. IBM Watson was supposed to address some of the challenges cancer patients faced. The reality is that cancer docs in Houston and Manhattan provided IBM with some feedback that shattered IBM’s own ill-disciplined marketing of Watson. What about that building near NYU that was stuffed with AI experts? What about IBM’s sale of its medical unit to Francisco Partners? Where is that smart software today? It is Merative Health, and it is not clear if the company is hitting home runs and generating a flood of cash. So that Watson technology is no longer part of IBM’s smart software solution.
Thanks, Venice.ai. Good enough.
The write up reports that a company called Transmission, which is a business to business or B2B marketing agency, made a documentary about Watson AI. It is not clear from the write up if the documentary was sponsored or if Transmission just had the idea to revisit Watson. According to the write up:
The documentary [“Who is…Watson? The Day AI Went Primetime”] underscores IBM’s legacy of innovation while framing its role in shaping an ethical, inclusive future for AI, a critical differentiator in today’s competitive landscape.
The Transmission/Earnest documentary is a rah rah for IBM and its Watsonx technology. Think of this as Watson Version 2 or Version 3. The Transmission outfit and its Earnest unit (yes, that is its name) in London, England, wants to land more IBM work. Furthermore, rumors suggest that the video created by Celia Aniskovich as a “spec project.” High quality videos running 18 minutes can burn through six figures quickly. A cost of $250,000 or $300,000 is not unexpected. Add to this the cost of the PR campaign to push Transmission brand story telling capability, and the investment strikes me as a bad-economy sales move. If a fat economy, a marketing outfit would just book business at trade shows or lunch. Now, it is rah rah time and cash outflow.
The write up makes clear that Transmission put its best foot forward. I learned:
The documentary was grounded in testimonials from former IBM staff, and more B2B players are building narratives around expert commentary. B2B marketers say thought leaders and industry analysts are the most effective influencer types (28%), according to an April LinkedIn and Ipsos survey. AI pushback is a hot topic, and so is creating more entertaining B2B content. The biggest concern among leveraging AI tools among adults worldwide is the loss of human jobs, according to a May Kantar survey. The primary goal for video marketing is brand awareness (35%), according to an April LinkedIn and Ipsos survey. In an era where AI is perceived as “abstract or intimidating,” this documentary attempts to humanize it while embracing the narrative style that makes B2B brands stand out,
The IBM message is important. Watson Jeopardy was “good” AI. The move fast, break things, and spend billions approach used today is not like IBM’s approach to Watson. (Too bad about those cancer docs not embracing Watson, a factoid not mentioned in the cited write up.)
The question is. “Will the Watson video go viral?” The Watson Jeopardy dust up took place in 2011, but the Watson name lives on. Google is probably shaking its talons at the sky wishing it had a flashy video too. My hunch is that Google would let its AI make a video or one of the YouTubers would volunteer hoping that an act of goodness would reduce the likelihood Google would cut their YouTube payments. I guess I could ask Watson when it thinks, but I won’t. Been there. Done that.
Stephen E Arnold, November 25, 2025
Microsoft Factoid: 30 Percent of Our Code Is Vibey
November 24, 2025
Another short essay from a real and still-alive dinobaby. If you see an image, we used AI. The dinobaby is not an artist like Grandma Moses.
Is Microsoft cranking out one fifth to one third of its code using vibey methods? A write up from Ibrahim Diallo seeks to answer this question in his essay “Is 30% of Microsoft’s Code Really AI-Generated?” My instinctive response was, “Nope. Marketing.” Microsoft feels the heat. The Google is pushing the message that it will deliver the Agentic Operating System for the emergence of a new computing epoch. In response, Microsoft has been pumping juice into its market collateral. For example, Microsoft is building data center systems that span nations. Copilot will make your Notepad “experience” more memorable. Visio, a step child application, is really cheap. Add these steps together, and you get a profile of a very large company under pressure and showing signs of cracking. Why? Google is turning up the heat and Microsoft feels it.
Mr. Diallo writes:
A few months back, news outlets were buzzing with reports that Satya Nadella claimed 30% of the code in Microsoft’s repositories was AI-generated. This fueled the hype around tools like Copilot and Cursor. The implication seemed clear: if Microsoft’s developers were now “vibe coding,” everyone should embrace the method.
Then he makes a pragmatic observation:
The line between “AI-generated” and “human-written” code has become blurrier than the headlines suggest. And maybe that’s the point. When AI becomes just another tool in the development workflow, like syntax highlighting or auto-complete, measuring its contribution as a simple percentage might not be meaningful at all.
Several observations:
- Microsoft’s leadership is outputting difficult to believe statements
- Microsoft apparently has been recycling code because those contributions from Stack Overflow are not tabulated
- Marketing is now the engine making AI the future of Microsoft unfold.
I would assert that the answer to the Mr. Diallo’s question is, “Whatever unfounded assertion Microsoft offers is actual factual.” That’s okay with me, but some people may be hooked by Google’s Agentic Operating System pitch.
