Marketing Milestone 2024: Whither VM?
January 3, 2025
When a vendor jacks up prices tenfold, customers tend to look elsewhere. If VMware‘s new leadership thought its clients had no other options, it was mistaken. Ars Technica reports, “Company Claims 1.000 Percent Price Hike Drove it from VMware to Open Source Rival.” We knew some were unhappy with changes Broadcom made since it bought VMware in November, 2023. For example, nixing perpetual license sales sent costs soaring for many. (Broadcom claims that move was planned before it bought VMware.) Now, one firm that had enough has come forward. Writer Scharon Harding tells us:
“According to a report from The Register today, Beeks Group, a cloud operator headquartered in the United Kingdom, has moved most of its 20,000-plus virtual machines (VMs) off VMware and to OpenNebula, an open source cloud and edge computing platform. Beeks Group sells virtual private servers and bare metal servers to financial service providers. It still has some VMware VMs, but ‘the majority’ of its machines are currently on OpenNebula, The Register reported. Beeks’ head of production management, Matthew Cretney, said that one of the reasons for Beeks’ migration was a VMware bill for ’10 times the sum it previously paid for software licenses,’ per The Register. According to Beeks, OpenNebula has enabled the company to dedicate more of its 3,000 bare metal server fleet to client loads instead of to VM management, as it had to with VMware. With OpenNebula purportedly requiring less management overhead, Beeks is reporting a 200 percent increase in VM efficiency since it now has more VMs on each server.”
Less expensive and more efficient? That is a no-brainer. OpenNebula‘s CEO says other organizations that are making the switch, though he declined to name them. Though Broadcom knows some customers are jumping ship, it may believe its changes are lucrative enough to make up for their absence. At the same time, it is offering an olive branch to small and medium-sized businesses with a less pricy subscription tier designed for them. Will it stem the exodus, or is it already too late?
Cynthia Murrell, January 3, 2024
Boxing Day Cheat Sheet for AI Marketing: Happy New Year!
December 27, 2024
Other than automation and taking the creative talent out of the entertainment industry, where is AI headed in 2025? The lowdown for the upcoming year can be found on the Techknowledgeon AI blog and its post: “The Rise Of Artificial Intelligence: Know The Answers That Makes You Sensible About AI.”
The article acts as a primer for what AI I, its advantages, and answering important questions about the technology. The questions that grab our attention are “Will AI take over humans one day?” And “Is AI an Existential Threat to Humanity?” Here’s the answer to the first question:
“The idea of AI taking over humanity has been a recurring theme in science fiction and a topic of genuine concern among some experts. While AI is advancing at an incredible pace, its potential to surpass or dominate human capabilities is still a subject of intense debate. Let’s explore this question in detail.
AI, despite its impressive capabilities, has significant limitations:
- Lack of General Intelligence: Most AI today is classified as narrow AI, meaning it excels at specific tasks but lacks the broader reasoning abilities of human intelligence.
- Dependency on Humans: AI systems require extensive human oversight for design, training, and maintenance.
- Absence of Creativity and Emotion: While AI can simulate creativity, it doesn’t possess intrinsic emotions, intuition, or consciousness.
And then the second one is:
“Instead of "taking over," AI is more likely to serve as an augmentation tool:
- Workforce Support: AI-powered systems are designed to complement human skills, automating repetitive tasks and freeing up time for creative and strategic thinking.
- Health Monitoring: AI assists doctors but doesn’t replace the human judgment necessary for patient care.
- Smart Assistants: Tools like Alexa or Google Assistant enhance convenience but operate under strict limitations.”
So AI has a long way to go before it replaces humanity and the singularity of surpassing human intelligence is either a long way off or might never happen.
This dossier includes useful information to understand where AI is going and will help anyone interested in learning what AI algorithms are projected to do in 2025.
Whitney Grace, December 27, 2024
Google AI Videos: Grab Your Popcorn and Kick Back
December 20, 2024
This blog post is the work of an authentic dinobaby. No smart software was used.
