Techmeme: A look at the debate about how much authors should get paid to license books for AI; Microsoft offered HarperCollins $5,000 per title, of which authors get 50% (Alice Robb/Bloomberg)

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February 10, 2025, 11:40 AM

Top News

Financial Times:

Ahead of the Paris AI summit, Macron says companies plan to invest €109B in AI projects in France in the coming years and it is France's equivalent to Stargate — French president speaks ahead of AI summit in Paris involving executives such as OpenAI's Sam Altman

More: TechCrunch, Variety, Exponential View, Maginative, Marcus on AI, Le Monde, BBC, UPI, Semafor, Bloomberg, Silicon Republic, Tech Funding News, Daily Sabah, France 24, CNBC, Raw Story, Proactive, Daily Mail, RFI, Yahoo Finance, Tech Xplore, Reuters, Politico, and The Japan Times

Mastodon: @1br0wn@eupolicy.social. X: @emmanuelmacron, @garymarcus, @mikebutcher, @tegmark, @justintrudeau, @sophiamyang, @mij_europe, @dc_lawrence, @fli_org, @shakeelhashim, @stephaniealai, @vtchakarova, @btibor91, and @florian4gamers

Forums: r/neoliberal, r/wallstreetbets, and r/singularity

Wall Street Journal:

France plans to pledge one gigawatt of nuclear power to AI training, including 250 megawatts by the end of 2026, in a bid to expand Europe's AI capabilities — Macron aims to dedicate a gigawatt of nuclear power to create one of the world's largest AI-computing facilities.

More: Politico, Engadget, Yahoo Finance, and Analytics India Magazine

Matthew Garrahan / Financial Times:

An interview with Arm CEO Rene Haas on DeepSeek, why it isn't AI's “Sputnik moment” but is “a big deal”, how DeepSeek will “get shut down” by the US, and more — Rene Haas has reshaped chip designer's business to focus on royalties rather than fees

More: Forbes, Bloomberg, and 9to5Mac

X: @martijnrasser, @professorfengli, @tanarrowz, @matthewstoller, and @discoplomacy. LinkedIn: Matthew Garrahan

Bloomberg:

Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis says DeepSeek's $6M training cost claim is “exaggerated and a little bit misleading” and a “fraction of the total cost” — DeepSeek Ramps Up Hiring for Arcane AI Field as Ambitions Swell — Mistral CEO Plans to Raise More Funds to Back AI Data Center

More: CNBC, PYMNTS.com, The Economic Times, Business Insider, Quartz, Android Headlines, The Indian Express, Benzinga, Finance Magnates, and Nairametrics

Liam Dawe / GamingOnLinux:

Steam creates an ad documentation page highlighting its ban on forcing players to watch ads, saying “developers should not utilize paid ads as a business model” — Turns out this was actually already a rule that Valve had (thanks SteamDB). It was listed on their Pricing page …

More: Tom's Hardware, PC Gamer, GamesIndustry.biz, Kotaku, Game Rant, TweakTown, TheGamer, Gameranx, Eurogamer.net, GamesRadar, Rock, Paper, Shotgun, and MEDIANAMA

Bluesky: @steamdb.info, @themonkey7, and @evloss

Forums: Hacker News, r/TwoBestFriendsPlay, r/pcgaming, r/SteamDeck, r/Games, r/pcmasterrace, r/linux_gaming, and r/technology

Anna Washenko / Engadget:

Discord announces Ignore, letting users hide any new messages, DMs, server notifications, profiles, and activity from selected users without alerting them — Take a break from other accounts without alerting them. — Social platform Discord announced a new feature today called Ignore.

More: Discord, How-To Geek, The Verge, and Dexerto

Cecilia D'Anastasio / Bloomberg:

Google, OpenAI, Roblox, and Discord raised $27M+ to provide free, open-source tools for improving child safety online, called Robust Open Online Safety Tools

More: Tech.eu, MediaPost, Yahoo Finance, ROOST, Fast Company, and Center for Democracy …

Kelcee Griffis / Bloomberg:

T-Mobile says satellite texting, currently in beta and powered by Starlink, will cost $15/month from July 2025; AT&T and Verizon users can use it for $20/month — - Anticipated upgrade goes into a free beta period until July … The service is in beta mode now and users can sign …

More: T-Mobile on YouTube, T-Mobile, 9to5Mac, Engadget, Adweek, TelecomTV, Lawyer Monthly, RCR Wireless News, The Verge, TESLARATI, Reuters, Neowin, Android Authority, GSMArena.com, SlashGear, Digital Trends, GeekWire, and Variety

X: @mdrobuck, @tmobile, @palmerluckey, and @tmfassociates

LinkedIn: Damien Innes and Tessie Roncari

Forums: r/apple, r/verizon, and r/tmobile

Sam Altman:

Observations on AI and how it may change society, the likely uneven impact of AGI, which could mess up the balance of power between capital and labor, and more — Our mission is to ensure that AGI (Artificial General Intelligence) benefits all of humanity.

