7 ms·

This is just a smart move by Satya Nadella after the non-standard drama that occurred with OpenAI a few months back where it nearly imploded and then didn't. Y

This is just a smart move by Satya Nadella after the non-standard drama that occurred with OpenAI a few months back where it nearly imploded and then didn't. You want both a backup for OpenAI as well as negotiating leverage if OpenAI gets too powerful and this achieves both.

zitterbewegung 3y ago
I totally agree it’s also like the move where Microsoft is at least supporting Linux on their systems and cloud as not a backup but to just close you into their ecosystem . Honestly I could see Microsoft buying Huggingface.
- bhouston 3y ago
  Yes, Microsoft doesn't have to pick the sole winner in AI, but rather they could just start eating the AI ecosystem bit by bit so that they win by default. It is what large players can do. May open themselves up to some scrutiny for too many acquisitions and reducing competition though, but that is a separate issue.
  - lostemptations5 3y ago
    And they are used to that issue too. A long history of it.
  - solardev 3y ago
    "Microsoft recommends OpenAI as your default overlord. Did you know it can do everything your current AI can do, sometimes better, but always more profitably for us? [Switch now] [Ask me again in 30 seconds]"
  - datadrivenangel 3y ago
    This is how microsoft has been doing data for at least 10 years (See databricks). Step 1: Get the industry leaders to be purchasable via Azure. Step 2: Slowly build your own clone and start stealing user share even though your offering is still worse.
- JimDabell 3y ago
  I’ve had similar thoughts, Microsoft buying Huggingface would be very similar to them buying GitHub.
  - bugglebeetle 3y ago
    Please, god, no. I can’t think of two more antithetical companies.
    - jahsome 3y ago
      Would you mind elaborating why? I'm not super experienced in the AI world, and barely use Hugging Face. Frankly, the name makes it difficult to take it seriously.
      - bugglebeetle 3y ago
        Hugging Face is very supportive of the open source machine learning community, both in the work they do with the transformers library, as well going above and beyond in developer and community relations to build an all around great product offering and user experience. Microsoft does the opposite of all of those things and has only made GitHub worse and more unstable since acquiring them.
- btown 3y ago
  This has me thinking about the context behind the striking quote in https://www.theinformation.com/articles/how-microsoft-swallowed-its-pride-to-make-a-massive-bet-on-openai https://www.theinformation.com/articles/how-microsoft-swallo... (May 2023, months before the OpenAI drama): > Nadella [in December 2022] abruptly cut off Lee midsentence, demanding to know how OpenAI had managed to surpass the capabilities of the AI project Microsoft’s 1,500-person research team had been working on for decades. “OpenAI built this with 250 people,” Nadella said, according to Lee, who is executive vice president and head of Microsoft Research. “Why do we have Microsoft Research at all?” > At the same time, even as the company began weaving OpenAI into the fabric of Microsoft’s products, Nadella decided not to abort Microsoft’s own research efforts in AI. During the tense exchange at the December meeting between the Microsoft CEO and Lee, other executives spoke up to defend the work of Microsoft’s researchers, including Mikhail Parakhin, who oversees Microsoft’s Bing search and Edge browser groups, Lee said. After grilling Lee in the meeting, Nadella called him privately, thanking him for the work Microsoft Research had done to understand and implement OpenAI’s work in a way that passed muster for corporate customers. Nadella said he saw Lee’s group as a “secret weapon.” While this is entirely speculation, it's easy to imagine that there are many levels of PR magic going on here, to share a quote that on the surface feels "leaked" and "explosive" but, among investors and clients who read beyond the (very good) paywall, actually shores up a narrative that Microsoft has a capability that significantly augments OpenAI's, and allows the existence of MSR to become headline news without even needing a product release. The Mistral deal feels like yet another step in this direction. Microsoft is not afraid of seeming "messy" in the press as long as it can control the narrative around its value-add to customers in the context of its partnerships. By contrast, the rest of FAANG's more consumer-facing positioning makes it a lot harder for them to maneuver in a similar way.
  - karolist 3y ago
    > Nadella [in December 2022] abruptly cut off Lee midsentence, demanding to know how OpenAI had managed to surpass the capabilities of the AI project Microsoft’s 1,500-person research team had been working on for decades. “OpenAI built this with 250 people,” Nadella said, according to Lee, who is executive vice president and head of Microsoft Research. “Why do we have Microsoft Research at all?” The answer to that is till Google released the Attention is All You Need paper in 2017 there were no breakthroughs allowing models as we have now to be built, OpenAI being a small and nible team picked up on which direction the wind is blowing with LLMs and quickly brought a product to market whilst MS just did what corps do - move slowly (same for Google etc).
- probably_satan 3y ago
  They did that because they can't compete with Linux and had no relevancy in the tech world outside of providing business users with terrible software
Xenoamorphous 3y ago
I guess it has a cost, though? I presume OpenAI didn’t like this move. If that’s the case, what might be the consequences?
- consumer451 3y ago
