Welcome And Monthly News Format

Chris 0:14

Hello everyone and welcome back to another episode of the Cables to Clouds podcast. My name is Chris Miles. I will be your host today and joining me as always in his um acclaimed co-host capabilities is Tim McConaughey. Yeah, so let's uh hop right into it. So if you're unfamiliar with this uh episode format, basically every uh every month Tim and I kind of go through some of the latest news articles that have come out in the last 30 days and um just kind of go into the details of them as well as giving some opinions and uh Tim's got all the hot takes. Um mine are all lukewarm. So um if you need that, just listen for his voice today. First up, uh we have an article here um from Gizmod that claims that um AI added quote unquote basically zero to the uh economic growth last year from Goldman Sachs. So, you know, as we all know, um, you know, huge companies like Meta, Google, OpenAI, Amazon have all spent billions and billions, um, probably close to the trillion marker in AI investments. And apparently that has added, you know, ultimately zero to the uh US GDP as of yet. Um you know, it calls out specifically that other markets are obviously doing well because of this, like Taiwan and Korea, because you know, we're um having them produce these things that go into um into building AI things such as chips and uh RAM, things like that. Um they also call out in here uh a specific quote from uh Mr. Donnie45, Donald Trump, uh, that this is uh potentially partially due to uh industry regulations that are being enforced at the state level, um, kind of hindering the um, how did he put it hindering the um uh the growth engine of uh the AI uh boom, so to say. So he's thinking that they we should have a one single federal um uh regulation and not impose this at the specific state level. So I don't I don't know if I necessarily agree with that. I think you know every state obviously has their own autonomy to do these things for a certain reason. So um yeah, I don't know. Um I mean I think you know, I don't think any of us want to kind of say, you know, hate the toll juice, the hate the hate that I had uh tell you so. But um I don't think that this is something that's only gonna take a year to kind of reach full you know fruition for sure, because this is such a big um kind of shift in the in the market, but also that also very much contributes to the fact that it is potentially a very big bubble and we could see a big pop, which is not good for any of us. Um but yeah, how do you feel, Tim?

Tim 2:58

Yeah, so I mean I feel a little bit like I feel a little bit like a broken record at this point. It's but but the you know, this we've been saying this for a long time that uh yeah, the a large part of the US um stock market and economy is tied up in making AI successful, but at the end of the day, it's you know, it's that uh what do you call it, that human centipede of you know, NVIDIA open AI, you know, like the the the money changing hands among the same several companies, but it's the same money and visual. Yes. Uh well, I mean it's a pretty bleak visual in general anyway. But you know, the the no no surprise, right? The the money, the actual money to be made in AI still is in the supply chain, is in actually supplying the the supplies that are used to make AI. So this is not news to me. I'm and now with the uh you know with the energy uh crisis that we've we've got on hands, you know, I've been reading some articles about how things like uh helium, everybody talks about oil, but you know, helium apparently is also largely produced by cotter in the Middle East, and helium is also used in a lot of fab uh production for silicon uh different chips and whatnot that are needed for AI data centers. And you know, we're talking about data center, we're talking about fabs that were are bought for like the next several years as it is and don't have the capacity. So yeah, the whole thing's really I'm just waiting for the the wave, if you will. I'm thinking of the wave when normally when a wave is about to crash, the uh the bottom of the wave hits the hits, you know, slows down because it's hitting the shelf, and then kind of the top half comes over the top and sm and falls over because of that sudden stop. I'm waiting for that to happen and uh not not not with glee, let me tell you, because it's gonna be it's gonna be ugly. But anyway, no, no, no, no, no.

Chris 4:54

Like a tsunami sized wave. Yeah. Nice.

