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š THE Robotaxi Scandal
Wow
Gm. Happy Monday everyone! Are robotaxis are a help or a harm to society? Is Gemini going to make everyone forget about GPT-4? Is Deion Sanders the greatest football coach of all time? Yep, we got a good one for you today.
ā Stephen Flanders
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š TECH
Cruise Might Be In Some Hot Water

Cruise, one of the most popular robotaxi companies, is now part of a very sad story.
Well, actually, that depends on who you ask.
The situation in question happened on August 14th when the now victim was hit by a car and left critically injured. Emergency services arrived on the scene and loaded the victim into the ambulance.
This is where the story diverges.
According to the San Francisco Fire Department, two Cruise robotaxis were stopped and blocking two lanes of the four-lane street. This forced the authorities to hastily move a police vehicle, and the delay this caused very well could have played a part in the victimās ultimate death.
Cruise sees things differently. Their story is that the ambulance loaded the victim and immediately dipped out of there. No blocking or delaying to be found.
And according to the tape, it looks like both stories have elements of truth to them, as the video shows one stopped Cruise car, a wide open lane to the right of it, and a firetruck to the left of it. For whatever reason the ambulance chooses to go left, forcing the firetruck to move.
Whatever the case, this sad situation is the latest in an increasingly long line of incidents involving self-driving cabs:
Just a couple of weeks ago Cruise was forced to half its fleet after having one of its cars hit by a fire truck.
Cruise cars have randomly stopped working and clogged traffic.
Theyāve also gotten stuck in wet cement.
The result has been a very loud segment of the population advocating for their removal.
This latest fiasco isnāt going to quiet these calls.
The Big Picture: The gaffes are the stories that make the news, but there is good evidence that robotaxis are already safer than human drivers.

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š AI
OpenAI Aināt Happy

Last month, the blog SemiAnalysis posted an article about how Googleās Gemini AI model will blow GPT-4 out of the water thanks to Googleās vast stash of advanced GPUs.
Frequent readers of the newsletter will surely know that this could easily be the case, but thatās not the story today.
The story today is OpenAIās reaction to the rumors that Gemini puts GPT-4 to shame. Spoiler alert: they arenāt happy. CEO Sam Altman even went so far to insinuate that, well actually just outright say, that SemiAnalysis was on Googleās payroll.
Thatās obviously not that a dig that the SemiAnalysis team was going to take lying down.
Drama aside, I canāt wait to see Gemini for real. Computational power is a limiting factor for AIās ceiling, but is it the limiting factor?
Gemini will go a long way toward answering that question.
The Big Picture: Gemini makes the AI race much more interesting.

šāāļø QUICKIES
What else is going on?
Apple has the spin all ready for the iPhone 15ās USB-C switch.
X is now using public data to train its AI models.
Microsoft is killing WordPad.
Some more details are out on the new California billionaire city.
Stat: $50B to $55B: Armās target valuation for its IPO. Thatās a lot of bread, but also a lot lower than its internal valuation of $64B last month.
Rabbit hole: Shining A Light On The Digital Dark Ages (Long Now)

𤩠MONDAY MOTIVATION
Coach Prime pregame speech to his team was absolutely amazing š®āšØš„
š„: @WellOffForever , @DeionSandersJr
ā Shannonnn sharpes Burner (PARODY Account) (@shannonsharpeee)
11:34 AM ⢠Sep 3, 2023

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