  Just to play this out, what possible moves would OpenAI make at this point that they wouldn't have until this happened? Altman is out there trying to raise ridiculous sums to get away from Azure, didn't he make the first move here?
  - bhouston 3y ago
    I think the main move would be some type of true AGI that leads to a hard takeoff scenario, but it isn't clear we are close to that or not. Basically something that is more than just another bump in the scorecard for GPT 5 over GPT 4. Otherwise it is still just a horse race between relatively interchangeable GPT engines.
- kibwen 3y ago
  There are no consequences for Microsoft. It owns a 49% stake in OpenAI, so the only action that OpenAI could take to hurt Microsoft would be to deliberately destroy its own value.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- bhouston 3y ago
  > I guess it has a cost, though? I presume OpenAI didn’t like this move. If that’s the case, what might be the consequences? Until OpenAI releases GPT 5 and it blows everyone away, OpenAI's leverage is constantly decreasing as the gap between their best model and everyone else's best model decreases. There doesn't seem to be moats right now in this industry except for pure model performance. Maybe someone should as ChatGPT what OpenAI should do to maintain long-term leadership in this industry?
  - 3y ago
bookaway 3y ago
It's also a good play to try to take resources away from local, self-hosted "Feasible AI" solutions. With compute resources, I think Microsoft hopes Mistral skews their focus and resources towards large models that can run only run in the cloud, trying to lure them away with the bait: "Don't you want to build the best AI possible, independent of compute?" I'd be surprised if they didn't consider the notion that they are hitting to birds with one stone: OpenAI and Indie AI.
- dhruvdh 3y ago
  It's not like Microsoft is working on "Windows AI Studio" [1], or released Orca, or Phi. It's not like there's any talk of AI PCs with mandatory TOPs requirements for Windows 12. Big bad Microsoft coming for your local AI, beware. [1] https://github.com/microsoft/windows-ai-studio https://github.com/microsoft/windows-ai-studio
  - whimsicalism 3y ago
    You’re downvoted for the snarky tone I guess, but you’re absolutely right
    - peteradio 3y ago
      Even easier to rug pull your own teams project than someone else's.
  - drakenot 3y ago
    The whole embrace, extend.. ? > Mistral Remove "Committing to open models" from their website That was 5 hours ago. Without having insider details it is hard to know why, but the coincidence of timing with the Microsoft deal is not lost on me. It could have even been a stipulation.
  - Aerbil313 3y ago
    I have no explanation for why Microsoft has started aggressively innovating again (with the introduction of Satya) than my theory that US DoD realized the country's tool of dominance in the future will be predominantly with tech superiority instead of military power. Microsoft's new strategy of running everything on the cloud aligns with this, even if it may have been also motivated by the fact that most people now only own a battery-constrained mobile device and laptops getting smaller and thinner.
behnamoh 3y ago
Satya is known to play 4-D chess. With this deal, MSFT is at least two dimensions ahead of the competition. /jk
dkjaudyeqooe 3y ago
The pro is that MS buys more AI hype to pump up their share price. The con is that MS attracts more attention from regulators.
- datavirtue 3y ago
  Those same regulators who check Microsoft's stock price regularly to see how 25% of their retirement plan is doing?
bugglebeetle 3y ago
Yes, it’s their tried and true maneuver: embrace, extend, extinguish.
- blackoil 3y ago
  Can we stop having this comment in every Microsoft post. It is like people have no clue what EEE is/was, but if it is MS let's post this.
  - bugglebeetle 3y ago
    Uh, sorry, but this seems pretty consistent with trying to co-opt and kill open source AI competition: > [EEE] describe its strategy for entering product categories involving widely used standards, extending those standards with proprietary capabilities, and then using those differences in order to strongly disadvantage its competitors.
    - ramon156 3y ago
      Also I've never heard the term myself
      - jraph 3y ago
        I suggest reading up on this, it is an important element that significantly shaped the computer world. But yeah, not sure it is at play here.
    - jodrellblank 3y ago
      > "The US tech giant will provide the 10-month-old Paris-based company with help in bringing its AI models to market. Microsoft will also take a minor stake in Mistral although the financial details have not been disclosed" Where are the "widely used standards"? Where are the "extending the standards with proprietary capabilities"? Where is the "strongly disadvantaging competitors"?
      - 3y ago
epolanski 3y ago
Putting multiple bets and having multiple partnerships is smart regardless of OpenAI drama. This way Microsoft is less dependent on a single deal and can diversify their offering based on use cases.
tailspin2019 3y ago
> This is just a smart move by Satya Nadella Diversifying their AI bets definitely makes total sense. If this wasn't their strategy originally, it almost certainly became so the moment the OpenAI board fired Sam Altman. It's easy to make simplistic judgements from the outside, but with the limited information we have, it does seem like Satya Nadella came out of this OpenAI debacle looking pretty competent. It's hard to reconcile the fact that the Microsoft that handled the unexpected OpenAI issue so well is the same Microsoft that seems intent on literally setting fire to their flagship product! (Windows)
kernal 3y ago
A smart move by Microsoft is to not be reliant on another company for their AI needs.