Anthropic Softens Its Safety Pledge

Tim 4:58

Yeah, and and the bottom is just hitting slower and slower and slower, and yeah, the top has to fall over. So that's my uh that's my thought, and and I've been saying that for a little bit now. So nothing so far is surprising me. That's it, that's all I got. Hopefully, it's a hot enough take. All right. Uh so I have one that needs its own hot take as well. So um time reported back in late February, like right around the early March time frame, that you know, everybody by now has heard the story about open AI or sorry, uh Anthropic refusing the Department of Defense's uh requirements to basically, you know, not do any kind of uh fettering of its AI systems and uh models for things like you know autonomous uh weapon deployment or or human killing without a human being involved and uh mass surveillance, you know, that an anthropic one pretty good uh I would say you know, accolades and and and goodwill from a lot of people for kind of telling the Department of Defense no and being then similarly thrown out uh of the DOD. And OpenAI, of course, came in right behind them and and said, Oh yeah, we got them to admit to the city, we got them to agree, uh, even though they just kicked you out, which made no sense. But regardless, point now is that now Anthropic has actually changed their own uh flagship uh safety pledge. So one of the big things that they did back when Anthropic was incorp incorporated, created, whatever, when they came to be back in 2023, was you know, a lot of those people were disgruntled people from OpenAI that wanted to see more uh guardrails and safety nets around AI development. And so at the time, they created a essentially a guiding principle saying that they would never create a uh a model that would be essentially you know too smart or too uh outside of the guardrails that it could build for that model. So uh now they've kind of backtracked from that and basically said, oh well, things have changed, and we were kind of hoping everybody else would make a similar pledge that us and you know our competitions moving forward, and you know, the the standard the the standard rig and roll of of uh excuses for why it's pop it's perfectly okay if they don't uh adhere to these principles anymore because the competition isn't. So I I get it from a capitalist standpoint, but I I'm not sure we needed to lean that direction. But um, yeah, uh that's that's the news. They are backtracking on this uh this guiding principle and basically saying, you know, hey, we didn't when we made this uh when we made this this guardrails, when we made this uh pledge, we didn't know what AI development would where it would go, and and now it's essentially not useful. Like it's more hindering than it is useful. So not really surprised, but uh I don't know. Uh Chris, you got anything to add there?

Ohio Weighs Data Center Wastewater

Chris 8:03

Yeah, it's um it's odd. Um one thing I I kind of really don't like about this, um, I mean there's a few things I don't like about it, um kind of the glaring ones, obviously. But the one thing I I kind of rubs me the wrong way is they put a lot of this onus back on the developer and and kind of insist that the developer is kind of the weakest link here. And you know, an insecure developer is going to ultimately be the the the you know kind of root root root to demise of uh of whatever system that they're um putting into place, right? And it and they kind of mention like, oh well, if you know if they're using these other models that don't have this type of restriction, you know, ultimately then there's gonna achieve the same outcome um in a negative fashion. So it's kind of like I don't know, I kind of would equate it to people that make the argument that there's no there's no benefit, sorry about the plane going by overhead, but there's no benefit to um you know doing any kind of uh you know go green initiatives or things like that, just because, you know, places like China are never gonna be on the same wavelength as the rest of the world. So, you know, if the bad guys, quote unquote, if the bad guys aren't gonna do it, then why should we bother? That's the kind of somewhat of the vibe that I got here. Not totally rooted like that, but um, I got a little bit of that. And um another thing that was mentioned in here, where was it? Um, they said they're still gonna hold these kind of frontier safety roadmap sessions where they uh, you know, still maintain the amount of security that they they were going to without the you know, kind of the re rephrase pledge. But I don't know, that just sounds like something to me. That's gonna be let's see how many of those tasks get moved to the next sprint over and over and over again. But um, yeah, that's my that's my opinion. All right, next up, uh this this one's this one's kind of funny. So um we have uh an article here from the um which which local government is this? The nbc4i.com, which is uh a local um Ohio publication. So the Ohio EPA has weighed allowing data centers to dump wastewaters directly into their public rivers. Um this kind of just sounds like a article that you you should not be reading in 2026 because that seems like an obviously bad thing to do. Um but apparently the higher government, the EPA specifically, which is usually in charge of protecting things like this from happening, um, is um apparently considering this as an option. I don't think it's been actually put into place, but it is something that is um uh being uh being evaluated for them to basically release untreated wastewater and storm water directly into the rivers and streams. Obviously, this has caused a lot of commotion with the residents of Ohio in uh in the Columbus area. Um, you know what? I and I'm not even a professional on this, so what I did is I was like, you know what? It says, you know, wastewater and stormwater directly from a data center. I'm like thinking about it, I was like, what all really, what kind of pollution could data center put into the water that that's problematic, right? So what I did is I went to Claude and I was like, hey, should you be able to dump wastewater from a data center directly into storm drain or uh into uh uh rivers and streams? And the overwhelming answer was absolutely not. Like, dude, do not do this. There's all these chemicals in there, there's met there's metal parts, there's all this other crap in there. So it's uh, you know, even even the thing that's gonna live in the data center doesn't think you should let this happen. So yeah, that was uh that was kind of funny. Any any inputs, Tim?

