Dipanshu Gupta

Techno-Capitalist, worse half of @es_zenith

[Rhys @RhysSullivan]

fable coming back to my codebase after 19 days of opus

[Hunter Horsley @HHorsley]

This is a 2 minute video about taxing the wealthy.

There is no mention of programs it will fund. Or why the tax dollars are needed. Or what the money would be used for. Or how those less fortunate could be supported to themselves become wealthy.

The benefits are no longer the point.

The implicit message is about punishment. Punishing those doing well is now good politics.

Sign of the times —

[Dipanshu Gupta @dipshady_]

@jxnlco Why is it hard to make it faster?

[NOBUNAGA🇯🇵🏯_夏樹蒼依 @japan_nobunaga]

I went to In-N-Out and ordered a cheeseburger. The cashier, a calm young woman named Destiny, asked me a question I did not expect.

"You want that Animal Style?"

I paused.

I did not know what this meant. But a samurai does not admit he does not know. So I answered with weight.

"...Animal Style."

"Cool. So that's mustard-grilled, extra spread, grilled onions, pickles. Yeah?"

I understood now. This was a sacred permission. For one meal, I was being told to put down my manners at the door. To eat the way a beast eats, without shame. I had waited my whole life for someone to give me this order.

"Yes," I said. "I will become the animal."

Destiny did not blink. "...Okay. You want your fries Animal Style too?"

I stopped. Even the potatoes?

"The potatoes also become animals?"

"I mean, they get cheese and sauce and grilled onions, so..."

"Then yes. Let the potatoes abandon their restraint as well."

"...Got it." She was the calmest woman I have ever met. "3x3, 4x4, or just the one?"

I did not know these numbers, but I knew a challenge when I heard one. "How many must I face?"

"It's, like, how many patties you want."

"How many is the most honorable?"

"...Four is a lot."

"Then four. A warrior does not ask for fewer."

She wrote it down without argument. A 4x4, Animal Style, with animal fries. She warned me once, kindly. "That's gonna be huge." I told her I was counting on it.

It arrived. It was a tower. Cheese and sauce ran down my hands the moment I lifted it. There was no clean way to eat it. There was no dignified way. That was the entire point.

I ate it like a beast. Both hands, no honor, grilled onion on my chin, and I have to be honest with you, it was the best thing I have ever put in my mouth.

For thirty years I have kept my manners at every table in the world.

They handed me a burger and told me to be an animal, and I have never felt so free.

So tell me, America.

The whole country knows the secret menu. What else are you hiding in plain sight?

And "Animal Style." Was I eating the animal, or finally becoming one?

[Patrick Collison @patrickc]

I asked Claude about the air conditioning debate in Europe, and it really didn’t pull any punches.

[Mark Tilbury @marktilbury]

What if we stole Elon Musk's $1 Trillion?

[Elon Musk @elonmusk]

@Austen Unfortunately, electric rockets are impossible

[Dipanshu Gupta @dipshady_]

> medicine is entirely a technological problem that the chief practitioners see as more of a guid-monitored artisanal craft

Nailed it

[Patrick Collison @patrickc]

I just visited Paris. The city seemed to be in particularly radiant shape this time.

• It got me thinking about how many of the nicest built environments in the world standardize materials rather than form. Jerusalem's stone regulation makes it much prettier than Tel Aviv. Similarly, rules in the Charleston, the Cotswolds, and Sea Ranch leave a lot of flexibility in shape, but tightly restrict materials in a way that yields cohesion. In Paris's case, there are of course also some rules around form, but the consistency of the limestone (and zinc) is very pleasant.

• I hadn’t before internalized that central Paris is unique for the fraction of its building stock that is traditional. There are of course some modern buildings, such as Centre Pompidou and the new facade at La Samaritaine, but they are rare and typically dramatic. Most pleasant old cities (such as London) contain more of a mixture.

