The Information's TITV
00:13:44 · Akash Pasricha, Jyoti Mann
[00:13:44] S0: Right. China's robotics sector obviously has been a big story that we've reported on extensively as well. Tell me, do we have a second prototype, I guess, that Meta is working on? What do we know about this second prototype? Is there at all? A timeline here on when this could at all be released, even though you just mentioned that right now it's solely just for R and D purposes? [00:14:09] S2: That's right. So they haven't yet set a kind of target deadline for when they hope to eventually release it. They're still very much in the experimentation phase and building these prototypes and trying to improve its capabilities so that when they actually have something ready to launch in market, it will be very helpful to general consumers. But they started working on what is called Max two in September, so it's gonna have a totally redesigned torso and hands which can have better manipulation skills and I'm told a projector which could potentially display visual content and also have sensors which will help the robot to navigate going up and down stairs. And I believe it will take them around three months for this prototype as well, so by December time I think we might have an idea of how that is going.
00:14:09 · Jyoti Mann, Akash Pasricha
[00:14:09] S2: That's right. So they haven't yet set a kind of target deadline for when they hope to eventually release it. They're still very much in the experimentation phase and building these prototypes and trying to improve its capabilities so that when they actually have something ready to launch in market, it will be very helpful to general consumers. But they started working on what is called Max two in September, so it's gonna have a totally redesigned torso and hands which can have better manipulation skills and I'm told a projector which could potentially display visual content and also have sensors which will help the robot to navigate going up and down stairs. And I believe it will take them around three months for this prototype as well, so by December time I think we might have an idea of how that is going. [00:15:01] S0: And I'm thinking about the competition here. Optimus, obviously, from Tesla is sort of the loudest humanoid player in all this. We were just talking to Aaron Tilley about Apple's robotics ambitions. How far do you think Meta wants to go with this? Could we see an acquisition coming down the line here to really ramp up their efforts to move into this space? Is this still something that is very R and D focused, something that's happening in the background? What's the level of priority here, you think?
00:15:01 · Akash Pasricha, Jyoti Mann
[00:15:01] S0: And I'm thinking about the competition here. Optimus, obviously, from Tesla is sort of the loudest humanoid player in all this. We were just talking to Aaron Tilley about Apple's robotics ambitions. How far do you think Meta wants to go with this? Could we see an acquisition coming down the line here to really ramp up their efforts to move into this space? Is this still something that is very R and D focused, something that's happening in the background? What's the level of priority here, you think? [00:15:35] S2: Yeah, I mean, wouldn't rule out an acquisition, but I think with Meta Strategy it's more than just simply buying a robotics company. I mean, they already acquired Assured Robotics Intelligence earlier this year which builds models to train robots. So it's possible that they are just wanting to build the operating system and sell that and then potentially partner with another company in The US to build the hardware. But you have to remember that Meta has enormous resources. Not only do they have the AI talent, they've got experience building consumer platforms, so really they just need the hardware expertise and the real world robotics data to make these robots work. So even if Meta did develop that intelligence in house, it's still gonna have to sort of source a lot of these components from somewhere, and that's where the supply chain becomes really important and the FCC rules could kind of restrict their ability to do that quickly. So China does seem to have a significant advantage, but I could see Meta making acquisitions for the hardware side.
00:15:35 · Jyoti Mann, Akash Pasricha, Stephanie Palazzolo
[00:15:35] S2: Yeah, I mean, wouldn't rule out an acquisition, but I think with Meta Strategy it's more than just simply buying a robotics company. I mean, they already acquired Assured Robotics Intelligence earlier this year which builds models to train robots. So it's possible that they are just wanting to build the operating system and sell that and then potentially partner with another company in The US to build the hardware. But you have to remember that Meta has enormous resources. Not only do they have the AI talent, they've got experience building consumer platforms, so really they just need the hardware expertise and the real world robotics data to make these robots work. So even if Meta did develop that intelligence in house, it's still gonna have to sort of source a lot of these components from somewhere, and that's where the supply chain becomes really important and the FCC rules could kind of restrict their ability to do that quickly. So China does seem to have a significant advantage, but I could see Meta making acquisitions for the hardware side. [00:16:37] S0: Great. Okay. Well, Jyoti, want to thank you for coming on. That is Jyoti Mann, our Meta reporter, here at The Information. As AI Labs look to convince their customers to renew contracts and even upsell them, my colleague Stephanie Palazzolo has reporting that Anthropic and OpenAI have seen some resistance from businesses. I want to bring her on to share more about what she is hearing. Stephanie, welcome back to the show. It's great to have you here. [00:17:04] S3: Thanks. Great to be back.
00:17:04 · Stephanie Palazzolo, Akash Pasricha
[00:17:04] S3: Thanks. Great to be back. [00:17:05] S0: Okay. So tell me, Steph, why are customers hesitant to renew their OpenAI and Anthropic contracts?
00:17:13 · Stephanie Palazzolo
[00:17:13] S3: So there are two dynamics going on here, which, me and my colleagues have kind of heard about just from chatting with a lot of these really large, customers. But essentially the first one is that, customers, you know, we, we kind of live in this age right now where it feels like every other week there are new models coming out that are leapfrogging each other when it comes to really pushing the front, the frontier of performance. And so customers want to have that flexibility to be able to switch model providers whenever they want, just depending on whatever the best model is that's out there today. Especially because now switching models has actually become easier over time. We recently wrote a story where Replit was basically able to switch its entire product from Anthropic to OpenAI models with just a couple lines of code, you know, that took like a couple hours to push through its entire product. So that's the first reason. The second reason is actually something that the labs are doing themselves, which might be hurting, usage of their most advanced models, which is that, companies like Anthropic and OpenAI are releasing cheaper, faster, like quote unquote good enough models. So for OpenAI, these are models like Terra and Luna, and then Anthropic has its, Haiku model. And so especially as the models are getting better and better, these cheaper models are becoming good enough that they can, you know, do most things that customers want them to do. So it becomes very easy for customers to switch, you know, use cases from the most expensive advanced models to cheaper ones that the model developers themselves are offering as, you know, more cost... More... Or more cost effective alternatives.