Down Round

Bending Spoons, a company you may not have heard of, went public last week and had a decent pop. Some people are attributing this as a short bet on software. The boys sit down to discuss the market dynamics at play and dissect the company's playbook. PLUS! Cow chat.   If you like the pod, chuck us a review on your podcast player of choice, or go to downround.net to sign up for PREMIUM to get...

We're back to discuss this whole Anthropic Mythos thing again, this time with a focus on one question: Should the U.S. government exercise control over the AI companies, deciding what is and isn't suitable for release? Also, Raph sings a song. If you like the pod, chuck us a review on your podcast player of choice, or go to downround.net to sign up for PREMIUM to get ad-free listening PLUS an extr...

Glasses/goggle chat is so back, folks. Today our hosts convene to discuss Snap, the company best known for creating Snapchat. You know, the app for teenagers and perverts alike. Last week they announced their new 'SPECS', a chunky pair of AR glasses. They make some big promises, but a high price tag and a few obvious hurdles brought them wide skepticism and ridicule online. Paradigm shift coming?...

Anthropic has been talking up their world-threateningly powerful new Mythos model, suggesting it needs to be held back from the public because we cretins can't be trusted with it. So they gave us a nerfed version called 'Fable', but the US government got tipped off, said "Not today, champ" and forced Anthropic to take it back down. James and Raph come together this week to discuss why this all hap...

Apple's annual World Wide Developer Conference happened on Monday. It was an odd one, with a large emphasis on safety and trust, with a little bit of mea culpa sprinkled in after their promised AI features from a few years ago have still failed to ship. Did they announce any cool new features coming to your iPhone in the coming months? Well, that depends if you think protecting children from gore...

Anthropic have confidentially filed for an IPO, slipstreaming in behind SpaceX in the race to be the first AI shop to go public. Whether or not you are claude-pilled, the move could shed some light on the guts of the company and give us a peek at how these AI companies are running things. Also, a humanoid robot thesis is born. If you like the pod, chuck us a review on your podcast player of choice...

Elon Musk's SpaceX is hurtling towards and IPO and have dropped their S1 document. James and Raph come together to elucidate what the hell is going on in there, and how the company attempts to justify a $1.7 Trillion valuation. If you like the pod, chuck us a review on your podcast player of choice, or go to downround.net to sign up for PREMIUM to get ad-free listening PLUS an extra episode every...

Across timezones and many oceans, our intrepid boys commune via video chat to dig into the top story of the last week or so - Musk vs OpenAI. You may recall that Musk was a part of OpenAI in it's infancy as an AI safety org. Well, now it's gone from a not-for-profit organisation to a public benefit corporation, and Musk reckons he's owed his slice of the pie. Idk something along those lines, I don...

You've heard of Twitch, formerly Justin.tv, the website where you watch sweaty guys play Fortnite. But are you aware that there is a dark and twisted bizarro Twitch called 'Kick'? It's where some of our planet's greatest degenerates have decided to call home, with extremely lax terms of service allowing them to do and show much more than they could on the comparatively draconian purple app. Your c...

Meta bought this company called Manus AI which is like some sort of computer thing? It's from China but they moved to Singapore? Anyway the deal was basically done but then the Chinese government was like "actually, nah". Kinda nuts. Jimmy H and Rapho had a chat about that AND the new Deep Seek drop being a bit of a nothing-burger. If you like the pod, chuck us a review on your podcast player of c...

ALERT, ALERT: Timmy Cook is officially stepping down from his CEO position, but it's more like a step to one side as he shifts into chairman mode. His replacement has been announced as John Ternus, Apple's current senior vice president of hardware engineering. So, what legacy is big Cookie leaving behind, and what will change with Ternus at the helm? ALSO, a quick run down on that Allbirds AI thin...

Remember when Zuck chucked a hissy fit and started headhunting a bunch of AI weapons and offered them 9 figure salaries to work at Meta AI? Well, this crack team of computer geeks have gone and announced their first AI model. James and Raph pick through the details and try to discern just where Meta might fit in this whole AI debacle. Plus, they made an AI clone of Mark Zuckerberg for their staff...

