Weekend Edition 28: Everybody’s Struggling... Change is Coming & More

AI Shenanigans
Tech & Finance
TMO Buying Mint Mobile
South Korea Beefing Up Chip Production
Dying, Dirty Bird?
White House Changes Tune with TikTok

WE 28.1 – AI Shenanigans
A) GPT 4 Released
Now with even less human effort!!! Yes, I am being very sarcastic. This tool can now write up to 25,000 words, “hallucinate” less, and score in the top 10% on the Bar exams. Joy! ChatGPT could now be a lawyer... Just what we always needed, attorneys entirely devoid of human feeling. This is fine... *house burns down around me* this is fine... What does GPT stand for? Generative Pre-trained Transformer. I had always wondered, but now I know. What does it transform? Why patterns of text into something similar, based on its existence as a “large language model” (which is what most generative AI’s are now). Basically, it takes a prompt, scours the internet for information (or its databanks, as is the case with ChatGPT), then puts together an answer to the prompt you gave it, within reason. This tool could be revolutionary, but is it in the right way? How does this really help mankind? It does remind me of the lead up to the Butlerian Jihad in Dune. This war took place several hundred years prior to the events of the Dune series, but the results of it shaped the time of Dune. The bottom line was that mankind, in having gone to the stars, became utterly dependent on computers and so-called thinking machines. These machines began to run everything, that was, until an initially small group of semi-religious zealots started to destroy it all because they saw what the situation was doing to mankind. Man (and woman) no longer had to even think, much less work, and they were beginning to degrade into something like what we saw in WALL-E. This group knew that that would end mankind, so they rose up, rallied a greater following, then banned and destroyed all ‘thinking machines’. Do we need to go through that? Perhaps we have already delved to greedily and too deep, to refer to another of my favorite series. Is it too late to turn back? Do we need to go Amish, or is there a middle way? I’d love to chat about it with you guys...
B) GrammarlyGo to Arrive in April
This implementation of ChatGPT will help you to do many things, should you choose to try it out. It is designed to “improve communication” and save money lost by poor communication. In a survey by The Harris Poll, commissioned by Grammarly, it was found that US businesses lose up to $1.2 trillion annually, due to communication issues. Wow. That is quite the wad of cash. It will feature prompts to improve your email, social media message, or even newsletter. Their implementation also has a limited ability to grasp context and tone, to help you adjust your writing based on your personal style, the style of communications in your company or business, or any other number of factors. On one hand, cool. On the other, uhhh, yikes. I’d much rather just edit my own work when needed, versus trying to use a tool like this to write for me. Gives me the willies.

