Latest news with #ParmyOlson
Bloomberg
22-07-2025
- Business
- Bloomberg
The Dangers of Musk's Flirty, New Chatbot
Opinion Grok's latest character, Ani, will likely bring in some much-needed cash for Musk. But at whose expense? Bloomberg Opinion columnist Parmy Olson explains the dangers. (Source: Bloomberg)
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Business Standard
19-07-2025
- Business
- Business Standard
Best of BS Opinion: Power plays, star turns, and fading languages
There's something magical about the air after a downpour. The way the city exhales, windows open, dust settles, and colours emerge brighter. It's a small pause, a crisp clarity that cuts through the blur of everyday noise. Much like today's columns. Each of them, different as they are, arrives like sunlight reflecting off of puddles on the road, revealing what was murky just moments ago. Whether it's the stormy shifts in India's political alliances or the clouded future of venture capital, they invite us to look again at what's settling, what's washing away, and what's beginning anew. Let's dive in. Start with Parmy Olson's sharp look at the evolving VC landscape, where tech giants are now acquiring AI startups not to scale them, but to quietly absorb their talent — a practice known as 'acquihiring'. While this helps companies skirt antitrust radar, it's leaving investors in the lurch and threatening the very business model that built Silicon Valley. The rain of regulation may have driven VCs to chase fewer billion-dollar exits, but in its aftermath, a more sustainable startup culture could just be taking root. Back home in Aditi Phadnis' analysis, clouds loom over the TDP-BJP alliance. The TDP's vocal disapproval of the Election Commission's Special Intensive Revision hints at deeper ideological rifts, especially as the party attempts to woo its minority voter base. Yet, both sides tread carefully, bound together by mutual need. The monsoon session of Parliament could reveal whether these are just summer winds or signs of a larger storm brewing. In London, however, the skies were all flashbulbs and white linen. Sandeep Goyal writes about the Wimbledon 2025, where India's cricket royalty rubbed shoulders with global icons in a dazzling collision of sport, fashion, and fandom. But was it an organic presence or a curated spectacle? Either way, India's stars now shine far beyond the boundary ropes, both on and off the court. Shekhar Gupta decodes the gusts of Trumplomacy. Donald Trump's loud, erratic, ego-driven diplomacy unsettles many, India included. Yet, his direct outreach to Pakistan's military confirms what India has long argued, that Rawalpindi, not Islamabad, holds power. Trump's chaos, he argues, is more style than substance and with 2026 in sight, the real forecast is to wait out the storm. And Kumar Abishek writes about a more silent storm: the death of languages. Over 250 Indian tongues lost, hundreds more on the brink. As families choose Hindi or English for upward mobility, entire ways of seeing the world are disappearing. But here too, the downpour brings reflection and maybe a chance to preserve what's left before it vanishes completely. Stay tuned!
Bloomberg
14-07-2025
- Business
- Bloomberg
Opinion: Inside Meta's Billion-Dollar AI War
Mark Zuckerberg is dropping a lot of cash to be the first to create superhuman AI. So far, his tactics to attract talent are working, says Bloomberg Opinion columnist Parmy Olson. (Source: Bloomberg)
Mint
11-06-2025
- Health
- Mint
Brave Chinese voices have begun to question the hype around AI
Against the odds, some in China are questioning the top-down push to get aboard the artificial intelligence (AI) hype bandwagon. In a tightly controlled media environment where these experts can easily be drowned out, it's important to listen to them. Across the US and Europe, loud voices inside and outside the tech industry are urging caution about AI's rapid acceleration, pointing to labour market threats or more catastrophic risks. But in China, this chorus has been largely muted. Until now. Also Read: Parmy Olson: The DeepSeek AI revolution has a security problem China has the highest global share of people who say AI tools have more benefits than drawbacks, and they've shown an eagerness to embrace it. It's hard to overstate the exuberance in the tech sector since the emergence of DeepSeek's market-moving reasoning model earlier this year. Innovations and updates have been unfurling at breakneck speed and the technology is being widely adopted across the country. But not everyone's on board. Publicly, state-backed media has lauded the widespread adoption of DeepSeek across hundreds of hospitals in China. But a group of medical researchers tied to Tsinghua University published a paper in the medical journal JAMA in late April gently questioning if this was happening 'too fast, too soon." It argued that healthcare institutions are facing pressure from 'social media discourse" to implement DeepSeek in order to not appear 'technologically backward." Doctors are increasingly reporting patients who 'present DeepSeek-generated treatment recommendations and insist on adherence to these AI-formulated care plans." The team argued that as much as AI has shown potential to help in the medical field, this rushed rollout carries risks. They are right to be cautious. Also Read: The agentic AI revolution isn't the future, it's already here It's not just the doctors who are raising doubts. A separate paper from AI scientists at the same university found last month that some of the breakthroughs behind reasoning models—including DeepSeek's R1, as well as similar offerings from Western tech giants—may not be as revolutionary as some have claimed. They found that the novel training method used for this new crop 'is not as powerful as previously believed." The method used to power them 'doesn't enable the model to solve problems that the base model can't solve," one of the scientists added. This means the innovations underpinning what has been widely dubbed as the next step—toward achieving so-called Artificial General Intelligence—may not be as much of a leap as some had hoped. This research from Tsinghua holds extra weight: The institution is one of the pillars of the domestic AI scene, long churning out both keystone research and ambitious startup founders. Another easily overlooked word of warning came from a speech by Zhu Songchun, dean of the Beijing Institute for General Artificial Intelligence, linked to Peking University. Zhu said that for the nation to remain competitive, it needs more substantive research and less laudatory headlines, according to an in-depth English-language analysis of his remarks published by the independent China Media Project. These cautious voices are a rare break from the broader narrative. But in a landscape where the deployment of AI has long been government priority, it makes them especially noteworthy. The more President Xi Jinping signals that embracing AI technology is important, the less likely people are to publicly question it. This can lead to less overt forms of backlash, like social media hashtags on Weibo poking fun at chatbots' errors. Or it can result in data centres quietly sitting unused across the country as local governments race to please Beijing—as well as a mountain of PR stunts. Also Read: AI as infrastructure: India must develop the right tech Perhaps the biggest headwind facing the sector, despite the massive amounts of spending, is that AI still hasn't altered the earnings outlooks at most of the Chinese tech firms. The money can't lie. This doesn't mean that AI in China is just propaganda. The conflict extends far beyond its tech sector—US firms are also guilty of getting carried away promoting the technology. But multiple things can be true at once. It's undeniable that DeepSeek has fuelled new excitement, research and major developments across the AI ecosystem. But it's also been used as a distraction from the domestic macro-economic pains that predated the ongoing trade war. Without guard-rails, the risk of rushing out the technology is greater than just investors losing money—people's health is at stake. From Hangzhou to Silicon Valley, the more we ignore the voices questioning the AI hype bandwagon, the more we blind ourselves to consequences of a potential derailment. ©Bloomberg The author is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering Asia tech.
Bloomberg
04-06-2025
- Business
- Bloomberg
Is Your Chatbot Trying to Sell You Something?
Opinion AI is pivoting to ads, just like social media did. Remember how that went? Bloomberg Opinion columnist Parmy Olson explains the dangers. (Source: Bloomberg)
