White House: Open Source AI is A-O-K

**Jason Howell** (0:00)
This is AI Inside, episode 29, recorded Tuesday, August 6th, 2024 White House says, open source AI is A-OK. This episode of AI Inside is made possible by our wonderful patrons at patreon.com/aiinsideshow. If you like what you hear, head on over and support us directly. And thank you for making independent podcasting possible.
Well, what's going on, everybody? Welcome to another episode of AI Inside, the show where we take a look at the AI that is sprinkled throughout so many things in this world, not even just the big technology companies, but the little guys. We're gonna talk about some of the little guys and how they're being swallowed up by the big guys in today's show, among many other things. I am Jason Howell, of course, joined as always by Jeff Jarvis. How you doing, Jeff?

**Jeff Jarvis** (0:56)
I think AI is more like, pardon me, the beast inside Sigourney Weaver and Alien. Trying to get out.

**Jason Howell** (1:06)
It's just trying to get out and take over the world. Well, at least we know, at least I think so. I think I lost track with the Alien franchise, but at least in the early on ones, spoiler alert, but I think the humans end up coming out on top.

**Jeff Jarvis** (1:21)
I think so, otherwise they wouldn't be sequels, right?

**Jason Howell** (1:24)
There wouldn't be sequels, exactly. But I don't know, maybe that changes later on in the game. That makes AI sound so sinister, like so grotesque.

**Jeff Jarvis** (1:34)
As some do.

**Jason Howell** (1:37)
Many people believe. I was at the dog park today, talking with some people and those conversations are often, you know, go all over the map. And I was definitely talking to a few people who did not like AI. Really? Yeah. So they see it as that grotesque alien, for sure. And they're not alone. Before we get started, huge thank you to the people who support us in doing this show each and every week, patreon.com/aiinsideshow. And you can support us directly, like Roland Eichel. I think I'm pronouncing your last name correct. Or Eichel. Anyways, Roland, you are awesome. So is everyone else who has hopped over to patreon.com/aiinsideshow.
And throwing us some support. We truly could not do this show without you. So we appreciate you being here with us. And, you know, if we're, I mean, you can still do the survey if you like, but I'm not going to promote it anymore. It's AIinside.show slash survey. But I think if there's homework today, if I can give you an assignment, I was realizing, you know, we're now nearly six months into AI Inside. We have some wonderful ratings and reviews. In fact, if I can say so myself on the podcast, Apple Podcasts, I think they're all five-star ratings. I mean, if you go there, it says 5 out of 5.0. So that's amazing.

**Jeff Jarvis** (3:01)
Thank you, folks. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

**Jason Howell** (3:03)
Keep it up. If you are not one of those numbers, please go over there. Take the two minutes that it takes to jump over there. Leave us a review. Those things, these all are really helpful for us as we search out sponsor opportunities and really just try and grow the show in general and raise the awareness of AI Inside. So that's your homework. I hate to put it like that, but my kids are starting back to school, so it's top of mind for me. OK, and then we had some homework leading up to today. It was this week's news, and we've got some really great stuff to talk about, starting with Character.AI. The CEO, Noam Shazeer, was just this last week announced to be returning to Google, where actually he worked at Google up until 2021, when he launched his startup Character.AI.
And when he was at Google, he was really instrumental to the foundation of Lambda at Google, their kind of conversational AI project. And so it's kind of a big deal that he's returning. Most of the staff in this deal is staying at Character.AI. I wonder how they feel about this. Probably not very good. But I don't know. Does this, it seems like that maybe, and I think the Wall Street Journal article that we have in the rundown as well kind of alludes to this, that maybe this is showing how big tech is really capitalizing on the technology that is created by the smaller startup AI companies, but doing it in a careful enough way that it won't raise that kind of, that magnifying glass of regulation of what is it, anti-competitive, anti-trust acquisitions. Instead of acquiring character.ai, I think it's notable that Google is hiring away the CEO, and the rest of the staff mostly stays behind. What do you think about that?