Google has an artificial intelligence inferiority complex. In January 2023, it found itself like a frail bathing suit clad 13 year old in the shower room filled with Los Angeles Rams. Yikes. What could the inhibited Google do? The answer has taken about two years to wend its way into Big Time PR. Nothing is an upgrade. Google is interacting with parallel universes. It is redefining quantum supremacy into supremest computer. It is trying hard not to recommend that its “users” use glue to keep cheese on its pizza.
Score one for the Grok. Good enough, but I had to try the free X.com image generator. Do you see a shivering high school student locked out of the gym on a cold and snowy day? Neither do I. Isn’t AI fabulous?
Amidst the PR bombast, Google has gathered 11 videos together under the banner of “Gemini 2.0: Our New AI Model for the Agentic Era. What is an “era”? As I recall, it is a distinct period of history with a particular feature like online advertising charging everyone someway or another. Eras, according to some long-term thinkers, are millions of years long; for example, the Mesozoic Era consists of the Triassic, Jurassic, and Cretaceous periods. Google is definitely thinking in terms of a long, long time.
Here’s the link to the playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLqYmG7hTraZD8qyQmEfXrJMpGsQKk-LCY. If video is not your bag, you can listen to Google AI podcasts at this link: https://deepmind.google/discover/the-podcast/.
Has Google neutralized the blast and fall out damage from Microsoft’s 2023 OpenAI deal announcement? I think it depends on whom one asks. The feeling of being behind the AI curve must be intense. Google invented the transformer technology. Even Microsoft’s Big Dog said that Google should have been the winner. Watch for more Google PR about Google and parallel universes and numbers too big for non Googlers to comprehend.
Somebody give that kid a towel. He’s shivering.
Stephen E Arnold, December 20, 2024
Another Horse Ridge or Just Horse Feathers from the Management Icon Intel?
December 20, 2024
This write up emerged from the dinobaby’s own mind. No AI was used because this dinobaby is too stupid to make it work.
If you are an Intel trivia buff, you will know the answer to this question: “What was the name of the 2019 cryogenic control chip Intel rolled out for quantum computers?” The answer? Horse Ridge. And there was a Horse Ridge II a few months later. I am not sure what happened to Horse Ridge. Maybe it was as I suggested horse feathers?
A rider on the Horse Ridge Trail. Notice that where the horse goes, the sagebrush and prairie dogs burn. Thanks, Magic Studio. Good enough.
Intel is back with another big time announcement. I assume this is PR’s way of neutralizing the governance wackiness in evidence at the company. Is there a president? Is there a Horse Ridge?
I read “Intel Looks Beyond Silicon, Outlines Breakthroughs in Atomically-Thin 2D Transistors, Chip Packaging, and Interconnects at IEDM 2024.” The write up reports via information directly from the really well managed outfit the following:
…the Intel Foundry Technology Research team announced technology breakthroughs in 2D transistor technology using beyond-silicon materials, chip interconnects, and packaging technology, among others.
This news will definitely push these type of stories out of the news cycle. This one is from CNN via MSN.com:
Ousted Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger Is Leaving the Company with Millions
I thought that Intel was going to
create great CPUs and super duper graphics cards. (Have you ever test an Intel graphics card? Have you ever tried to find current drivers? Have you dumped it because an Nvidia 3060 is faster and more stable for basic office tasks? I have.
Intel breakthroughs via the cited article and Intel Foundry.
The write up says:
Intel hasn’t shared the deep dive details of its Subtractive Ruthenium process, but we’re sure to learn more details during the presentation. Intel says its Subtractive Ruthenium process with airgaps provides up to 25% capacitance at matched resistance at sub-25nm pitches (the center-to-center distance between interconnect lines). Intel says its research team “was first to demonstrate, in R&D test vehicles, a practical, cost-efficient and high-volume manufacturing compatible subtractive Ru integrated process with airgaps that does not require expensive lithographic airgap exclusion zones around vias, or self-aligned via flows that require selective etches.”
Is there a fungible product? Nope. But technical papers are coming real soon.
Stephen E Arnold, December 20, 2024
A Monopolist CEO Loses His Cool: It Is Our AI, Gosh Darn It!
December 17, 2024
This blog post flowed from the sluggish and infertile mind of a real live dinobaby. If there is art, smart software of some type was probably involved.