Tim 11:43

Are you uh are you gonna take the the Captain Planet stance here or uh where are you uh Well, I mean the I my fa I think my favorite bit here in the in the um article, the first page of the draft reads, It has been determined that a lowering of water quality of various waters of the state associated with graining coverage under this permit is necessary to accommodate important social and economic development in the state of Ohio. Like that's so basically they're saying we need to allow wastewater to be you know, polluted water to be dumped into our our wit rivers and streams so that we we can make more money, so that money will be made. And what they really mean is is tax what they really mean is tax money because we have the tax money.

Chris 12:33

It's gonna be tax it's gonna be tax breaks, the the economy.

Tim 12:35

It's gonna be tax breaks to bring it in the first place. So where's the there are no tax breaks, very little jobs once the data center is created, as we've you know mentioned many, many, many times. The actual staff of a data center is like you know, less than a hundred people. Um there's literally no no upside to this entire thing. And as a downside, we get to drop uh because the grid, it's not like the people building this data center are are also building the energy infrastructure to feed this data center either, apparently. So it's literally just you know, let's stress the grid, let's dump wastewater in directly into rivers so we can have quote unquote important social and economic development in the state of Ohio. And I I was born in Ohio, although I I was I you know, my I moved long before I, you know, or moved before I was old enough to appreciate that I was born in Ohio, I guess. But but even Ohio, I would imagine is not bad enough where this is an improvement. So I don't really have anything to say about this other than how absolutely insane this is and how much how much bribe money has to be involved for this to be for this to be something that people are I just hope, and I've seen this actually uh I've seen this enough times now that the algorithm of various things actually starts recommending me to to me now uh different uh city or townships, um, what do they call it, the uh hearings and stuff that they have for like, you know, to talk about data centers where we'll where they'll show up enough and enough of these, I guess, get recorded where they'll they'll just keep showing up on my feed where people are just like they're like absolutely not. They're just asking these questions, they're not getting good answers, or the data center people are clearly just completely lying, basically. Right. And uh yeah, like there's a big pushback. This goes beyond NIMBY, too. This isn't like not in my backyard type stuff, right? This is this is a serious thing. So I all you can hope is that people keep using that power that they have, you know, for what for whatever small amount of power they have to try to push against this stuff.

Chris 14:38

So yeah, 100%.

Tim 14:40

All right. Uh let's see. So next we have a uh oh, this came out of the is it the GTC conference, right? The the new the NVIDIA the NVIDIA conference that just happened. So yeah, I think so. Let me open up the yeah. So NVIDIA okay, so I got the wrong wrong one here. I got the wrong one again. Apparently I did not open this up. I wanted to refer to it and then I forgot to open it up. So it's again. Sorry, one sec. We'll cut this because my clicking apparently isn't working. All right. So I wanted to pull some quotes out of here. So basically, NVIDIA is going on uh on record, I guess, is basically saying that now data centers are no longer about storage and compute. Well, they are about compute, but not about like the the traditional way we would build a data center, right, is you'd get racks of compute, racks of storage, and of course all the top of rack switching and everything. Like the the the the design of data centers has been fairly static and uh for for many, many years. So Jensen Wong is basically saying no, like the new currency of of data centers is in tokens, like which okay. If you're building an AI factory or whatever marketing term we're using this week, um, you know, tokens are basically the the the currency you have to produce essentially by you know power, uh GPUs, all the compute storage, you have to produce essentially tokens, I guess is what they're saying is the is the currency of of AI, right? So that is the new currency of data centers. So it's saying, you know, so Jensen says the greatest infrastructure build-out in history is underway. The world is basing to uh racing to build chip systems and AI factories, and every every month of delay costs billions and lost revenue. Sorry. I uh you can't see it, but I'm playing a very tiny violin right now. Um, anyway, so you know, this isn't really news, in my opinion. However, I just I think some of these quotes are really great, and and it's just, you know, again, NVIDIA is in the business of supply, right? Like we talk about where's all the money for AI coming from. It's of course, surprisingly, the in the the CEO of NVIDIA is telling people that you know not building out data centers quickly and more and more data centers is is costing lots of money and it's having terrible, uh, you know, terrible results, uh, I guess on the economy and and and for humanity. So yeah, not much, not much to say here other than it's not really surprising that you know the CEO of NVIDIA would be talking about this. He does, you know, also mentions things like open claw. I believe was it here that he had said that open claw was like more important than Linux or something like that? Like he there's a there's a quote out there. Something like that.

