As promised, I've got a special Mailbag issue this week. Thanks to everyone who sent questions. like last yearI chose a few that matched some of the topics I plan to continue covering in 2025.
I'm really worried/concerned/curious about the near future. 10 years from now, I think it's pretty clear that AI will replace many work tasks. What are we all going to do?
Leaders of AI labs say that yes, jobs will be lost, but it does not mean disaster. The optimistic view is that humans are creative and will invent new jobs, as they always do when technology changes things. At the moment, there is also a widespread belief among CEOs that spending heavily on infrastructure for AI will have a deflationary impact and boost GDP growth.
Of course, job displacement will still be painful. Sam Altman And others believe that some form of universal basic income will be necessary to offset the economic impacts of AGI. Altman has his own other startup, Tools for Humanity, Already Scanning Eyeballs and Distributing CryptocurrenciesBut I think it's too early to be seriously worried. as altman myself recently saidAGI is going to be announced soon and we probably won't pay attention to it.
How good is the reasoning on AI models, and is this really something I should care about?
I know people who have tried ChatGPT's o1 Pro mode and seen the difference. But I haven't seen anything shocking from O1 or even noam shazir Google has just put out, although perhaps I'm a little tired of the AI hype of the last two years. My advice would be to play with what you can access/afford and see for yourself.
The expense of running these state-of-the-art “logic” models is currently keeping them away for many people. I expect access to increase significantly in 2025 How Effectively motivating these different types of models remains a struggle, and I'd like to see more interface improvements in apps like ChatGPT to help teach people why they should use a logic model. An even better move would be to remove all these definitions and focus on what devices can do for people.
What kind of outlook do you see for SNAP in 2025 and beyond?
Snap's biggest problem in 2025 is the same problem it had in 2024: Its business isn't growing fast enough. The app is bigger than ever and growing faster, but annual revenue growth last quarter was less than Meta's. It's not a compelling pitch to Wall Street when you're already seen as the underdog. Even with ads being kept in the Chat tab and the new Spotlight redesign slowly rolling out, the jury is out on whether the business can regain the momentum it needs this year .
The low stock price makes it difficult to recruit and retain talent, which has become a problem for Snap over the past few years. I think if TikTok is banned in the US or seriously disrupted by the new ownership structure, the environment could change rapidly.
i still doubt Evan Spiegel's Commitment to hardware with spectrum. As I have written beforeTheir vision and ambition to create AR glasses is commendable. But Snap continues to lag behind in terms of hardware.
What do you expect from Meta's specs in 2025?
There have been some reports recently stating that Meta is planning to ship a pair of smart glasses with a heads-up display this year. I reported first It was due in February 2023Hypernova, as the product is referred to internally in Meta, will have a viewfinder for interacting with things like Meta AI and notifications.
in me Writing the Orion PrototypeI spent a lot of time on the Neural Wristband because it's being shipped with Hypernova as a way to control them (while a commercial successor to Orion is still at least a few years away). I hope this band becomes part of the spectacles that surprise people the most. Using it for the first time feels like magic. As I reported in 2023, Meta is also planning a separate smartwatch as an optional upgrade with more features for neural capability and health tracking, etc. It's going to be a very interesting year for the meta on the hardware front.
Is TikTok really going to be banned?
No one I've spoken to is in a position to know whether China would allow TikTok to completely separate from ByteDance. The algorithm will definitely not be sold, but As I mentioned earlierThis is not as important a factor as it was the last time TikTok faced a ban.
Plus, there's too much money and power at stake for TikTok to disappear. presidential election donald trump wants to make a dealThe most likely outcome is a different version of the Frankensteinian “TikTok Global” joint venture proposal that ByteDance agreed to back in 2020.
I can see Oracle getting involved a second time too Larry Ellison's The ongoing impact at Mar-a-Lago. ByteDance will continue to run TikTok day-to-day while potentially divesting some of its ownership stake. However, the real wild card in all this is Elon MuskWho has become seriously jealous of TikTok since buying X…
Are you more bullish or bearish on Google than you were a year ago?
Honestly, fast. it will be difficult to achieve Sundar Pichai's mandate of 2025 Making Gemini a serious rival to ChatGate on the consumer side, but Google has the money, the technical talent, and the unmatched distribution.
The company's challenge is more cultural. The more you have, the more you have to protect. It's hard to move such a large, massive group quickly and not worry about the risk of backlash. However, it seems that Pichai is well aware of this and the dangers he faces.
Even if Google were to end its search default payments to Apple (which I think would be the most likely outcome of the DOJ antitrust case), doing so would likely hurt Apple's bottom line more than Google's, because heel cue argued myself last week,
Then there's Waymo, which may pay for all of Google's “other bets” failures over the past few years — and then some.
What good book do you recommend that is consistent with what you reported?
The curse of already reading so much for my job is that I rarely want to spend time on a book. The last book I read completely was the biggest fraud By Maria KonnikovaWhich has nothing to do with technique but is extremely valuable if you are getting into poker. I enjoyed how his story of becoming a professional player was woven into explaining the technical intricacies of the game.