So, OpenAI bought a podcast? For possibly hundreds of millions? Most importantly, it wasn't us? Our spurned hosts come together to question the decision with the jealous contempt of an ex-lover. Moving through the stages of grief, we also interrogate Sam Altman's character, and whether he even deserved us in the first place, as some have recently called him duplicitous and sociopathic. Lose our nu...

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei has graced the land of plenty this week, opening an office in Sydney before swinging by Canberra to put the fear of god into our elected officials on big, spooky, scary AI bots coming to take your job and wife. The boys use this as a springboard to examine Australia's relationship with AI and data centres, whether these execs are trying to 'pull the ladder up behind them...

Another week, another episode about OpenAI. The eponymous chatbot company has announced that it's video generation/social media app Sora is shutting up shop as they seem to be chasing Anthropic's enterprise focused success. This is important to discuss because it means the boys were sort of right again? They also dipped their toes into the sloppy waters of AI Fruit Love Island, and wrapped back ar...

Week two of baby season and we're still out here, still feeding you content-starved little varmints hot and fresh intelligence. This week, we thought it was a good time for a general temperature check on the AI world. Who's leading, who's flailing, and who the hell is curing their dog's cancer with ChatGPT. Join us for the first part here, then head over to DownRound.net  to get Premium acces...

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For today's free ep, we examine the current spat between Anthropic and Trump's Department of War over use of their AI model Claude. Should a next-token prediction model be allowed to make decisions in the heat of battle? Should the snuffing out of a human life be prompted by a computer? Is Mark Zuckerberg losing his white boy swag? These are all important questions which WILL be answered in this e...

When one thinks of impossible futures, they often think of a luxurious, technological wonderland. An unimaginable utopia where humans live in perfect harmony, their every want and need being fulfilled through meteoric advances in artificial intelligence. A prosperous society of abundance and civility. But what if these same technological strides lead humanity to a different, more sinister outcome....

Some have argued that doing Q&A episodes is just a way of farming out the hard bits of doing a podcast to your audience. Not around these parts, buster. If you like the pod, chuck us a review on your podcast player of choice, or go to downround.net to sign up for PREMIUM to get ad-free listening PLUS an extra episode every week. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Gossip episode alert. The OpenAI/Anthropic rivalry is boiling over. We sip on the most piping hot tea around OpenAI and Anthropic 's ad spots at the Super Bowl and the growing animosity between the two giants. If you like the pod, chuck us a review on your podcast player of choice, or go to downround.net to sign up for PREMIUM to get ad-free listening PLUS an extra episode every week. See omnystud...

Keen-eared listeners may remember when Elon bought his own company X (formerly Twitter) with his OpenAI spite company xAI. Well, he's done it again , folks. This time SpaceX has bought xAI, meaning that SpaceX now owns xAI and X as part of the largest private company on Earth. We discuss. If you like the pod, chuck us a review on your podcast player of choice, or go to downround.net to sign up for...

You asked, we answered. We're doing a much-requested episode on "Australian" fintech Airwallex, which has gotten a lot of untoward attention of late — anti-money laundering audits, accusations by American VCs of being a financial backdoor to China. But there's a bigger story here: the proliferation of payments companies doing a big land grab from traditional financial institutions, and quick...

As somewhat of a follow up to our Claude Code/Coworker episode last week, today we regroup to evaluate what it could mean for YOUR favourite SaaS products. That's right, folks, AI is coming to take away your precious QuickBooks and you're going to watch and clap as it rips and tears it to pieces. We also touched (if briefly) on the Siri x Gemini announcement. If you like the pod, chuck us a 5 star...

New year, new studio, same red hot takes. This episode covers the typhoon of AI-generated filth created by Grok, Elon Musk's AI venture, currently flooding X. We also touch on the general state of X as a platform. Go to downround.net to sign up for PREMIUM to get ad-free listening PLUS an extra episode every week. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.