“With 4 Words, Google’s CEO Just Fired the Company’s Biggest Shot Yet at Microsoft Over AI” suggests that Sundar Pichai is not able to smarm his way out of an AI pickle. In January 2023, Satya Nadella, the boss of Microsoft, announced that Microsoft was going to put AI on, in, and around its products and services. Google immediately floundered with a Sundar & Prabhakar Comedy Show in Paris and then rolled out a Google AI service telling people to glue cheese on pizza.
Magic Studio created a good enough image of an angry executive thinking about how to put one of his principal competitors behind a giant digital eight ball.
Now 2025 is within shouting distance. Google continues to lag in the AI excitement race. The company may have oodles of cash, thousands of technical wizards, and a highly sophisticated approach to marketing, branding, and explaining itself. But is it working.
According to the cited article from Inc. Magazine’s online service:
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella had said that “Google should have been the default winner in the world of big tech’s AI race.”
I like the “should have been.” I had a high school English teacher try to explain to me as an indifferent 14-year-old that the conditional perfect tense suggests a different choice would have avoided a disaster. Her examples involved a young person who decided to become an advertising executive and not a plumber. I think Ms. Dalton said something along the lines “Tom would have been happier and made more money if he had fixed leaks for a living.” I pegged the grammatical expression as belonging to the “woulda, coulda, shoulda” branch of rationalizing failure.
Inc. Magazine recounts an interview during which the interlocuter set up this exchange with the Big Dog of Google, Sundar Pichai, the chief writer for the Sundar & Prabhakar Comedy Show:
Interviewer: “You guys were the originals when it comes to AI.” Where [do] you think you are in the journey relative to these other players?”
Sundar, the Googler: I would love to see “a side-by-side comparison of Microsoft’s models and our models any day, any time. Microsoft is using someone else’s models.
Yep, Microsoft inked a deal with the really stable, fiscally responsible outfit OpenAI and a number of other companies including one in France. Imagine that. France.
Inc. Magazine states:
Google’s biggest problem isn’t that it can’t build competitive models; it’s that it hasn’t figured out how to build compelling products that won’t destroy its existing search business. Microsoft doesn’t have that problem. Sure, Bing exists, but it’s not a significant enough business to matter, and Microsoft is happy to replace it with whatever its generative experience might look like for search.
My hunch is that Google will not be advertising on Inc.’s site. Inc. might have to do some extra special search engine optimization too. Why? Inc.’s article repeats itself in case Sundar of comedy act fame did not get the message. Inc. states again:
Google hasn’t figured out the product part. It hasn’t figured out how to turn its Gemini AI into a product at the same scale as search without killing its real business. Until it does, it doesn’t matter whether the competition uses someone else’s models.
With the EU competition boss thinking about chopping up the Google, Inc. Magazine and Mr. Nadella may struggle to get Sundar’s attention. It is tough to do comedy when tragedy is a snappy quip away.
Stephen E Arnold, December 17, 2024
Google: More Quantum Claims; Some Are Incomprehensible Like Multiple Universes
December 16, 2024
This blog post is the work of an authentic dinobaby. No smart software was used.
Beleaguered Google is going all out to win a PR war against the outfits using its Transformer technology. Google should have been the de facto winner of the smart software wars. I think the president of Microsoft articulated a similar sentiment. That hurts, particularly when it comes from a person familiar with the mores and culinary delights of Mughlai cuisine. “Should have, would have, could have” — very painful to one’s ego.
I read an PR confection which spot lit this Google need to be the “best” in the fast moving AI world. I envision Google’s leadership getting hit in the back of the head by a grandmother. My grandmother did this to me when I visited her on my way home from high school. She was frail but would creep up behind me and whack me if I did not get A’s on my report card. Well, Google, let me tell you I have the memory, but the familial whack did not help me one whit.
“Willow: Google Reveals New Quantum Chip Offering Incomprehensibly Fast Processing” is a variant of the quantum supremacy claim issued a couple of years ago. In terms of technical fluff, Google is now matching the wackiness of Intel’s revolutionary Horse-something quantum innovation. But “incomprehensibly”? Come on, BetaNews.
The PR approved write up reports:
Google says that its quantum chip took less than five minutes to perform tasks that would take even the fastest supercomputers 10 septillion years. Providing some sense of perspective, Google points out that this is “a number that vastly exceeds the age of the Universe”.
