Delusions

I am told that Russian hackers have been detected taking both sides of internet debates on issues espoused by the Wokerati like gender identification. Why? Well the general thrust of what the Russkies were up to was to wind up participants on both sides of the argument. So the conclusion is that they want to get peoples’ passions excited. Why? ...

The canard that TSMC makes 90% of the world’s most advanced chips has been taken apart by the industry’s foremost process technology analyst Scotten Jones. In SemiWiki, Jones points out that that this much-quoted ‘stat’ does not stand up to scrutiny. Jones takes ‘advanced’ as being processes with densities of  100 million transistors per millimeter squared (MTx/mm2) which is the ...

The playbook for a techie with a technology to sell is to go to industrial companies and tell them they’ll become uncompetitive if they don’t buy it. In the 70s, AI software was being packaged as ‘expert systems’ and peddled as indispensable to any company wanting to stay in business. To many CEOs, paranoid about falling behind their competition, and ...

Earlier this week, EC Commissioner Ruud Függ declared Europe’s determination not to let Big Tech  grab a monopoly in the AI market. “We’re going to compete,” stated Függ, “we Europeans are going to beat the crap out of the competition.” Er no . . . . it wasn’t quite like that actually. What actually happened was that, earlier this week, ...

While groups in America form to pursue GenAI, break off from each other to form new groups, raise billions of dollars of capital, and get the backing of major companies and set share prices soaring, what is happening in Europe? More bureaucracy is the answer. The EU is reported to be about to set up  the European Artificial Intelligence Office ...

‘AI’ has proved to be a powerful tool for raising and investing phenomenal amounts of capital. But asking for capital to build a ‘network of fabs’ to build AI chips seems to be stretching the potency of AI’s money-raising capabilities beyond its limit. No one knows if demand for accelerators is going to continue at the current rate while  the ...

Our ministers can be so embarrassing. Speaking on the subject of autonomous cars, Mark Harper, the Secretary of State for Transport, says: “I’ve seen the technology being used in California for example, without a safety driver, so in full, autonomous mode,” says Harper, “this technology exists, it works and what we’re doing is putting in place the proper legislation so ...

The grandiose chest-puffing of the Eurobods can be amusing. “Europe has positioned itself as a pioneer, understanding the importance of its role as a global standard setter. This is yes, I believe, a historical day,” says European Commissioner Thierry Breton. What’s the EU done? Hours of chin-wagging followed by delivery of  much bumf – what else does the EU do? ...

It’s odd that a bloke who has spent the last 20 years gathering together all the strings of power in his country should object to being called a ‘Dictator’. President Joe Biden agreed with a reporter last week that Xi is a Dictator to which a China government spokesperson responded that the remark was “extremely erroneous” and an “irresponsible political ...

The huffing and puffing in US Congressional corridors about stopping China having access to RISC-V begs the question: How can you actually do this? It’s all very well, stopping Intel or Nvidia, selling their chips to China, or stopping foundries making chips made on  particular process nodes to China, or to stop equipment companies selling defined equipment types to China, ...