• Relatedly, is Haussmannian Paris the finest example of the central planning that Scott decries? "By 1870 one-fifth of the streets in central Paris were his creation." And is the late 19th century the last time you could have done this well, immediately before the corruptions of modernism? I guess Chicago was later, but Paris certainly comes close.

• From a book I picked up: In a letter of 1886 to the Ministry of Public Works, Charles Garnier, architect of the neo-Baroque Paris Opéra, wrote, “The Metropolitan Railroad, in the eyes of most Parisians, will only be excused if it rejects absolutely all industrial character so as to be completely a work of art. Paris must not be made into a factory, it must stay a museum.” Are there elites anywhere in the world today who would reject something in the physical world unless it was a work of art? One artist recently commented to me that late 19th century France had the most educated visual culture among its elites in human history. This observation struck me a few times as I traveled around.

• I am curious what those who defend modern architecture say about central Paris. Do they think that one could in principle have a place built of modern architecture that people would find as attractive and that would bring joy to so many? Do they think that such a place exists in actuality today? If not, why not? Or is the goal of having somewhere pretty and attractive in their eyes itself ignoble and saccharine? To me Paris feels like a challenge of the whole project.

• Walking past the Louvre at night, I was struck by its austerity and severity. It made me reflect on how Parisians in 1700 might have felt as they took it in, and the subjugation that has been associated with social structures of prior eras. (Maybe this is on my mind partly as a result of reading Charles Taylor.) It made me wonder if I should be slightly more sympathetic to modernism for embodying a sense of individual freedom and joy. The Hilma af Klint exhibition at the Grand Palais was quite a contrast.

• Perhaps heretical, but Notre Dame is just not especially impressive as a cathedral, especially inside, though the restoration seems to have been excellently done, and is a terrific achievement. Overall, Lincoln cathedral (say) is much more attractive in my view. Maybe I need to read Hugo to appreciate it better. (Hugo apparently was responsible for much of the resurgence of interest in Gothic architecture. A good example, I guess, of art driving life.)

• The Renoir exhibition at the Musée d’Orsay was interesting for its emphasis on egalitarian and open relations between men and women, not something observed everywhere in the world at the time. "At the same time delicate and modest – neither moralising nor Dionysian." I thought of @_alice_evans and her work.

• There are now so many bikes in Paris. It means you have to pay very active attention as a pedestrian, but is overall a big improvement. Rue de Rivoli is now dominated by the pleasant whirr of bicycles. I mostly got around this way.

• The Musée Quai Branly is very interesting – it’s the best tour of the world in a single compressed space that I know of. Most of the works are not impressive as such, but the concentrated breadth is great. The Ethiopian illustrated Gospels were very charming.

• Maybe my imagination, but there seemed to me to be a third fewer brasseries than on prior trips. Overall, the food was good, but not better than what you get at good restaurants in the US. The median in Paris is definitely still better, though.

• The Matisse exhibition at the Grand Palais was pleasant. It mostly reminded me of the observation that it is difficult to rank artists but easy to rank the work of a given artist. The Blue Nudes and The Sheaf are just very obviously among Matisse’s best work.

• The Michelangelo x Rodin exhibition at the Louvre was excellent, most of all for making clear how direct the artistic lineage is. Given the 300 year interlude, we should probably be more optimistic about the prospects for revival of the best of the visual arts. I hadn't before realized that Michelangelo's career spanned 74 years. It’s easy to focus on youth and prodigious genius, but maybe enduring genius should be more central. May we all aim to be useful and productive for a large majority of a century! In this vein, David Hockney, RIP, also just cleared the 70 year career mark.

• The Louvre is quite hot; far hotter than an American museum would be. Presumably because of EU/French air conditioning laws? (26 degree regulatory minima, supposedly.)

