AI will make money sooner than you think, says Cohere CEO Aidan Gomez

We’ve got another interview from the Code Conference today. My friend and co-host, CNBC’s Julia Boorstin, and I had a chance to talk with Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe. Rivian is a newer company — RJ started it in 2009, and it took more than 10 years to start shipping cars to consumers. But its first vehicle, the R1T pickup, made a big splash when it arrived in 2021, and the company has more back orders for both the R1T and its second vehicle, the R1S SUV, than it can handle. For now. We asked RJ about that production ramp and whether Rivian can meet demand, and whether it’s just early adopters buying EVs or if they’ve finally gone mainstream. The conversation also touched on Rivian’s deal with Amazon and the auto industry’s push toward subscription features. And, of course, I had to ask Scaringe about the Cybertruck. How could I resist?! Links:  BMW starts selling heated seat subscriptions for $18 a month BMW drops plan to charge a monthly fee for heated seats U.A.W. expands strikes at automakers: Here’s what to know. Rivian boosts EV production target as supply problems ease Ford F-150 Lightning gets $10K price cut as ramping supply meets demand First look at Cybertruck’s comically large windshield wiper in action Amazon says it has ‘over a thousand’ Rivian electric vans making deliveries in the US Rivian to adopt Tesla's charging standard in EVs and chargers Rivian electric pickup caught fire while charging at Electrify America station Transcript: https://www.theverge.com/e/23672708 Credits: Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Today’s episode was produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt and was edited by Callie Wright. The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Our Editorial Director is Brooke Minters and our Executive Producer is Eleanor Donovan. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

10 Loka 202340min

Last week, when I was co-hosting the Code Conference, I got to talk with Getty Images CEO Craig Peters. The generative AI boom is a direct threat to Getty in many ways. For example, the company is suing Stability AI for training the Stable Diffusion model on Getty content — sometimes clearly including AI-generated copies of the Getty watermark — without permission. Getty's answer? Its own proprietary, in-house AI tool, trained — with permission — on its own content, using a model where the original creators can get paid. Getty's put some pretty strict guardrails around it for now, but, as even Craig told us, there's still a lot of work to do. Links:  https://www.theverge.com/2022/9/21/23364696/getty-images-ai-ban-generated-artwork-illustration-copyright https://www.theverge.com/2023/2/6/23587393/ai-art-copyright-lawsuit-getty-images-stable-diffusion https://www.theverge.com/2023/9/25/23884679/getty-ai-generative-image-platform-launch https://www.theverge.com/23900198/microsoft-kevin-scott-ai-art-bing-google-nvidia-decoder-interview https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2020/06/section-230-the-internet-law-politicians-love-to-hate-explained/ https://www.npr.org/2023/05/18/1176881182/supreme-court-sides-against-andy-warhol-foundation-in-copyright-infringement-cas https://www.theverge.com/2023/7/26/23808184/big-ai-really-wants-to-convince-us-that-theyre-cautious https://journal.everypixel.com/ai-image-statistics https://www.npr.org/2023/05/22/1177590231/fake-viral-images-of-an-explosion-at-the-pentagon-were-probably-created-by-ai Transcript: https://www.theverge.com/e/23667741 Credits: Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Today’s episode was produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt and was edited by Amanda Rose Smith. The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Our Editorial Director is Brooke Minters and our Executive Producer is Eleanor Donovan.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

5 Loka 202334min

I co-hosted the Code Conference last week, and today’s episode is one of my favorite conversations from the show: Microsoft CTO and EVP of AI Kevin Scott. If you caught Kevin on Decoder a few months ago, you know that he and I love talking about technology together. I really appreciate that he thinks about the relationship between technology and culture as much as we do at The Verge, and it was great to add the energy from the live Code audience to that dynamic. Kevin and I talked about how things are going with Bing and Microsoft’s AI efforts, as well the company’s relationship with Nvidia and whether it's planning to develop its own AI chips. I also asked Kevin some pretty philosophical questions about AI: Why would you write a song or a book when AI is out there making custom content for other people? Well, it’s because Kevin thinks the AI is still “terrible” at it for now, as Kevin found out firsthand. But he also thinks that creating is just what people do, and AI will help more people become more creative. Links:  Microsoft CTO Kevin Scott thinks Sydney might make a comeback Hands-on with the new Bing: Microsoft’s step beyond ChatGPT Microsoft Bing hits 100 million active users in bid to grab share from Google How Microsoft is trying to lessen Its addiction to OpenAI as AI costs soar AMD CEO Lisa Su on the AI revolution and competing with Nvidia Microsoft's tiny Phi-1 language model shows how important data quality is for AI training Microsoft says listing the Ottawa Food Bank as a tourist destination wasn’t the result of ‘unsupervised AI’ Transcript: https://www.theverge.com/e/23664239 Credits: Decoder is a production of The Verge and is part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Today’s episode was produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt. It was edited by Callie Wright.  The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Our Editorial Director is Brooke Minters and our Executive Producer is Eleanor Donovan. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

