The memo, which was obtained by SemiAnalysis from a public Discord server, says that neither Google nor OpenAI have what they need to succeed in the AI industry. Instead, the researcher claims “a third faction has been quietly eating our lunch”: open-source AI models that the researcher says are “faster, more customizable, more private, and pound-for-pound more capable.”
Just wanted to add that The Verge article quotes from the source document, but does not include its links, etc. Here's a hyperlinked version, including some specific open source resources, which the author calls 'third faction' content: https://www.semianalysis.com/p/google-we-have-no-moat-and-neither
The open source researchers that took the meta weights and ran with them, and then superseded them, was how I read it. It was the overall innovations that made patching as effective if not more than recompiling from scratch.
I am curious how long this memo lasts as a real leak. Like I haven't tried digging below the surface of information as presented, but most of this is indistinguishable from magic in actual practice. Like even open source, does not mean I have a chance in hell of compiling on my own, and modifying is completely absurd at this point. I wouldn't mind learning, but I know I'm out of my depth on that one. Could this leak be a false flag or public passivation for political reasons? Making the publicly available options sound advanced and capable takes a lot of pressure off of proprietary efforts right as they are hitting a larger public focus.
Microsoft currently lack the internal know how on AI. It is behind. They are the best understanding the average user/company needs, but they currently depend on openai. Either the buy openai (risking to destroy it because Microsoft is relatively bad at real research and cutting edge engineering) or they need to invest a lot more than Google.
If you read the memo, the 3rd player is meta. Microsoft is not even considered.
Microsoft will for sure make more money than anyone else, because that's their job, making more money than anyone. They are a bad tech company, but a great money printer company