Issue 2332 - Thursday 15 May 2025

The News

Chip bans are out so it’s time to let AI rip

It’s time we dip our toes back into the surprisingly political world of chips. The US government is making scary noises about “criminal penalties” for anyone who uses Huawei’s new AI chips because they say it uses US tech (FT). At the same time, the Trump administration is calling off restrictions that would have stopped Nvidia from selling its chips to non-allied countries (The Verge). And the chipmaker is taking advantage of this by selling a gazillion chips to Saudi Arabia, announced as part of Trump’s tour of the Middle East (Business Insider). This is a big reversal from a plan I wrote about early in my Sizzle tenure to try and slow down China’s AI development by stopping the country from getting the best AI gear. Instead, Trump is pulling out all the stops to protect Nvidia and letting AI rip. Here’s the thing: smart people say that the chip ban was a flawed plan that created some short term pain while incentivising China to create its own independent chip-making industry — a big geopolitical strategic advantage for them (Stratechery).

Telstra’s Starlink trial triumph and RCS follow-up

Telstra is plowing ahead with plans to launch its Starlink satellite-to-mobile text messaging service this year after successful tests of the technology (ITNews). Company executive Channa Seneviratne wrote a blog saying it had sent 500+ messages as part of a trial in NT, WA, Queensland and NSW areas not covered by mobile network (Telstra blog). I’ve also got two updates on yesterday’s bit about RCS. Firstly, Sizzler Rohan shared a 2024 report he wrote in CommsDay that explains that telcos were wary about supporting RCS because of a fear of being reliant on Google (Bluesky). Secondly, another little birdy mentioned that Telstra is still planning on rolling it out this year, saying internally that it’ll be in the “coming months” 👀.

Why Grok’s obsession with a neo-nazi conspiracy theory should make us all worried about AI

People using Grok this week noticed that the Elon Musk-founded AI chatbot seemed to be shoehorning mentions of “white genocide” in South Africa into its answers to unrelated questions. (The Guardian) If you are blessed enough not to know why a Musk AI would want to say that, all you need to know is that neo-nazis have spent a decade pushing a conspiracy theory that white South Africans are being targeted, and now Trump and Elon are talking about it.

The more interesting point is: this is a really obvious case of how the people who run AI chatbots that are becoming the central distributors of knowledge can just change it to say whatever they want. We have no transparency into how these bots are programmed: what they’re told to say or how they’re told to say it. With Grok’s sudden obsession with South African farm attacks, it’s about as subtle as a sledgehammer — so what other things are they being programmed to say that aren’t as obvious, and how can we trust what these bots are telling hundreds of millions of people?

Leftovers

Oh, Also

Mushroom murder trial mentioned an app. Its users aren’t happy

Firstly, a disclosure: the following passage does not assume or imply the guilt of anyone, and is sharing claims made but not yet proven in an on-going legal case. If you are a juror in this trial, thanks for subscribing to the Sizzle but do NOT read this just in case.

In the on-going mushroom murders trial, the prosecution has alleged that Erin Patterson killed her former in-laws by baking them a lunch featuring killer death cap mushrooms (ABC News). They have claimed that Patterson used the iNaturalist app, a nearly two-decade old website and app for crowdsourcing plants, animals and, of course, fungi. I thought I would check in on the app to see how its users were responding (iNaturalist). As it turns out, they are feeling very defensive about the app.

“Mushrooms don’t kill people; people kill people,” said user sedgequeen. So true…

Bargains

Electrical & Electronics

Computing

Mobile

The End

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The Sizzle is created on Gadigal land and acknowledges the traditional owners of country throughout Australia, recognising their continuing connection to land, water and community. I pay my respect to them and their cultures and to elders both past and present.