• Overall, central Paris feels like it's in very good shape. Things are generally quite clean and well-maintained. Not too much graffiti (though some buildings, such as the Louvre, are very overdue for power washing.) Nowhere felt unsafe. (Given that it’s been ruled continuously by socialists since 2001, one wonders why it has fared better than many coastal cities in America. The LLMs claim that it's because much of the funding is central and because the police report centrally, not to the mayor.)

Overall, is central Paris the greatest single artistic achievement in the world? That is what I came away wondering.

Pictured: Ethiopian prayer scroll; Iranian qalamkari; Renoir; af Klint.

[Brivael Le Pogam @brivael]

Beaucoup de figures de gauche, aux US comme en Europe, qualifient Musk d'extrême droite. Certains vont jusqu'au mot « nazi ».

J'ai fait l'inverse de l'accusation : lire avant de juger. Deux biographies. Des dizaines d'heures d'interviews et de documentaires. Zéro once de racisme détectée.

Ce que j'ai trouvé, c'est une obsession constante pour la liberté : rachat de Twitter au nom de la liberté d'expression, réintégration des comptes bannis, publication des Twitter Files, ouverture du code de l'algorithme, open-source de Grok, brevets Tesla libérés en 2014, Starlink rallumé pour les Iraniens coupés du net pendant les manifestations et pour l'Ukraine, refus répété des demandes de censure étatiques.

Maintenant, faisons l'expérience de pensée que ses accusateurs ne font jamais. Imaginez que Musk soit réellement evil.

Cet homme possède un réseau de satellites qui couvre la planète, soit une capacité de surveillance quasi totale. Il possède la place publique numérique la plus influente du monde. Il possède la première fortune à 1000 milliards de l'Histoire, depuis l'IPO de SpaceX le 12 juin. Aucun individu n'a jamais concentré autant de leviers.

Un Musk réellement malveillant, avec ça dans les mains, ne tolérerait pas une seconde qu'on le traite de nazi H24 sur sa propre plateforme. Il bannirait. Il surveillerait. Il écraserait. On serait déjà dans 1984.

Or regardez la réalité : les comptes qui l'accusent de nazisme tweetent toujours. Tous les jours. Sans entrave. Sur son réseau. Avec son algorithme. La dystopie totalitaire qu'on lui prête se démontre par l'absence du goulag.

Voilà le retournement. 1984 le contrôle de la parole, la surveillance de masse, la désignation publique des hérétiques ce n'est pas son projet. C'est le fantasme de ceux qui l'accusent. L'accusation décrit toujours l'accusateur.

C'est du Girard à l'état pur : on désigne un bouc émissaire pour ne pas voir le mécanisme qu'on porte soi-même. Celui qui hurle « nazi » rêve souvent, en silence, du pouvoir de bannir, de ficher, de faire taire.

L'homme qui aurait tous les moyens de bâtir 1984 est précisément celui qui laisse ses pires détracteurs parler. Demandez-vous qui, dans cette histoire, rêve vraiment du télécran.

[Elon Musk @elonmusk]

In the future, a trillion times a trillion dollars will be spent on making antimatter to travel to other star systems

[Dipanshu Gupta @dipshady_]

@hankgreen @nikitabier @elonmusk can we please Grok text-to-speech for X articles? Will help me get out of Bookmarks hell and finish the (excellent) articles that are starting to come on X, thx

[signüll @signulll]

cold open: google campus. a conference room named “moonshot serenity 4b.” twelve people are in a meeting titled: pre-sync for sync alignment on ai velocity.

sundar sits calmly at the head of the table.

a pm clicks to slide 1 of 187.

“the agenda today is simple,” she says. “how do we move faster while preserving our culture of not doing that?”

everyone nods.

then the door opens.

noam shazeer walks in.

the room goes silent.

noam: “i’m leaving.”

a vp of gemini reliability, brand, trust, latency, policy, and vibe raises a hand.

“leaving… this meeting?”

noam: “google.”

someone gasps. someone else opens a doc titled retention narrative draft final final noam v7.

sundar blinks once.