3 Loka 202344min

We spent a lot of time here on Decoder talking about electric vehicles and the future of cars and we’re usually talking about passenger vehicles or maybe cargo vans. But there’s another huge industry that can also reap the benefits of electrified transportation: agriculture.  I co-hosted the Code Conference this week where I had the opportunity to hangout onstage with Monarch Tractor CEO Praveen Penmetsa. Honestly, this was one of my favorite conversations of the entire event.  We are utterly reliant on farming as a species, and farming is utterly reliant on tractors. If we don’t have tractors, we don’t have food. But electrifying farms is hard, and Praveen explained how he and Monarch are trying to tackle that challenge. The ambition is to compete in an open way with closed platforms like John Deere, and Praveen said his goal for the Monarch platform is to be the Android of agriculture.  Links:  Electric robot tractors powered by Nvidia AI chips are here John Deere turned tractors into computers — what’s next? John Deere commits to letting farmers repair their own tractors (kind of) Monarch Tractors to be manufactured by Foxconn Foxconn begins rolling first Monarch electric tractors off assembly lines in Lordstown A sneak peek into Monarch Tractor's vision-based AI technology CNH Industrial, Monarch Tractor agree electrification technologies deal Transcript: https://www.theverge.com/e/23659941 Credits: Decoder is a production of The Verge and is part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Today’s episode was produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt. It was edited by Callie Wright.  The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Our Editorial Director is Brooke Minters and our Executive Producer is Eleanor Donovan. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

30 Syys 202328min

Today, we’re bringing you something a little different. The Code Conference was this week, and we had a great time talking live onstage with all of our guests. We’ll be sharing a lot of these conversations here in the coming days, and the first one we’re sharing is my chat with Dr. Lisa Su, the CEO of AMD.  Lisa and I spoke for half an hour, and we covered an incredible number of topics, especially about AI and the chip supply chain. The balance of supply and demand is overall in a pretty good place right now, Lisa told us, with the notable exception of these high-end GPUs powering all of the large AI models that everyone’s running. The hottest GPU in the game is Nvidia’s H100 chip. But AMD is working to compete with a new chip Lisa told us about called the MI300 that should be as fast as the H100. You’ll also hear Lisa talk about what companies are doing to increase manufacturing capacity.  Finally, Lisa answered questions from the amazing Code audience and talked a lot about how much AMD is using AI inside the company right now. It’s more than you think, although Lisa did say AI is not going to be designing chips all by itself anytime soon.  Okay, Dr. Lisa Su, CEO of AMD. Here we go.  Transcript: https://www.theverge.com/e/23658688 Links:  AI startup Lamini bets future on AMD's Instinct GPUs Biden signs $280 billion CHIPS and Science Act Pat Gelsinger came back to turn Intel around — here’s how it’s going Huawei’s chip breakthrough poses new threat to Apple in China — and questions for Washington AMD expands AI product lineup with GPU-only Instinct MI300X Microsoft is reportedly helping AMD expand into AI chips US curbs AI chip exports from Nvidia and AMD to some Middle East countries Apple on the iPhone 15 Pro: 'It's Going to be the Best Game Console' Credits: Decoder is a production of The Verge, and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Today’s episode was produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt and was edited by Callie Wright. The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Our Editorial Director is Brooke Minters and our Executive Producer is Eleanor Donovan.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