C) Meta Refocuses on AI
If you needed any more reason to ditch Meta and its products, this should be do the trick. On top of the renewed zest which these psychopaths are putting into the dream of sentient AI, as well as its lesser kin, they are continuing to lay small cities’ worth of employees off from the company. Another 10,000 people will be let go in short order. Wow. On the other hand, the austerity and emphasis on hot-button tech buzz-words has had investors streaming back to the giant. They think that it can help to make coding more efficient, which as long as the tool their using doesn’t “hallucinate” , it very well could. It could help the company’s bottom line if enough people and organizations keep using and advertizing on its platforms.
https://www.cnet.com/tech/computing/ai-gets-smarter-safer-more-visual-with-gpt-4-update-openai-says/
https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/grammarlys-new-ai-tool-is-more-than-a-spell-checker/
https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/15/tech/meta-ai-investment-priority
WE 28.2 – Big Finance on Thin Ice?
I’m sure that by now, you have all heard about the tandem of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank collapsing and needing the FDIC to more or less bail out their depositors after over-extending themselves with loans that were in keeping with the standard fractional reserve system, where banks are allowed, and even encouraged to lend out money that they don’t actually have in the assets column. I could say which group of people are responsible for this nonsense, but I won’t. What’s the big deal with these particular banks? Well Silicon Valley Bank, partially due to their own shady practices, are one of the default places for VCs and start-ups to do their banking, oh yes, some of the best known oens are on the list: Uber, Roblox, Roku, Buzzfeed, Sunlight Financial, Circle, BlockFi, Payoneer, SunRun, and others. On one hand, it is good that the FDIC was able to cure the deficiencies with SVB depositors, as it would damage many companies in both the US and Europe, including the review site, Trustpilot. Why was it that so many start-ups and publicly traded firms have money with SVB? Well, let me tell you: as a part of credit deals as well as general banking needs, many of these firms were required to sign some rather shady exclusivity deals with the bank. I don’t know how regular these sorts of things are, but it strikes me as borderline evil, to be honest. On one hand, it depends on what the lifespan of the agreement is... On the other, I don’t like the concept at all, even if it may be normal operating procedure. Well, only God knows exactly how this will shake out, but it surely doesn’t look good for the financial system when we have the 2nd and 3rd largest bank failures in US history happen within days of each other.
Signature Bank had customers in similar spaces to those of SVB, particularly ties with FTX, through the decision in 2018 to start accepting crypto deposits. They had many real estate sector clients, including elements of the Trump Organization. To put things into perspective, these banks held a combined ~1/3 trillion dollars in assets, which is nothing to sneeze at, but is chump change in comparison with giants like JPM Chase, who holds ~$3 Trillion in assets. Overall bank valuations went down, even JPM Chase, as the market tried to wrap its head around the events of the previous 3 days, on Monday. We are being told that the FDIC is not using taxpayer funds to backstop these depositors, and that no management or investors will be bailed out either. This feels like socialism lite, big surprise, right? The whole principle behind the FDIC is socialist, if you really look at it. How is a government entity which exists to stabilize the banks and to prevent 1929-esque bank runs from happening, thereby crippling the financial system in this country, and much of the rest of the world not inherently socialist? It requires payment into it by banks and credit unions, then exists to hand out money to customers of banks when they fail, but only to the tune of $250k per account holder, if I recall. Not Billions.

In related news, Credit Suisse is also troubled, and they move in BIG money circles. They were shown to be a less than optimal risk, and its largest shareholder is unwilling to pump more cash into it due to regulatory concerns. They lost over $147 billion in customer deposits during Q42022, due to customers leaving, along with the fallout from years of scandal and mismanagement which have seen the firm go through 3 CEOs in 2 years. Now we see the Swiss national bank coming to the rescue to calm investor and public fears over its shaky reality, so they are going to lend them $57 billion to help them to stabilize their situation. They are also working to restructure and transform themselves. Hmmm... US banks, Swiss banks all struggling at the same time? Could a collapse be coming? Don’t Panic, people. If you, not in a place of fear, feel led to withdraw whatever funds you may have, do so. If not, ride this roller coaster out, and we will all see how this lands.
https://www.reuters.com/business/finance/new-york-state-regulators-close-signature-bank-2023-03-12/
https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/13/tech/tech-industry-relief-silicon-valley-bank
https://www.cnbc.com/2023/03/12/silicon-valley-bank-signed-exclusive-banking-deals-with-some-clients.html
https://www.nytimes.com/article/svb-silicon-valley-bank-explainer.html
https://www.cnbc.com/2023/03/15/swiss-national-bank-says-it-will-provide-credit-suisse-with-liquidity-if-necessary.html

WE 28.3 – T-Mobile to Acquire Ryan Reynolds’ Mint Mobile
Hmm, this one hits a little closer to home for me, as we currently work with Mint Mobile. I have no beef with them, their service is solid, and their marketing is genius. The magenta monster is seeking to pay $1.35 billion to acquire the smaller, prepaid carrier which uses T-Mobile’s infrastructure for many of its clients. I did not know that Mint was not on its own, it is a subsidiary of Ka’ena Corporation, which also holds Ultra Mobile, and wireless wholesaler, Plum. Reynolds is slated to stay on as spokesman for Mint, which, pending final approval by regulators, will operate as a separate business unit, maintaining the cheap plans and the overall structure of the company. This is interesting to me, and as more news comes out, I will report on it.

https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/15/tech/mint-mobile-tmobile-purchase-ryan-reynolds

