Six years ago I published a, shall we say, under the radar book on digital rights, called Control Shift. It was mainly concerned with how issues such as online privacy had already developed, but towards the end I wrote a speculative bit about virtual assistants. If you’ll excuse the self-quotation, I noted that “these proto-A.I.s don’t really work for us” because of their reliance on centralized, cloud-based systems—but future advances in A.I. could allow for on-device, open-source assistants that act as our trustworthy and discreet agents, rather than mere front-ends for Big Tech surveillance. This could help “fix the future,” I wrote hopefully.
Which is why I was extremely intrigued to see Qualcomm and Meta’s announcement yesterday about getting the Facebook firm’s newly open-sourced LLaMa 2 model to play nicely on Qualcomm-powered mobile devices, PCs, VR/AR headsets, and cars. People have already been playing with the first (leaked) LLaMa on Android phones, but this kind of official support should make for much better performance. Sure, Big Tech doesn’t get much bigger than Meta—a company that obviously looms large in any recap of digital rights abuses—but there are seeds of hope to be found here.
Qualcomm and Meta’s stated aim is to ensure that LLaMa 2-based A.I.s, including “intelligent virtual assistants,” can run in optimized form on devices “without relying on the sole use of cloud services.” User privacy is the first listed benefit, along with things like the ability for the A.I. to function without connectivity. Cloud independence should also work out cheaper for developers. The capabilities should be in flagship handsets next year.
Again, this is Meta we’re talking about. However, the Qualcomm arrangement—and more broadly the open-sourcing of LLaMa 2—would fit into a strategic shift that may be taking shape.
Over the years, Facebook/Meta has tended to limit its own options in ways that have caused it real headaches. For example, until the EU agreed to a new data-sharing deal with the U.S. last week, there was a strong possibility that Meta would have had to stop exporting Europeans’ personal data to the U.S. Meta repeatedly warned that this would mean pulling Facebook and Instagram out of the EU, which some interpreted as a threat, but it was really a statement of the fact that those networks simply don’t work when forced into regional silos.
But this month we’ve seen Meta launch Threads with the promise that it will soon become interoperable with rival networks that also use the ActivityPub protocol—a handy option to have for Threads itself, if the new U.S.-EU deal collapses like its predecessors and Meta has to split up its systems. And now the company has also taken major steps to enable more privacy-friendly virtual assistants that don’t need to send every sensitive request off to a data center, let alone one across the world. Privacy watchdogs will be all over such technology, so again, this could prove handy down the line.
In the end, it will all come down to viable business models. Of course Meta and other A.I. providers will want to maintain as clear a view as possible over how people are using their virtual assistants, but market and regulatory pushback may limit that, so it makes sense to build options into the technology. And who knows? Maybe one day I’ll get what I’ve been hoping for—a virtual assistant that really works for me.
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David Meyer
NEWSWORTHY
Merger guidelines. In a move that will have major implications for the tech sector, the U.S. Justice Department and Federal Trade Commission have released 51 pages of draft guidelines for mergers. As Reuters reports, these guidelines would allow U.S. antitrust regulators to freshly scrutinize deals such as Amazon’s contentious 2018 takeover of video-doorbell outfit Ring, because of the ecommerce giant’s conflict of interest being “a platform operator that is also a platform participant.”
OnlyFans CEO change. Ami Gan is stepping down from the top position at adult-services-friendly creator platform OnlyFans. Her replacement is strategy and operations chief Keily Blair, who was once a privacy lawyer, as Variety notes. Blair: “I will continue to put our creators at the heart of every business decision and will provide them with an inclusive, safe, and innovative platform to connect with their fans and monetize their content.” Gan is launching a marketing agency called Hoxton Projects.
Twitter articles. Elon Musk says “long, complex articles with mixed media” will be coming to Twitter. The Verge reports that this is part of a wider attempt to court creators, and also a shot across Substack’s bows.
ON OUR FEED
“This isn't correct. Our systems are looking at the helpfulness of content, rather than how it is produced.”
—Google Search liaison Danny Sullivan responds to reports that Gizmodo proprietor G/O Media is going all-in on A.I.-written content because, in the words of editorial director Merrill Brown, it “will, at least for the moment, be well-received by search engines.”
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
Meta’s new A.I. is an open-source breakthrough with fine print to freeze out competitors, by Kylie Robison
Netflix is reporting earnings at the most fascinating possible time for the future of streaming and Hollywood, by Paolo Confino
A.I. experts come together to downplay ‘nightmare scenario of evil robot overlords’. Over 1,300 claim it’s a ‘force for good, not a threat to humanity’, by Chloe Taylor
Meta top exec Nick Clegg says A.I. is actually ‘quite stupid’ and downplays the ‘hype running ahead of the technology’, by Chloe Taylor
Threads has reportedly lost half of its active users in just a week as Zuckerberg claims ‘10s of millions now come back daily’, by Chris Morris
Reddit boss’s routine includes an ice bath, workout and 6 p.m. family dinner—but he hasn’t always considered work-life balance and used to be in perpetual ‘CEO mode’, by Orianna Rosa Royle
BEFORE YOU GO
NUCs live on. Intel made a lot of geeks sad earlier this month when it announced it would stop making its Next Unit of Computing (NUC) mini PCs. However, as Intel EMEA comms manager Mark Walton (fun fact: my former bandmate) promised at the time, the company’s new strategy was “to enable our ecosystem partners to continue NUC innovation and growth.”
Well, that was quick. A mere week later, Intel and Asus announced a deal that will see the PC-maker manufacture and further develop NUCs. It’s a nonexclusive agreement, but anyway, here’s ASUS chief operating officer Joe Hsieh: “Thank you, Intel, for your confidence in us to take the NUC systems product line forward. I am confident that this collaboration will enhance and accelerate our vision for the mini PC.”
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