OpenAI and the era of self-congratulation
There’s a pattern among AI labs such as OpenAI of feeding the world just the details they want in something that looks like research but really amounts to a press release: no independent verification, no examination of the larger questions, such as, Is all this of any value?
Jensen Huang and The Total System
Years ago, Nvidia’s co-founder and CEO outlined what I would call “The Total System,” where computers talk only to computers, with no humans in the loop. It’s one of the reasons I believe he’s looking beyond OpenAI and Anthropic and other AI leaders to the enduring value of chips.
For ASML, AI increases everything
An interesting couple of notes appeared over the transom this week regarding Netherlands chip equipment titan ASML Holding, one of the TL20 stocks worth considering.
There was no immediate news event for these notes, just what appeared to be a spontaneous rush to endorse a good company’s stock.
The theme of the notes, you could say, was, Chip making is only getting harder, and that’s always good news for ASML.
In case you’re unfamiliar, ASML makes laser light sources for what’s known as photolithography, where a light is shown through a mask or screen, imprinting a pattern of circuits on the photosensitive layers of a semiconductor wafer such as silicon. That’s how circuits are carved into the wafer to become chips.