WE 28.5 – Last Financial Story for the day... Samsung to Build massive Factory in South Korea After Incentives from Seoul
Samsung is investing $228 billion in a new chip fabrication facility in South Korea, and the y plan to have enough of it operational to develop competitive silicon to that which TSMC is making, by 2027. The large investment is set to take place over the next 20 years. These come as echoes of the CHIPS Act in the US, which saw TSMC, AMD, and Intel all snapping up subsidies to create new plants in the US. If you weren’t aware, Samsung (this division) is actually best known for RAM (memory) and Flash media chips (SSDs, EMMC drives, and flash drives). However, they also make consumer electronics and CPUs (processors, both desktop and mobile, as well as embedded) as well as GPUs (graphics processors which power device displays).
https://www.cnbc.com/2023/03/15/samsung-to-spend-228-billion-on-the-worlds-largest-chip-facility.html

WE 28.5 – Twitter Troubles & TikTok Pivots
Now comes the traditional “let’s all gang up on social media companies” session. I bet you were waiting for it, weren’t you? When’s Matt gonna tee off on Twitter and TikTok? Well, wait no longer. Who should I flame first today? Well, Twitter is struggling enough, aren’t they? They keep glitching out, and it has people (myself included) wondering how much longer this pestilent platform can last as a viable social media outlet, between the safety concerns and the reliability issues we have seen in the last 4.5 months since the tumultuous takeover by Elon Musk, who is either the Devil incarnate or the Second coming of Jesus Christ, depending on which media outlet you prefer. I can’t see him as the latter, as he is far too close to the US intelligence and military industrial complex, between Tesla and SpaceX, not to mention the super shady nonsense over at Neuralink and The Boring Company. Come at me in the comments, whether you think he is the Devil because now Twitter seems to be burning to the ground more rapidly, or you think he is God’s gift to the world because he brought free speech back to Twitter, and regularly causes ‘liberal” heads to explode due to his unfiltered trolling. I, however, find his antics suspect in big ways. Only time will tell whether my suspicions are well-founded or not. At any rate, Twitter has been going through technical hell since Elon took over, and cut so many positions to try to trim the company down so that he could perhaps focus more on paying down the interest of the insane loan he had to take out in order to purchase the platform. Does Twitter have what it takes to pull through this rocky season? Again, only time will tell. I, personally, would love to see it burn to the ground, as I see it as a seedbed for division, easily manipulated through algorithms so that the craziest shit gets pushed to the top of everyone’s feeds, because those things get interaction, where normal (representative of most of the country) kinds of thoughts get no love. I also always felt that the 140 character limit was far too restrictive to actually get anything meaningful or remotely helpful said. That was why I never got into it, I am too long-winded, verbose, and otherwise wordy.
Ok, so what is new with the ongoing TikTok saga? The White House has told ByteDance that it must divest of its shares in TikTok, if they want the platform to still function in the US, moving forward. Bold move from pResident Depends, I must say (bolder than when he shat himself in the Vatican, I think). Trump tried to ban it, but the courts overruled him, let’s see if Depends can make it stick, or even has to. Will ByteDance back down and sell off their shares in the platform? The TikTok spokeswoman, Brooke Oberwetter, stated that the company does not believe that divestment would actually solve the problems that the Depends Administration is seeking to alleviate, those of dataflows going to China. As much as I hate to admit it, on one level, she’s right: simple divestment by Chinese nationals at ByteDance would not necessarily solve the problem of data being sent to China by citizens of the US who use the platform. The steps currently being taken by the company here in and in the EU are far more important (in the forms of Projects Texas and Clover). I don’t know how I feel about this anymore. The things that TikTok addiction can do to young people, as well as the ways in which they treat their content creators, as well as disrespecting intellectual property laws and regulations.. These things should motivate us to migrate away from the platform just as much as the potential privacy and national security concerns we are being told are so horrible. You make up your own mind.

https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/12/tech/twitter-breaking
https://www.reuters.com/technology/us-threatens-tiktok-ban-if-chinese-owners-dont-sell-stake-wsj-2023-03-15/