Chris 17:25

They well the thing is they also launched their own version of OpenClaw called Nemo Claw. It's like it does, it's like a very similar thing, but um I don't know who the hell is gonna use that, to be honest with you.

Tim 17:36

But uh and Claude, I think, did something just recently recently as well. Like I was looking at Duane uh Lightfoot's uh LinkedIn and he was pointing out that Claude had just they came up with they didn't call it claw anything, they just they basically took the skill, or if you will, the the essentially open claw as a I guess as a skill or whatever you'd call it, and they just kind of built it in as a as a skill for Claude, which is kind of interesting. So this is just happening too fast, man. But anyway, um you read yeah, you read the article, you've been you were looking at GTC also. Anything to add here?

Chris 18:08

Yeah, just uh like uh the commentary I was gonna make was about the the presentation itself. So um I have not watched the entire thing, I've only seen a few of the highlights um because apparently the entire thing uh the the the reports on it seemed to sound like it was like two and a half hours of a keynote with a single speaker that they did absolutely no rehearsing whatsoever for this. Uh it sounds like it was all over the place. Um and you know, it was just Jensen the whole time. So two and a half hours of just Jensen Wong. Um he pulled some you know big ass servers out up on stage and was kind of like holding them up. And I know those things are probably you know weighing a good you know 40-50 pounds, and then apparently there was issues getting them off of the stage and someone nearly hurt themselves. Um, and some of his slides were just absolutely insane. Like he I think people I think he said he audibly said in the in the presentation, like, oh uh my my editor told me not to show this slide, and there's a very, very uh apparent reason why he should not have shown it. It was just like a hundred boxes all with you know thousands of lines connecting them all together, and it just made absolutely no sense to view on on the stage that you saw it on. Um so if you get if I mean I guess if you have 20 minutes, watch the highlights from it, but if you have two and a half hours, you can you can watch the full thing. I didn't go that far. Um, but yeah, it's I mean, I don't know, man. Like these I I think he's obviously he's making some of the most money than anyone on the planet, but at the same time, some of these quotes are just like, uh first it was, you know, we're the HR um we're the HR people for agents, and now you know our currency is tokens. Like, dude, what what is this fucking economy that he's building in his head around all this shit, man? Um but you know, it's uh some of it's coming true, some of it's not. So I I don't know. Maybe maybe this is gonna be how it works out. Maybe your your employment contracts are gonna start coming with an allotment of tokens every every week or something like that. I don't know. We'll we'll see what happens.