Well, what do you think about that. Google is edging toward infinity, the contemplation of which drove a dude named Cantor nuts. What is the motivation for an online advertising company being sued in numerous countries for a range of alleged business behaviors to need praise for its AI achievements. The firm’s Transformer technology IS the smart software innovation.
Google re-organized in smart software division, marginalizing some heavy Google hitters. It drove out Googlers who were asking questions about baked in algorithmic bias. It cut off discussion of the synthetic data activity. It shifted the AI research to London, a convenient 11 hours away by jet and a convenient eight time zones away from San Francisco.
The write up trots out the really fast computing trope for quantum computing:
In terms of performance, there is nothing to match Willow. The “classically hardest benchmark that can be done on a quantum computer today” was demolished in a matter of minutes. This same task would take one of the fastest supercomputer available an astonishing 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 years to work through.
Scientific notation exists for a reason. Please, pass the message to Google PR, please.
Okay, another “we are better than anyone else at quantum computing.” By extension, Google is better than anyone else at smart software and probably lots of other things mere comprehensible seeking people claim to do.
And do you think there are multiple universes? Ah, you said, “No.” Google’s smart quantum stuff reports that you are wrong.
Let ‘s think about why Google has an increasing need to be held by a virtual grandmother and not whacked on the head:
- Google is simply unable to address actual problems. From the wild and crazy moon shots to the weirdness of its quantum supremacy thing, the company is claiming advances in fields essentially disconnected from the real world.
- Google believes that the halo effect of being so darned competent in quantum stuff will enhance the excellence of its other products and services.
- Google management has zero clue how to address [a] challengers to its search monopoly, [b] the negative blowback from its unending legal hassles, and [c] the feeling that it has been wronged. By golly, Google IS the leader in AI just as Google is the leader in quantum computing.
Sorry, Google, granny is going to hit you on the back of the head. Scrunch down. You know she’s there, demanding excellence which you know you cannot deliver. For a more “positive” view of Google’s PR machinations couched navigate to “The Google Willow Thing.”
There must be a quantum pony in the multi-universe stable, right?
Stephen E Arnold, December 16, 2024
The Very Expensive AI Horse Race
December 4, 2024
This write up is from a real and still-alive dinobaby. If there is art, smart software has been involved. Dinobabies have many skills, but Gen Z art is not one of them.
One of the academic nemeses of smart software is a professional named Gary Marcus. Among his many intellectual accomplishments is cameo appearance on a former Jack Benny child star’s podcast. Mr. Marcus contributes his views of smart software to the person who, for a number of years, has been a voice actor on the Simpsons cartoon.
The big four robot stallions are racing to a finish line. Is the finish line moving away from the equines faster than the steeds can run? Thanks, MidJourney. Good enough.
I want to pay attention to Mr. Marcus’ Substack post “A New AI Scaling Law Shell Game?” The main idea is that the scaling law has entered popular computer jargon. Once the lingo of Galileo, scaling law now means that AI, like CPUs, are part of the belief that technology just gets better as it gets bigger.
In this essay, Mr. Marcus asserts that getting bigger may not work unless humanoids (presumably assisted by AI0 innovate other enabling processes. Mr. Marcus is aware of the cost of infrastructure, the cost of electricity, and the probable costs of exhausting content.
From my point of view, a bit more empirical “evidence” would be useful. (I am aware of academic research fraud.) Also, Mr. Marcus references me when he says keep your hands on your wallet. I am not sure that a fix is possible. The analogy is the old chestnut about changing a Sopwith Camel’s propeller when the aircraft is in a dogfight and the synchronized machine gun is firing through the propeller.
I want to highlight one passage in Mr. Marcus’ essay and offer a handful of comments. Here’s the passage I noted:
Over the last few weeks, much of the field has been quietly acknowledging that recent (not yet public) large-scale models aren’t as powerful as the putative laws were predicting. The new version is that there is not one scaling law, but three: scaling with how long you train a model (which isn’t really holding anymore), scaling with how long you post-train a model, and scaling with how long you let a given model wrestle with a given problem (or what Satya Nadella called scaling with “inference time compute”).
