There are people who actively like it.

I don’t. But they 100% exist.

I remain skeptical. I can understand how one would might see it that way, but I think it’s stretching the word proxy too far.

Devices on Apple’s Find My aren’t broadcasting anything like packets that get forwarded to a destination of their choosing. I would think that would be a necessity to call it “proxying”.

They’re just broadcasting basic information about themselves into the void. The phones report back what they’ve picked up.

That doesn’t fit the definition to me.

I absolutely don’t mind the fact that my phone is doing that. The amount of data is ridiculously minuscule. And it’s sort of a tit for tat thing. Yeah my phone does it, but so does theirs. So just like I may be helping you locate your AirTag, you would be helping me locate mine. Or any other device I own that shows up on Find My.

It’s a very close to a classic public good, with the only restriction being that you own a relevant device.

> aren’t broadcasting anything like packets that get forwarded to a destination of their choosing

Protocol insists the data only goes back to owner device or Apple server.

That’s all simple one way consumption though. I suspect the effect on people is very different when it’s interactive in the way an LLM can be that we’ve never had to recon with before.

That’s where the danger may lie.

You could commission smut of whatever type you want for quite a while. And many people do so. Even customised smut is not new. It's just going to get a bit cheaper and automated.

You couldn't talk to commissioned smut. Of course you could request changes etc. but the feedback loop was nowhere close to what you can get with AI. Interactivity is a very big deal.

There are absolutely people getting paid to roleplay smut in chat sessions and have been doing so at least since original Second Life and likely since the dawn of chat.

There are several large platforms for interactive 1:1 or 1:few smut in various media forms. “LLM enthusiasts” have been using smutai for a couple years now. Smut generation is probably on of the top three reasons for people to build local AI rigs.

Alien 1: "How did the earthlings lose control of their own planet?"

Alien 2: "AI generated porn"

Are they? Or are they just not willing to put in the resources to fight to get a bigger share?

It’s been more than long enough that I suspect no one could launch a third phone. If it doesn’t have iOS or Android it probably just won’t fly.

So I’m not sure how much they have to worry about.

I can think of one company that could launch a phone with some success, if they wanted to. Nintendo.

Nintendo Switchphone2 - it is a Switch that can make phone calls.

Microsoft could do it if they wanted to, and didn't bungle it like the last three times. (lol)

The key in my mind is to NOT compete for the high-end, but as a feature phone.

Bring back sidetalkin'!

Well it’s certainly an untapped market.

If it even has 1 person in it.

There is a possible winning strategy in trying to cover bases Apple isn’t interested in. Apple has shown that they’ll make phones that seem to be successful to some degree (the mini) but just aren’t successful enough by whatever internal metric Apple is using. And there are some things they just don’t have right now like foldable phones.

(I’m aware of the rumors)

That doesn’t mean you can’t go overboard. I don’t know Samsung’s current lineup, but I think we’ve all seen PC manufacturers who make 75 different models that are all just ever so slightly different for seemingly no reason.

They make them for channels, not consumers, and, it's partly 'an east Asian' supply chain business culture thing. They're not thinking about how the brand/product appears as simple form in consumers minds, but about deliveries, parts, channel customers, optimizations, national differentiations.

It takes an incredible amount of organizational discipline to do what Apple does and without that ingrained into culture it has zero chance of working.

And yes - they are trying to fill a lot of holes - all sorts of holes, in all sorts of different ways.

It may be true that this is actually an optimal 2cnd place strategy. Samsung may possibly be dong the right thing and consumer confusion is the price we pay for not paying a few extra $ for an iPhone.

That’s a good point. Can Tesla fail?

Seems like he’s constantly using one company to fund others, shuffling the cups and balls around claiming everything is still fine.

I could see him doing serious damage or even trashing an otherwise healthy company doing this to prop up total failures.

> Can Tesla fail?

If SpaceX buys it, it will fail upward :)

He did that with SolarCity when Tesla bought it then repeated with X when XAi bought it.

Are you saying SpaceX doesn't make money? I have no idea about Neuralink but the first sounds pretty odd.

Where did I say that?

I was using the classic idea of the flying car as an example of a thing that has been out of reach as an as a product for normal people and may not actually be successful if it were to really be sold.

Replace flying car with whatever example you want.

To put it in a different way, you could be so busy figuring out how to do it that you don’t figure out that a business case doesn’t actually exist.

I wasn’t trying to comment on any of Musk‘s other companies specifically. Only that we don’t know if making robots will actually make money.

> > Are you saying SpaceX doesn't make money?

> Where did I say that?

> > > Just because you can figure out how to do something doesn’t mean you’re going to make money at it.

Oh come on. Lots of successful companies are based on something they figured out how to do that others hadn’t.

I really was not trying to slam his other companies.

I think you’re reading too much into this. Making humanoid robots is not a guaranteed path to riches. That’s all I’m trying to say.

Ford didn’t say it was so they could make a robot butler instead.

The reason was sillier: China forced Ford to sell Mazda to enter the Chinese market, because Mazda entered the Chinese market before Ford and China considered them the same entity subject to the same outside manufacturer limits).

Mazda handled the small vehicle chassis design for Ford. So without Mazda, Ford no longer had the knowledge for continued development of their sedans and crossovers based on sedan platforms.

Wow! That IS silly! I thought Ford had been in China for a while though.

Ford was with Mazda in China with a joint venture with a Chinese company (as required): Changan, and they were building those shared Ford/Mazda platform vehicles there.

Ford wanted to also build trucks for the Chinese market, with a different joint venture. However, the rules limited companies to two joint ventures, which was a problem because Mazda also had a joint venture with FAW. Which meant it counted as part of Ford's 2 joint ventures.

So Ford sold Mazda. Changan Ford/Mazda got split in their respective halves. FAW was no longer associated with Ford and left with Mazda. Ford could then pick up a new joint venture for trucks, which they did and I don't believe they're doing well.

Ford just really wanted to double down on trucks, in more than one market.

Oh is that why they gave up small cars? I didn’t realize that.

No, but they are retooling their MachE factory to make batteries, which felt just as much of a wtf as this BS

But they’re making a robot! It will totally save the company!

On top of all the problems you have identified, as well as more, they’re clearly now just aiming for fantasy land.

> if they’re right about Optimus, that capacity will generate far greater revenue.

How many Cyber Trucks were they supposed to sell?

Yeah. And that was a car. A thing that is at least a category people buy.