The negative perception of current AI-generated content ('slop') overlooks its evolutionary nature. Today's low-quality output is a necessary step towards future sophistication and can be a profitable business model, as it represents the 'sloppiest' AI will ever be.
Perplexity is pursuing multiple, seemingly unrelated strategic directions at once—competing with browsers, financial terminals, and trying to acquire social media assets. This scattered approach suggests a lack of focus that could undermine its long-term viability.
By rapidly shipping controversial features like AI companions and building infrastructure at unprecedented speed, Elon Musk disrupts the industry's unspoken agreements. This forces competitors to accelerate their timelines and confront uncomfortable product decisions.
For startups competing with Palantir, a real-world demonstration of power is more compelling than abstract benchmarks. Locating a high-profile fugitive provides undeniable marketing for the platform's capabilities and a non-dilutive seed round via the bounty.
Apple's historic commitment to user privacy prevented it from using the vast data pools competitors leveraged for AI. This created a technical disadvantage, forcing Apple to use its marketing prowess ('lipstick') to mask a technologically inferior AI product ('the pig').
This theory suggests Google's refusal to sell TPUs is a strategic move to maintain a high market price for AI inference. By allowing NVIDIA's expensive GPUs to set the benchmark, Google can profit from its own lower-cost TPU-based inference services on GCP.