I think this is a paragraph I will add to my quotes file. The reasons are:
First, investors, would be entrepreneurs, and giant outfits really want a next big thing. Microsoft fired the opening shot in the smart software war in early 2023. Mr. Nadella suggested that smart software would be the next big thing for Microsoft. The company has invested in making good on this statement. Now Microsoft 365 is infused with smart software and Azure is burbling with digital glee with its “we’re first” status. However, a number of people have asked, “Where’s the financial payoff?” The answer is standard Silicon Valley catechism: The payoff is going to be huge. Invest now.” If prayers could power hope, AI is going to be hyperbolic just like the marketing collateral for AI promises. But it is almost 2025, and those billions have not generated more billions and profit for the Big Dogs of AI. Just sayin’.
Second, the idea that the scaling law is really multiple scaling laws is interesting. But if one scaling law fails to deliver, what happens to the other scaling laws? The interdependencies of the processes for the scaling laws might evoke new, hitherto identified scaling laws. Will each scaling law require massive investments to deliver? Is it feasible to pay off the investments in these processes with the original concept of the scaling law as applied to AI. I wonder if a reverse Ponzi scheme is emerging. The more pumped in the smaller the likelihood of success. Is AI a demonstration of convergence or The mathematical property you’re describing involves creating a sequence of fractions where the numerator is 1 and the denominator is an increasing sequence of integers. Just askin’.
Third, the performance or knowledge payoff I have experienced with my tests of OpenAI and the software available to me on You.com makes clear that the systems cannot handle what I consider routine questions. A recent example was my request to receive a list of the exhibitors at the November 1 Gateway Conference held in Dubai for crypto fans of Telegram’s The Open Network Foundation and TON Social. The systems were unable to deliver the lists. This is just one notable failure which a humanoid on my research team was able to rectify in an expeditious manner. (Did you know the Ku Group was on my researcher’s list?) Just reportin’.
Net net: Will AI repay the billions sunk into the data centers, the legal fees (many still looming), the staff, and the marketing? If you ask an accelerationist, the answer is, “Absolutely.” If you ask a dinobaby, you may hear, “Maybe, but some fundamental innovations are going to be needed.” If you ask an AI will kill us all type like the Xoogler Mo Gawdat, you will hear, “Doom looms.” Just dinobabyin’.
Stephen E Arnold, December 4, 2024
The New Coca Cola of Marketing: Xmas Ads
December 4, 2024
Though Coca-Cola has long purported that “It’s the Real Thing,” a recent ad is all fake. NBC News reports, “Coca-Cola Causes Controversy with AI-Made Ad.” We learn:
“Coca-Cola is facing backlash online over an artificial intelligence-made Christmas promotional video that users are calling ‘soulless’ and ‘devoid of any actual creativity.’ The AI-made video features everything from big red Coca-Cola trucks driving through snowy streets to people smiling in scarves and knitted hats holding Coca-Cola bottles. The video was meant to pay homage to the company’s 1995 commercial ‘Holidays Are Coming,’ which featured similar imagery, but with human actors and real trucks.”
The company’s last ad generated with AI, released earlier this year, did not face similar backlash. Is that because, as University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Neeraj Arora suggests, Coke’s Christmas ads are somehow sacrosanct? Or is it because March’s Masterpiece is actually original, clever, and well executed? Or because the artworks copied in that ad are treated with respect and, for some, clearly labeled? Whatever the reason, the riff on Coca-Cola’s own classic 1995 ad missed the mark.
Perhaps it was just too soon. It may be a matter of when, not if, the public comes to accept AI-generated advertising as the norm. One thing is certain: Coca Cola knows how to make sure marketing professors teach memorable case examples of corporate “let’s get hip” thinking.