Block Layoffs Framed As AI Efficiency

Tim 20:15

That'd be interesting. Instead of RSUs or restricted stocks or whatever, you you start getting tokens as a benefit. All right, uh, let's see. I have one more and then Chris has has uh one, and this is rather interesting. Uh again, speaking of CEOs and tokens and economies, uh recently, actually, this I mean it's not recently anymore, it's but actually this was one of the first stories that came out after our last news episode. So Jack Dorsey has a company called Block, which is, you know, they own Square, Cash App, like a bunch of cash settlement uh apps, basically. The Jack Dorsey recently laid off 40% of his uh block, which was, I guess they had about 10,000 people, so this actually turned out to be about 4,000 people. And basically he's he had to come out immediately and be like, oh no, no, our company's doing great. We've got lots of money, we're very profitable. The reason we're doing this, he says, is uh we just we have much smaller teams that can accomplish much more because of AI. And therefore, like we just wanted to make the hard decision to go ahead and and cut 40% of our company now rather than do it in a staged uh layoff, like you know, over a period of time, which I I don't know if I I don't know if that's better or or worse. I truly don't, but yeah. So basically he says, you know, so then he says uh the the CFO says, we see an opportunity to move faster with smaller, highly talented teams using AI to automate more work. Um, and then again in on X he posts and says, Oh no, this isn't about money. We've got plenty of money, we're just doing this because we want maximum efficiency. Um, so I I am seeing this a lot. I mean, we we'd been seeing layoffs for a long time, right? And I'm sure more are coming. But you see a lot of the companies that uh you know have other reasons essentially to try to to to that they would want to shed uh headcount, but they don't want the optics associated, like the bad optics that generally come with with a company that does huge layoffs. So they just are using AI as a as a cover, like to cover themselves on the market, like or or you know, in this case, uh I don't remember if Block is uh publicly traded or not. I have to go look. Um But yeah, so it's the same, you know, it it's the same thing. Investors, it mentions investors, so yeah. So um normally a company that cuts half 40% of its workforce in would scare the shit out of its vest investors would be scared, terrified, in fact, probably, uh, about the future of this company uh and its and its solvency. But Jack Dorsey, like I said, came out and said, Oh no, no, no, this is 100% about AI. Now we're making tons of money, we just need half the people to do all of the work, basically. So I'm struggling with how what is the what is their work flow of 40% of the company that you could essentially eliminate it and hand all of that responsibility over to AI and some people who wrangle it, I guess. The HR agents, I guess, the HR of these agents, you know, because mo I I mean, every other, every independent uh polling or or survey or whatever uh organization is talking to enterprises, and 95% of enterprises are saying we're spending billions on tokens and AI, and we have yet to see any kind of uh benefit from it. So there's a there's a weird Tale of Two Cities thing going on here. And so I just generally would like to say follow the money. Uh just you know, follow the money. Um, yeah, what what's your opinion?

Chris 23:55

Yeah. Um so let's let's actually put like the whole question of whether or not they've actually re achieved this level of efficiency. Let's put that aside, right? Because that's that's one thing that I also probably find uh that you'll if you you know look for skeletons, you will find them. Um but the thing is this this right here is kind of an example why I take issue with the statement that um you know your job is only at risk if you're not using these tools uh to augment your job. You really think 40% of these modern companies got laid off and they none of them were using AI to augment their job? I guarantee you they were. Um so I think this just kind of reinforces that like no one is fucking safe from this shit. You know what I mean? Like you like if that like these this isn't people that were working for, you know, some old kind of uh insurance agency that's been around since you know the 1920s or something. This is these are Square and Cash App, right? These are modern applications that are built, you know, fully as SaaS services in some regards, things like that. So it's like uh I just it does not give me much hope. I think I think if you're if you're someone that works in specifically in technology, I think this kind of reinforces don't work um to make yourself irreplaceable, but to r rather just make yourself significantly more employable, right? Um, because you're going to have to find the next next stepping stone with the way this kind of turmoil is shaking out with you know big companies like this um laying off this this this many people in mass, right? So it's just I don't know. I think you just gotta uh you gotta you gotta have your guard up a bit and and and look out for number one here. Um it's uh it's it doesn't give me a lot of uh a lot of comfort, I'll say that.

Tim 25:50

Yeah, no doubt. No doubt.

Meta Smart Glasses And Privacy Fears

Chris 25:52

All right, let's uh let's round up with something equally as problematic, but uh probably a little bit on the lighter note at least. So um we have an article here um uh insinuating that some of the footage from the uh AI glasses produced by Meta, you know, from famously Mark Zuckerberg, um apparently clips of from these 300-pound or 300-pound, I don't know what that is in USD. Um this is a British article, so that's why we're getting it in in uh in British pounds. Um but apparently some footage from these Ray Bans has been sent over to um for review at contact centers in Kenya. Um, and the workers are claiming that they're seeing things um documented on these clips that um seem to be that people don't know that they're being filmed. Um apparently these are clips that may be captured during times whenever the the glasses are not set to record. Um they've seen people going to the bathroom, they've seen people getting undressed, they've seen people engaging in sexual relations. Um so there's a lot of things happening that um uh it says we see everything from living rooms to naked bodies, one of the workers said. Um so it's um yeah, I I I think you know, if people living under uh under the the guise of like, oh, this thing only records when I tell it to, then uh I mean I think there's a reason if you mention something um in an open room next to your phone, you start getting ads for it on Instagram. So I don't know if you can really uh uh you know can observe that level of trust with something that is uh set to record and document everything that you're doing as these are on your face. So I mean, long story short, if you have these things, great. Um just uh just don't wear them when you're you know when you're taking a shit, I guess. Like just like you know.