Stephen E Arnold, November 24, 2025
Waymo Mows Down a Mission Cat
November 21, 2025
Cat lovers in San Francisco have a new reason to be angry at Waymo, Google’s self-driving car division. The outrage has reached all the way to the UK, where the Metro reports, “Robotaxi Runs Over and Kills Popular Cat that Greeted People in a Corner Shop.” Reporter Sarah Hooper writes:
“KitKat, the beloved pet cat at Randa’s Market, was run over by an automated car on October 27. He was rushed to a hospital by a bartender working nearby, but was pronounced dead. KitKat’s death has sparked an outpouring of fury and sadness from those who loved him – and questions about the dangers posed by self-driving cars. Randa’s Market owner Mike Zeidan told Rolling Stone: ‘He was a special cat. You can tell by the love and support he’s getting from the community that he was amazing.’ San Francisco Supervisor Jackie Fielder spoke out publicly, saying: ‘Waymo thinks they can just sweep this under the rug and we will all forget, but here in the Mission, we will never forget our sweet KitKat.’ Anger in the community has increased after it was revealed that on the same day KitKat was killed, Waymo co-CEO Tekedra Mawakana said she thought society is ‘ready to accept deaths’ caused by automated cars. But KitKat’s owner pointed out that next time, the death could be that of a child, not just a beloved pet.”
Good point. In a statement, the company insists the tabby “darted” under the car as it pulled away. Perhaps. But do the big dogs at Google really feel “deepest sympathies” for those grieving their furry friend, as the statement claims? It was one of them, after all, who asserted the world is ready to trade deaths for her firm’s technology.
Curious readers can navigate to the write-up to see a couple photos of the charismatic kitty.
Cynthia Murrell, November 21, 2025
Microsoft Knows How to Avoid an AI Bubble: Listen Up, Grunts, Discipline Now!
November 18, 2025
Another short essay from a real and still-alive dinobaby. If you see an image, we used AI. The dinobaby is not an artist like Grandma Moses.
I relish statements from the leadership of BAIT (big AI tech) outfits. A case in point is Microsoft. The Fortune story “AI Won’t Become a Bubble As Long As Everyone Stays thoughtful and Disciplined, Microsoft’s Brad Smith Says.” First, let’s consider the meaning of the word “everyone.” I navigated to Yandex.com and used its Alice smart software to get the definition of “everyone”:
The word “everyone” is often used in social and organizational contexts, and to denote universal truths or principles.
That’s a useful definition. Universal truths and principles. If anyone should know, it is Yandex.
Thanks, Venice.ai. Good enough, but the Russian flag is white, blue, and red. Your inclusion of Ukraine yellow was one reason why AI is good enough, not a slam dunk.
But isn’t there a logical issue with the subjective flag “if” and then a universal assertion about everyone? I find the statement illogical. It mostly sounds like English, but it presents a wild and crazy idea at a time when agreement about anything is quite difficult to achieve. Since I am a dinobaby, my reaction to the Fortune headline is obviously out of touch with the “real” world as it exists are Fortune and possibly Microsoft.
Let’s labor forward with the write up, shall we?
I noted this statement in the cited article attributed to Microsoft’s president Brad Smith:
“I obviously can’t speak about every other agreement in the AI sector. We’re focused on being disciplined but being ambitious. And I think it’s the right combination,” he said. “Everybody’s going to have to be thoughtful and disciplined. Everybody’s going to have to be ambitious but grounded. I think that a lot of these companies are [doing that].”
It was not Fortune’s wonderful headline writers who stumbled into a logical swamp. The culprit or crafter of the statement was “1000 Russian programmers did it” Smith. It is never Microsoft’s fault in my view.
But isn’t this the AI go really fast, don’t worry about the future, and break things?
Mr. Smith, according the article said,
“We see ongoing growth in demand. That’s what we’ve seen over the past year. That’s what we expect today, and frankly our biggest challenge right now is to continue to add capacity to keep pace with it.”
I wonder if Microsoft’s hiring social media influencers is related to generating demand and awareness, not getting people to embrace Copilot. Despite its jumping off the starting line first, Microsoft is now lagging behind its “partner” OpenAI and a two or three other BAIT entities.
The Fortune story includes supporting information from a person who seems totally, 100 percent objective. Here’s the quote:
At Web Summit, he met Anton Osika, the CEO of Lovable, a vibe-coding startup that lets anyone create apps and software simply by talking to an AI model. “What they’re doing to change the prototyping of software is breathtaking. As much as anything, what these kinds of AI initiatives are doing is opening up technology opportunities for many more people to do more things than they can do before…. This will be one of the defining factors of the quarter century ahead…”
I like the idea of Microsoft becoming a “defining factor” for the next 25 years. I would raise the question, “What about the Google? Is it chopped liver?
Several observations:
- Mr. Smith’s informed view does not line up with hiring social media influencers to handle the “growth and demand.” My hunch is that Microsoft fears that it is losing the consumer perception of Microsoft as the really Big Dog. Right now, that seems to be Super sized OpenAI and the mastiff-like Gemini.
- The craziness of “everybody” illustrates a somewhat peculiar view of consensus today. Does everybody include those fun-loving folks fighting in the Russian special operation or the dust ups in Sudan to name two places where “everybody” could be labeled just plain crazy?
- Mr. Smith appears to conflate putting Copilot in Notepad and rolling out Clippy in Yeezies with substantive applications not prone to hallucinations, mistakes, and outputs that could get some users of Excel into some quite interesting meetings with investors and clients.
Net net: Yep, everybody. Not going to happen. But the idea is a-thoughtful, which is interesting to me.
Stephen E Arnold, November 18, 2025
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