KrisClaessens

Tech lead @ Vialenti | Computer Vision | Fashion | Spring classics cycling | Fingerstyle Guitar | The Eagles | Ice Age | Always thinking ahead

[KrisClaessens @KrisClaessens]

Nice video to watch on a sunny day like this Sunday 😊

[Ihtesham Ali @ihteshamali]

Google wrote the paper that made ChatGPT possible. Then decided not to build ChatGPT. Sergey Brin just explained why on stage at Stanford and the reason is more embarrassing than anyone expected.

In 2017, Google published the transformer paper. The architecture that powers every major AI model today. It came from their own researchers. Their own labs. Their own compute.

Then they sat on it.

Sergey was blunt about why. They underinvested in scaling the compute. They did not take it seriously enough. And when they finally had something worth shipping, they got scared. Chatbots say dumb things. Google had a reputation to protect. So they protected it instead of shipping.

OpenAI was not scared.

Ilya Sutskever, trained at Google, left and went there. Other Google researchers followed. They took the transformer architecture, scaled it, shipped it anyway, and captured the entire generative AI wave while Google watched.

Sergey called it a mistake at Stanford in front of hundreds of students.

The company that invented the technology did not build the product. The company that built the product did not invent the technology.

That is the most expensive case of corporate hesitation in the history of the industry.

---

Watch the full interview YT.

Search: "Big ideas begin here: Sergey Brin at Stanford"

[KrisClaessens @KrisClaessens]

https://t.co/WkX5KG1pfc

[Lukasz Olejnik @lukOlejnik]

Anthropic published a blog post and playbook on how Claude Code handles COBOL. This isn’t about fixing old code or keeping it on a mainframe. The process has two stages: first, AI automates the analysis – mapping dependencies, documenting workflows, identifying risks. Work that used to take consultants months. Then it incrementally migrates the code to Java or Python, with the option to host it on any cloud provider. IBM stock dropped 13%. The reason is simple: IBM makes money because COBOL is hard. The company keeps clients on its mainframes, sells modernization through watsonx, but makes sure the end result still runs on its hardware. The CFO boasted about a 3-4x revenue multiplier from each mainframe client. Anthropic isn’t offering modernization – it’s offering an escape from the entire ecosystem. Accenture and Cognizant fell too. The whole legacy systems consulting sector got the signal that AI can replace “armies of consultants.”
Anthropic wrote that understanding the code used to cost more than rewriting it. IBM would prefer that sentence had never been said publicly. 95% of ATM transactions in the US run on COBOL. No bank CTO will make a migration decision based on a blog post – but every board member will read it.

[Shikhar @xikhar]

@Google Who said Google was dead?

[OpenAI @OpenAI]

GPT-5.2 Pro
Our smartest and most trustworthy model for difficult questions:

- Stronger performance in complex domains like programming

- Best model for assisting and accelerating scientists

[KrisClaessens @KrisClaessens]

Full digital Hollywood in the making

[Ricardo @Ric_RTP]

Netflix just KILLED Hollywood...

By pulling off the most INSANE power move of 2025.

$82.7 billion for Warner Bros, HBO, and HBO Max.

The streaming wars are officially over.

But nobody understands what actually just happened...

For YEARS, Ted Sarandos said: "We're builders, not buyers. We don't need a library."

Then three weeks ago he pulled a complete 180.

And the bidding war was brutal.

Paramount thought they had it locked. David Ellison's dad is Larry Ellison, Oracle founder, one of the richest men alive.

Paramount made THREE bids in September. All rejected. Too low.

But Ellison kept pushing.

He wanted the ENTIRE company including CNN, Discovery Channel, all the cable networks nobody else wanted.

His pitch was simple: "We have White House relationships. Regulatory approval will be easy."

For weeks, everyone thought Paramount would win.

Then Netflix entered the chat...

$27.75 per share. Mix of cash and stock. $82.7 billion total.

Paramount countered with $30 per share, all cash, backed by three Middle Eastern sovereign wealth funds.

Higher bid. More cash. Should've won.

But Netflix included something nobody saw coming:

A $5.8 BILLION breakup fee.

If Netflix walks away from this deal, they pay Warner Bros $5.8B.

Nobody puts up breakup fees that big. Ever.

It's Netflix saying "we're so confident we can fight regulators and win, we'll bet $5.8B on it."

Paramount lost their minds.

Thursday morning, Paramount's lawyers sent a 4,000-word letter to Warner Bros CEO David Zaslav.

The letter accused Warner Bros of rigging the process. Said Zaslav had "personal interests in post-transaction roles."

Translation: Zaslav wants a job at Netflix after the deal closes, so he's giving them preferential treatment.

They're literally calling it corruption.

But Netflix just sat on that $5.8B breakup fee and waited.

In the end, Warner Bros picked Netflix.

And here's the thing...

This isn't about streaming.

It's about OWNING the IP before AI makes production costs zero.

Warner Bros owns:
- Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman (entire DC Universe)
- Harry Potter (full franchise rights)
- Game of Thrones, The Sopranos, The Wire
- Friends, The Big Bang Theory

When AI video generation hits in 2-3 years, Netflix bets on "whoever owns the IP wins."

They hope to generate infinite Batman movies and Harry Potter spinoffs using AI at near-zero marginal cost.

The genius move though:

Paramount wanted ALL of Warner Bros Discovery. Including dying cable networks (CNN, TNT, TBS).

Netflix said: "We only want the studio and streaming."

They're letting Warner Bros spin off the garbage cable channels. Then buying ONLY the profitable parts.

Buy the assets. Leave the liabilities.