29 Syys 202335min

Today, we have a special episode for you. The Code Conference wrapped up this week, and the finale included a rare interview from my Code co-host and CNBC correspondent Julia Boorstin with X CEO Linda Yaccarino. To say the sit-down with Elon Musk’s No. 2 was confrontational would be an understatement.  Yaccarino appeared both unprepared to answer tough questions and very combative, especially when asked about comments from former trust and safety head Yoel Roth, who’s become an outspoken critic of the direction of the company since Elon took over. Roth spoke onstage at Code with Kara Swisher just an hour before, where he warned Yaccarino of the risks of the job and spoke about the extreme harassment he’s faced since leaving the company.  Yaccarino also gave us some updated stats on X user metrics and claimed the company would turn a profit in 2024. And of course, there were some very terse exchanges concerning whether Elon really plans to start charging a subscription fee to use the platform, if he seriously plans to sue the Anti-Defamation League, and the company’s recent cuts to its election integrity team. It’s a jaw-dropping interview, and you really have to listen to the whole thing. Credits: Decoder is a production of The Verge and is part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Today’s episode was produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt. It was edited by Callie Wright.  The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Our Editorial Director is Brooke Minters and our Executive Producer is Eleanor Donovan. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

29 Syys 202342min

What motivates Mark Zuckerberg these days? It's a question Decoder guest host Alex Heath posed at the end of his interview last week, after he and Zuckerberg had spent an hour talking about Threads, Zuckerberg's vision for how generative AI will reshape Meta's apps, the Quest 3, and other news from the company's Connect conference, which kicked off today.  After spending the past five years as a wartime CEO, Zuckerberg is getting back to basics, and he clearly feels good about it. "I think we've done a lot of good things," he said. "But for the next wave of my life and for the company — but also outside of the company with what I'm doing at CZI [Chan Zuckerberg Initiative] and some of my personal projects — I define my life at this point more in terms of getting to work on awesome things with great people who I like working with." For Zuckerberg, "awesome things" means figuring out how to combine his company's AR, VR, and AI ambitions into new products.    This rare interview with the Meta CEO also includes details on his ongoing feud with Elon Musk and the quest to beat X/Twitter using Threads, his perspective on open source, and his vision for decentralized social media. Okay, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Here we go. Links: Mark Zuckerberg is ready to fight Elon Musk in a cage match The three reasons Twitter didn’t sell to Facebook Threads app usage plummets despite initial promise as refuge from Twitter Threads isn’t for news and politics, says Instagram’s boss You can now verify your Threads profile on Mastodon In show of force, Silicon Valley titans pledge ‘getting this right’ With AI Meta is putting AI chatbots everywhere A conversation with Bing’s chatbot left me deeply unsettled Custom AI chatbots are quietly becoming the next big thing in fandom Meta’s Smart Glasses can take calls, play music, and livestream from your face Meta’s $499.99 Quest 3 headset is all about mixed reality and video games The Meta Quest 3 is sharper, more powerful, and still trying to make mixed reality happen Here’s what Mark Zuckerberg thinks about Apple’s Vision Pro Credits: Decoder is a production of The Verge, and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Today’s episode was produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt and was edited by Callie Wright. The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Our Editorial Director is Brooke Minters and our Executive Producer is Eleanor Donovan.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

27 Syys 20231h 11min

TechCrunch is one of the most important trade publications in the world of tech and startups, and its annual Disrupt conference is where dozens of major companies have launched… and some have failed. Matt has been the editor-in-chief of TechCrunch for essentially a decade now, and he and I have been both friends and competitors the entire time. We’ve competed for scoops, traded criticisms, and asked each other for advice in running our publications and managing our teams. So when Matt announced last month that he’s stepping down from his role at TechCrunch it felt important to have him come on for what you might call an exit interview — a look back at the past decade running a media outlet at the center of the tech ecosystem, with all of the chaos that’s entailed. Links:  Why We Sold TechCrunch To AOL, And Where We Go From Here | TechCrunch (2010) TechCrunch founder leaves AOL in a cloud of acrimony | CNN Money (2011) SB Nation Sacks AOL in Raid of Former Engadget Team for Competing New Tech Site, As AOL Zeroes in on New EiC | All Things D (2011) Why Every Company Needs A 'No Bozos' Policy | Forbes (2012) Artificial Intelligence Nonprofit OpenAI Launches With Backing From Elon Musk And Sam Altman | TechCrunch Just buy this Brother laser printer everyone has, it’s fine | The Verge Credits: Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Today’s episode was produced by Nick Statt and Kate Cox. It was edited by Callie Wright. The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Our Editorial Director is Brooke Minters and our Executive Producer is Eleanor Donovan.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

19 Syys 202351min