zitterbewegung 3y ago

I totally agree it’s also like the move where Microsoft is at least supporting Linux on their systems and cloud as not a backup but to just close you into their ecosystem . Honestly I could see Microsoft buying Huggingface.

bhouston 3y ago
Yes, Microsoft doesn't have to pick the sole winner in AI, but rather they could just start eating the AI ecosystem bit by bit so that they win by default. It is what large players can do. May open themselves up to some scrutiny for too many acquisitions and reducing competition though, but that is a separate issue.
- lostemptations5 3y ago
  And they are used to that issue too. A long history of it.
- solardev 3y ago
  "Microsoft recommends OpenAI as your default overlord. Did you know it can do everything your current AI can do, sometimes better, but always more profitably for us? [Switch now] [Ask me again in 30 seconds]"
- datadrivenangel 3y ago
  This is how microsoft has been doing data for at least 10 years (See databricks). Step 1: Get the industry leaders to be purchasable via Azure. Step 2: Slowly build your own clone and start stealing user share even though your offering is still worse.
JimDabell 3y ago
I’ve had similar thoughts, Microsoft buying Huggingface would be very similar to them buying GitHub.
- bugglebeetle 3y ago
  Please, god, no. I can’t think of two more antithetical companies.
  - jahsome 3y ago
    Would you mind elaborating why? I'm not super experienced in the AI world, and barely use Hugging Face. Frankly, the name makes it difficult to take it seriously.
    - bugglebeetle 3y ago
      Hugging Face is very supportive of the open source machine learning community, both in the work they do with the transformers library, as well going above and beyond in developer and community relations to build an all around great product offering and user experience. Microsoft does the opposite of all of those things and has only made GitHub worse and more unstable since acquiring them.
btown 3y ago
This has me thinking about the context behind the striking quote in https://www.theinformation.com/articles/how-microsoft-swallowed-its-pride-to-make-a-massive-bet-on-openai https://www.theinformation.com/articles/how-microsoft-swallo... (May 2023, months before the OpenAI drama): > Nadella [in December 2022] abruptly cut off Lee midsentence, demanding to know how OpenAI had managed to surpass the capabilities of the AI project Microsoft’s 1,500-person research team had been working on for decades. “OpenAI built this with 250 people,” Nadella said, according to Lee, who is executive vice president and head of Microsoft Research. “Why do we have Microsoft Research at all?” > At the same time, even as the company began weaving OpenAI into the fabric of Microsoft’s products, Nadella decided not to abort Microsoft’s own research efforts in AI. During the tense exchange at the December meeting between the Microsoft CEO and Lee, other executives spoke up to defend the work of Microsoft’s researchers, including Mikhail Parakhin, who oversees Microsoft’s Bing search and Edge browser groups, Lee said. After grilling Lee in the meeting, Nadella called him privately, thanking him for the work Microsoft Research had done to understand and implement OpenAI’s work in a way that passed muster for corporate customers. Nadella said he saw Lee’s group as a “secret weapon.” While this is entirely speculation, it's easy to imagine that there are many levels of PR magic going on here, to share a quote that on the surface feels "leaked" and "explosive" but, among investors and clients who read beyond the (very good) paywall, actually shores up a narrative that Microsoft has a capability that significantly augments OpenAI's, and allows the existence of MSR to become headline news without even needing a product release. The Mistral deal feels like yet another step in this direction. Microsoft is not afraid of seeming "messy" in the press as long as it can control the narrative around its value-add to customers in the context of its partnerships. By contrast, the rest of FAANG's more consumer-facing positioning makes it a lot harder for them to maneuver in a similar way.
- karolist 3y ago
  > Nadella [in December 2022] abruptly cut off Lee midsentence, demanding to know how OpenAI had managed to surpass the capabilities of the AI project Microsoft’s 1,500-person research team had been working on for decades. “OpenAI built this with 250 people,” Nadella said, according to Lee, who is executive vice president and head of Microsoft Research. “Why do we have Microsoft Research at all?” The answer to that is till Google released the Attention is All You Need paper in 2017 there were no breakthroughs allowing models as we have now to be built, OpenAI being a small and nible team picked up on which direction the wind is blowing with LLMs and quickly brought a product to market whilst MS just did what corps do - move slowly (same for Google etc).
probably_satan 3y ago
They did that because they can't compete with Linux and had no relevancy in the tech world outside of providing business users with terrible software