Cynthia Murrell, December 4, 2024
New Concept: AI High
December 3, 2024
Is the AI hype-a-thon finally slowing? Nope. And our last nerves may not be the only thing to suffer. The AI industry could be shooting itself in the foot. ComputerWorld predicts, “AI Is on a Fast Track, but Hype and Immaturity Could Derail It.” Writer Scot Finnie reports:
“The hype is so extreme that a fall-out, which Gartner describes in its technology hype cycle reports as the ‘trough of disillusionment,’ seems inevitable and might be coming this year. That’s a testament to both genAI’s burgeoning potential and a sign of the technology’s immaturity. The outlook for deep learning for predictive models and genAI for communication and content generation is bright. But what’s been rarely mentioned amid the marketing blitz of recent months is that the challenges are also formidable. Machine learning tools are only as good as the data they’re trained with. Companies are finding that the millions of dollars they’ve spent on genAI have yielded lackluster ROI because their data is filled with contradictions, inaccuracies, and omissions. Plus, the hype surrounding the technology makes it difficult to see that many of the claimed benefits reside in the future, not the present.”
Oops. The article notes some of the persistent problems with generative AI, like hallucinations, repeated crashes ,and bias. Then there are the uses bad actors have for these tools, from phishing scams to deepfakes. For investors, disappointing results and returns are prompting second thoughts. None of this means AI is completely worthless, Finnie advises. He just suggests holding off until the rough edges are smoothed out before going all in. Probably a good idea. Digital mushrooms.
December 3, 2024
Another Google AI PR Push from a British Googler
November 27, 2024
This write up is the work of a humanoid who admits he is a dinobaby; that is, deadwood too old to employ. By the way, the “dinobaby” lingo allegedly emerged from IBM during its housecleaning event years ago. The art, however, is from MidJourney and definitely AI fakery.
With the US Department of Justice suggesting a haircut for the Google, the company is ramping up its AI PR. As you may recall, a Googler suggested that Google should not be constrained because Google has to be Google to do Google AI. With AI a wonderful benefit to customer service cost reductions and delivering advertising to those who use Google search, Google wants to get the word out.
The “art” was output by OpenAI, and I am not sure if it is quantumly supreme. The reason, “OpenAI is not Google.”
Examples include:
- “Demis Hassabis, Nobel Prize winner in Chemistry: We Will Need a Handful of Breakthroughs Before We Reach Artificial General Intelligence” in El Pais
- Fast Company’s “The Future According to Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis”
- “Google DeepMind AI Can Expertly Fix Errors in Quantum Computers” in New Scientist
The articles share several themes:
- Google’s AI is great and the company is working hard to make it greater
- Google’s research is pretty darn close to making AI smarter
- Google is doing good and wants to do more to make life even gooder.
From the razzmatazz world quantum computers to the practical applications for Bill and Betty Average, Google is the driving force for smart software.
It has the transformer expertise. It has a Nobel prize winner. It has a building in London’s Knowledge Quarter.
What the write ups do not talk about is the suggestion that the Google needs a haircut, specifically, its Chrome browser has to chopped off. The PR push has another goal in my opinion. Google must be seen as a prime mover in the technology that everyone absolutely must have: Googley AI.
With investors wondering if the money pumped into smart software will pay off, Google is doing what it can from what some might call its monopoly position to advance the agenda of Google’s technology. Microsoft, Amazon, and some Chinese outfits are spending billions to make sure they are part of the next big thing. Meta is chugging along with its open source approach. Apple is letting its AI fruit ripen which takes time.
Copyright hassles, electric power demands, and the alleged diminishing returns from high flier OpenAI mean that someone has to stand up and say, “AI is wonderful. Google is more wonderful.”
What’s interesting is that in each of the cited stories, notes of skepticism are evident; to wit:
El Pais says, “The CEO of Google DeepMind cools expectations about the progress of AGI…” Okay. Not exactly a rah rah statement.
Fast Company says, “That Google has had to apologize for glitches discovered by users underlines the urgency with which it’s been shipping features in the post-ChatGPT age.” Translation: Ooops.
New Scientist says, “That Google has had to apologize for glitches discovered by users underlines the urgency with which it’s been shipping features in the post-ChatGPT age.” Okay. Six percent. One method produces 100 error fixes. Google can fix 106 errors. Progress? Yep. Revolutionary? To some, sure. To others, not so much.
Each of these AI PR waves are little more than marketing. What’s interesting is that Google may be able to prevent significant changes to its operations if it can make Google the pivot point for the next big thing. I wonder if those involved in prosecuting the different cases about Google’s business behavior are convinced.
That chatter about selling Google’s browser is the background radiation against which these PR emissions are output. Will they be heard?
Stephen E Arnold, November 27, 2024
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