“noam, we brought you back.”

“for two point seven billion dollars.”

“technically you licensed some technology and reacquired talent.”

“that sentence is why we need legal in the room.”

legal is already there.

cut to: openai.

sam altman stands beside a whiteboard that just says ship.

an engineer walks by carrying a server rack and what appears to be the future.

sam: “we can offer speed, compute, and one meeting.”

noam: “one meeting per week?”

sam: “no. one meeting. total.”

back at google, the emergency retention committee forms instantly. it has 31 members.

a director says, “what if we give him a new title?”

“he already co-leads gemini.”

“distinguished super co-lead?”

“google fellow?”

“he already left google, founded a company, got brought back for billions, then left again. he’s folklore.”

meanwhile, a gemini launch review begins.

pm: “we’re ready to announce the model.”

policy: “can it answer questions?”

eng: “yes.”

policy: “too risky.”

marketing: “can we call it experimental?”

research: “the model is better than the last one.”

brand: “better is aggressive.”

trust & safety: “what about ‘more contextually adjacent to usefulness’?”

a staff engineer whispers, “openai just shipped a model while we were discussing the adjective.”

cut to noam’s exit interview.

hr: “what could google have done better?”

flashback montage:

a chatbot blocked because it might be too good.
a launch delayed because a button was the wrong shade of responsible blue.
a spreadsheet comparing twelve ai product names.
a meeting where someone says “we need a single coherent ai strategy” and three new strategies are created before lunch.

noam: “nothing comes to mind.”

hr: “great. we’ll mark that as positive attrition.”

later, sundar calls him privately.

“google is still google. best researchers. best infrastructure. billions of users.”

“yes.”

“so why leave?”

noam looks out the window.

“because you have everything except permission.”

silence.

sundar, softly: “we can create a permission working group.”

cut to all-hands.

sundar addresses the company.

“noam is leaving. this is not a loss. it is an opportunity to reflect on our operating model.”

chat explodes:

“is this recorded?”
“which gemini?”
“can we ask gemini why people keep leaving?”
“it said ‘insufficient context.’”

a vp steps up.

“to honor noam’s legacy, we’re launching project attention.”

applause.

“it will study whether attention is, in fact, all we need.”

a researcher raises a hand. “didn’t we answer that in 2017?”

“yes. but now we need enterprise readiness.”

final scene: noam arrives at openai. badge works instantly.

receptionist: “yeah, we just made one.”

no pre-read. no doc. just a whiteboard, five people, and a model running somewhere hot enough to toast bread.

sam: “ready?”

noam smiles.

cut back to google. a calendar invite appears:

meeting: reduce meetings task force kickoff
duration: 90 minutes
required attendees: 214

sundar sighs, opens gemini, and types:

“how do we move faster?”

gemini responds:

“have you considered leaving google?”

smash cut to credits.

[Ted Zhang @TedHZhang]

Bitching Bernie

H/T: @rahulsood for the graphic

[Max Weinbach @mweinbach]

If OpenAI does drop token pricing, this is likely because they’ve heard from customers they can’t adopt AI at volume at the current pricing.

Margin is high now for served tokens. They could cut prices by like 60% and still be profitable imo

[William Gerrard @Bill_Gerrard]

Except for lifting this is my 19-month old daughter’s schedule

[Dipanshu Gupta @dipshady_]

@AgustinLebron3 It happens because you keep pushing the model in "routine tasks" until you find where it breaks

[Dipanshu Gupta @dipshady_]

@thekitze @CarlosBBuild Let the market decide

[Dipanshu Gupta @dipshady_]

poor use of exacerbate exacerbates readability @SemiAnalysis_

[Dipanshu Gupta @dipshady_]

@insane_analyst If memory wants a bigger multiple, it needs to prove it is a) not a commodity, and b) is not cyclical.
Hynix's HBM tech has a shot at a); b) is TBD for the industry

Also, Hynix ADR tbd