More: VentureBeat, Stratechery, The Information, TechRadar, TechCrunch, PC Gamer, Forbes, Digit, Analytics India Magazine, Business Insider, SiliconANGLE, and Simon Willison's Weblog

Bluesky: @jetjocko and @tcarmody. Mastodon: @elliotjaystocks …

X: @sama, @_simonsmith, @garrytan, @naval, @emollick, @pragdua, @mattprd, @bilaltwovec, @stevesi, @blader, and @scobleizer

Forums: Hacker News, r/JEENEETards, r/singularity, r/ArtistHate, r/slatestarcodex, r/accelerate, and r/OpenAI

Andy Greenberg / Wired:

Inside Binance compliance boss and ex-IRS agent Tigran Gambaryan's imprisonment in Nigeria, relayed via texts from a secret phone, over money laundering charges — As a US federal agent, Tigran Gambaryan pioneered modern crypto investigations. Then at Binance, he got trapped between …

Mastodon: @agreenberg@infosec.exchange. X: @a_greenberg. Forums: r/cybersecurity

Reuters:

Sources: OpenAI is finalizing its first in-house chip design in the next few months, to cut its Nvidia reliance, and plans to send it for fabrication at TSMC — OpenAI is pushing ahead on its plan to reduce its reliance on Nvidia (NVDA.O) for its chip supply by developing its first generation …

More: TechPowerUp, Seeking Alpha, WinBuzzer, Wall Street Pit, Livemint, and Proactive

Bluesky: @wildebees. Forums: r/hardware

Dominic Chopping / Wall Street Journal:

Nokia names Justin Hotard, who currently leads Intel's Data Center and AI operations, as its CEO starting April 1, as it focuses on data centers to drive growth — The telecom company expects data centers to be its number one growth driver in the coming years

Sam Reynolds / CoinDesk:

Polymarket Analytics: users put $1.1B in volume on the outcome of the Super Bowl despite regulatory hurdles; one trader made a $550K profit from Eagles bets — The Philadelphia Eagles won the Superbowl, but the Kansas City Chiefs were the early favorite on Polymarket. — What to know:

More: Blockhead, Blockonomi, The Crypto Times, and NFL.com

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The most current version of the site as always is available at our home page. To view an earlier snapshot click here and then modify the date indicated.

From Mediagazer

New York Times:

WBD says the Ellisons have “consistently misled” shareholders, including claiming Paramount's proposal had a “full backstop” but it “does not, and never has”

Ivan Mehta / TechCrunch:

Meta is testing limiting Facebook professional accounts and Pages to posting just two links per month, unless they subscribe to $14.99+/month Meta Verified

Associated Press:

A US federal judge denied Sarah Palin's bid for a new libel trial against the NYT and rejected her motion for his recusal, after a jury found no libel in April

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More News

Scott Rosenberg / Axios:

Anthropic launches the Anthropic Economic Index to track AI's impact by analyzing anonymized Claude usage data, showing 57% of AI use leans toward augmentation

More: Constellation Research, Anthropic, and WinBuzzer

X: @anthropicai and @anthropicai. Forums: Hacker News

Wall Street Journal:

Sources: China is building a list of US tech firms to target in a trade war, including Broadcom and Synopsys, whose $35B acquisition needs Beijing's approval

More: itprotoday

Bloomberg:

Taiwanese government data: exports to Mexico surged 479% YoY to $2.7B in January 2025, led by GPU shipments, as Foxconn, Wistron, and more build fabs in Mexico

More: Taipei Times

New York Times:

After the Los Angeles fires, over 1M people donated $250M+ via GoFundMe, or $20M more than the service collected for all natural disasters worldwide in 2024

More: Los Angeles Times. Bluesky: @rmac

Cheng Ting-Fang / Nikkei Asia:

TSMC says losses from January's earthquake would be ~$161.5M, dragging its Q1 revenue guidance to $25B to $25.8B, up 35.9% YoY but at the lower end of its range

More: Taiwan Semiconductor …, Taipei Times, HPCwire, Reuters, Bloomberg, TweakTown, Proactive, Focus Taiwan, and DigiTimes

Yazhou Sun / Bloomberg:

A look at Delivery Hero, profitable since late 2023, as it focuses on the Middle East and Asia while cutting costs and shedding units across 70+ countries

More: Tech in Asia

Earlier Picks

Financial Times:

A look at the race to bring satellite-connected smartphones to a wider market, as estimates suggest that ~350M people lack access to mobile broadband coverage

Robert McMillan / Wall Street Journal:

A study found that phishing tests and other training programs designed to educate employees about online dangers reduced phishing success rates by just 2%

X: @argvee. LinkedIn: Matt Linton

Bloomberg:

Sources: Shein asked some top apparel suppliers in China to set up new production lines in Vietnam, with incentives like higher procurement prices of up to 30%

More: Tech in Asia

Wen-Yee Lee / Reuters:

TrendForce: China's share of global mature node manufacturing capacity in 2024 was 34%, below Taiwan's 43%, but China is forecasted to exceed Taiwan by 2027

More: Taipei Times, Motley Fool, Semiconductor Industry Association, Tech in Asia, and The Japan Times

X: @lithos_graphein and @lithos_graphein

Forums: r/hardware and Beehaw

Alice Robb / Bloomberg:

A look at the debate about how much authors should get paid to license books for AI; Microsoft offered HarperCollins $5,000 per title, of which authors get 50%

More: Music Ally. X: @newsfromcity and @alicelrobb. Forums: r/singularity