This deal "kills three birds with one stone" according to Bank of America:

Bird #1: Warner Bros Discovery ceases to exist as a competitor
Bird #2: HBO Max (#3 streaming platform) merges with Netflix (#1)
Bird #3: Every other studio is now officially screwed

Netflix now has:
- World's largest subscriber base (260M+)
- Second-largest content library
- The IP for infinite AI content
- HBO's prestige brand
- Warner Bros' theatrical distribution

Game over.

Anonymous Hollywood producers literally sent letters to Congress BEGGING them to block the deal.

They didn't even sign their names. Too scared of Netflix retaliation.

Senator Warren called it an "anti-monopoly nightmare."

But none of it will matter. Deal's getting approved.

What happens next?

2026: Discovery Global spins off (cable networks)
2026: Netflix acquisition closes
2027: HBO integration begins
2028: AI video generation launches
2029: AI-generated Batman and Harry Potter content

By 2030, Netflix IS Hollywood.

My take?

Thid is smart SHORT TERM. Destroys competition. Locks in IP.

But LONG TERM? When AI video hits, content libraries won't matter. Speed of generation will.

Netflix just spent $82.7B on the past instead of the future.

The next 3 years will tell us which one it is.

[KrisClaessens @KrisClaessens]

The AI stack is becoming the cloud battleground https://t.co/N7TEFpq1cN via @cbinsights

[News from Google @NewsFromGoogle]

Nano Banana, our latest AI image editing model, is now available in Search via Lens for all users in the U.S. 🍌 Learn more about how to get started → https://t.co/pKDRGjle7o

[KrisClaessens @KrisClaessens]

🤯 https://t.co/HvWnsGMCix

[KrisClaessens @KrisClaessens]

With all these LLMs and #GenAI you would almost forget how to train a clothing segmentation model 😊

[Sam Altman @sama]

We are launching a new app called Sora. This is a combination of a new model called Sora 2, and a new product that makes it easy to create, share, and view videos.

This feels to many of us like the “ChatGPT for creativity” moment, and it feels fun and new. There is something great about making it really easy and fast to go from idea to result, and the new social dynamics that emerge.

Creativity could be about to go through a Cambrian explosion, and along with it, the quality of art and entertainment can drastically increase. Even in the very early days of playing with Sora, it’s been striking to many of us how open the playing field suddenly feels.

In particular, the ability to put yourself and your friends into a video—the team worked very hard on character consistency—with the cameo feature is something we have really enjoyed during testing, and is to many of us a surprisingly compelling new way to connect.

We also feel some trepidation. Social media has had some good effects on the world, but it’s also had some bad ones. We are aware of how addictive a service like this could become, and we can imagine many ways it could be used for bullying.

It is easy to imagine the degenerate case of AI video generation that ends up with us all being sucked into an RL-optimized slop feed. The team has put great care and thought into trying to figure out how to make a delightful product that doesn’t fall into that trap, and has come up with a number of promising ideas. We will experiment in the early days of the product with different approaches.

In addition to the mitigations we have already put in place (which include things like mitigations to prevent someone from misusing someone’s likeness in deepfakes, safeguards for disturbing or illegal content, periodic checks on how Sora is impacting users’ mood and wellbeing, and more) we are sure we will discover new things we need to do if Sora becomes very successful. To help guide us towards more of the good and less of the bad, here are some principles we have for this product:

*Optimize for long-term user satisfaction. The majority of users, looking back on the past 6 months, should feel that their life is better for using Sora that it would have been if they hadn’t. If that’s not the case, we will make significant changes (and if we can’t fix it, we would discontinue offering the service).
*Encourage users to control their feed. You should be able to tell Sora what you want—do you want to see videos that will make you more relaxed, or more energized? Or only videos that fit a specific interest? Or only for a certain about of time? Eventually as our technology progresses, you will be should to the tell Sora what you want in detail in natural language. (However, parental controls for teens include the ability to opt out of a personalized feed, and other things like turning off DMs.)
*Prioritize creation. We want to make it easy and rewarding for everyone to participate in the creation process; we believe people are natural-born creators, and creating is important to our satisfaction.
*Help users achieve their long-term goals. We want to understand a user’s true goals, and help them achieve them. If you want to be more connected to your friends, we will try to help you with that. If you want to get fit, we can show you fitness content that will motivate you. If you want to start a business, we want to help teach you the skills you need. And if you truly just want to doom scroll and be angry, then ok, we’ll help you with that (although we want users to spend time using the app if they think it’s time well spent, we don’t want to be paternalistic about what that means to them).

[KrisClaessens @KrisClaessens]

https://t.co/cF1Ia8A7ag

[KrisClaessens @KrisClaessens]

https://t.co/YucLgQxgXe

[KrisClaessens @KrisClaessens]

https://t.co/9QlMWhGlAS

[KrisClaessens @KrisClaessens]

Came across this when scrolling in my social media content. I am still
experiencing this every : managers/consultants that do not have a clue what they are managing and mess everything up 😡 https://t.co/xJlgdqpw3B

[Sam Altman @sama]

GPT-4.5 is ready!

good news: it is the first model that feels like talking to a thoughtful person to me. i have had several moments where i've sat back in my chair and been astonished at getting actually good advice from an AI.

bad news: it is a giant, expensive model. we really wanted to launch it to plus and pro at the same time, but we've been growing a lot and are out of GPUs. we will add tens of thousands of GPUs next week and roll it out to the plus tier then. (hundreds of thousands coming soon, and i'm pretty sure y'all will use every one we can rack up.)

this isn't how we want to operate, but it's hard to perfectly predict growth surges that lead to GPU shortages.

a heads up: this isn’t a reasoning model and won’t crush benchmarks. it’s a different kind of intelligence and there’s a magic to it i haven’t felt before. really excited for people to try it!

[KrisClaessens @KrisClaessens]

https://t.co/ND1MsTfE3Y