Tim 27:49

I have to ask the question. So if we if they're like, oh yeah, we're seeing people having sex, who who has oh Jesus, who has sex wearing the meta glasses and has no idea what's happening, right? Like, oh wow, I'm wearing these while I'm having sex and you're recording.

Chris 28:07

Yeah, see that one is that one is you know, I'm not gonna yuck anyone's yum. People have their own uh things that they like to do. That one, at least that one seems I'm like, you know, I'm sure people will do that. But yeah, like the the other stuff about I mean, I guess getting undressed and going to the bathroom, those are normal things that you would do with your glasses on as well. So I mean that's not that weird. Yeah, yeah. Um, but yeah, the thing is like your glasses are meant to be something that I mean, I'm sure there's a lot of people wearing them that are non-prescription, so that they um, you know, it's just like kind of a fashion accessory, but like a lot of people need to wear their glasses, so I mean you're not gonna take it off doing personal activities like that.

Tim 28:47

I d So I don't know enough about the glasses because I would never wear them. But like, are they I mean they're just are they like fashion sunglasses that have the you know the camera essentially embedded in it and that's what it is?

Chris 29:01

Or okay, so it's not it's not like AI, there's AI built into it to you know ask you questions, kind of like a like a Hay Siri or something like that. Oh, okay, okay, got it, got it, got it. I'm sorry if I just triggered anyone's phone uh watching that. Uh I just looked on at mine to see if I did, and mine didn't go off, so I'm thankful.

Tim 29:18

Uh hopefully, hopefully your your new Australian accent didn't trigger it. Um but yeah, no, I mean how do you not know though? I mean, don't get me wrong, I know if if I'm wearing my prescription glasses, and I they're just like my normal glasses, right? Obviously, I would wear them wherever the hell I'm going to do whatever I'm doing. Because I'm first of all, I'm not concerned about whether or not it's being recorded. And obviously, you know, assuming if I'm wearing the glasses, you know, maybe I need them to see or whatever. Um, but if I was wearing meta glasses and the function of meta glasses was to record what I'm seeing and also to be my like personal assistant or whatever, like I wouldn't extend any trust to these things. Like, how do you know when it's how do you know when it's supposed to be recording? Like, do you say like, hey, hey, meta record or something like that? Like, how does how does that work actually?

Chris 30:08

You are supposed to you're supposed to make a statement, right? You're supposed to say hey meta recording. A wake word to do, right? Okay. Um, so there are you know smart glasses in that function that they're supposed to only do that when you request it. But um, sounds like that's probably not the case. I doubt you're gonna say, Hey Meta, record me going to the bathroom. Right. Uh dunno.

Tim 30:30

Uh in that case, you like you said, it's just like when you're sitting next to your echo or something and you start talking about something and or your phone, right? And you start seeing the ads. It's very except whoops, like now we're literally recording stuff they probably shouldn't record. Anyway, all right. So that makes sense, that makes sense at least to me. I was very confused by this article at first. Um okay, well, yeah, if you have one of those glasses, just be aware that whatever you've done in in light in the sight of God in these glasses is uh probably being uh probably being analyzed by someone in Kenya or some other country right now.

Three Year Milestone And Goodbye

Chris 31:04

Yeah, just anything you do, be prepared for someone else to see it. Yep. All right. And with that, uh we will wrap it up. Thank you again for joining us on the monthly update from the Cables to Clouds news or Cables to Clouds podcast, sorry. Um if you enjoyed this, uh please like it, share it with a friend, um, do all that good stuff, uh, get the word out there. Um we just hit our, I think we just hit our three-year birthday, actually. So um, very honorable. We've been doing this three years now. Um feels like it's been maybe a year. So um I think COVID brain has kind of uh affected my my judgment of time. But uh yeah, thanks for joining with us. Uh thanks for sticking with us through these three years. If you've been here all three years, uh, if you're a recent listener, thanks for joining us uh this year. And with that, we will uh take it away and we'll talk to you in a couple weeks. See ya.