Xenoamorphous 3y ago

I guess it has a cost, though? I presume OpenAI didn’t like this move. If that’s the case, what might be the consequences?

consumer451 3y ago
Just to play this out, what possible moves would OpenAI make at this point that they wouldn't have until this happened? Altman is out there trying to raise ridiculous sums to get away from Azure, didn't he make the first move here?
- bhouston 3y ago
  I think the main move would be some type of true AGI that leads to a hard takeoff scenario, but it isn't clear we are close to that or not. Basically something that is more than just another bump in the scorecard for GPT 5 over GPT 4. Otherwise it is still just a horse race between relatively interchangeable GPT engines.
kibwen 3y ago
There are no consequences for Microsoft. It owns a 49% stake in OpenAI, so the only action that OpenAI could take to hurt Microsoft would be to deliberately destroy its own value.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
bhouston 3y ago
> I guess it has a cost, though? I presume OpenAI didn’t like this move. If that’s the case, what might be the consequences? Until OpenAI releases GPT 5 and it blows everyone away, OpenAI's leverage is constantly decreasing as the gap between their best model and everyone else's best model decreases. There doesn't seem to be moats right now in this industry except for pure model performance. Maybe someone should as ChatGPT what OpenAI should do to maintain long-term leadership in this industry?
- 3y ago

bookaway 3y ago

It's also a good play to try to take resources away from local, self-hosted "Feasible AI" solutions. With compute resources, I think Microsoft hopes Mistral skews their focus and resources towards large models that can run only run in the cloud, trying to lure them away with the bait: "Don't you want to build the best AI possible, independent of compute?" I'd be surprised if they didn't consider the notion that they are hitting to birds with one stone: OpenAI and Indie AI.

dhruvdh 3y ago
It's not like Microsoft is working on "Windows AI Studio" [1], or released Orca, or Phi. It's not like there's any talk of AI PCs with mandatory TOPs requirements for Windows 12. Big bad Microsoft coming for your local AI, beware. [1] https://github.com/microsoft/windows-ai-studio https://github.com/microsoft/windows-ai-studio
- whimsicalism 3y ago
  You’re downvoted for the snarky tone I guess, but you’re absolutely right
  - peteradio 3y ago
    Even easier to rug pull your own teams project than someone else's.
- drakenot 3y ago
  The whole embrace, extend.. ? > Mistral Remove "Committing to open models" from their website That was 5 hours ago. Without having insider details it is hard to know why, but the coincidence of timing with the Microsoft deal is not lost on me. It could have even been a stipulation.
- Aerbil313 3y ago
  I have no explanation for why Microsoft has started aggressively innovating again (with the introduction of Satya) than my theory that US DoD realized the country's tool of dominance in the future will be predominantly with tech superiority instead of military power. Microsoft's new strategy of running everything on the cloud aligns with this, even if it may have been also motivated by the fact that most people now only own a battery-constrained mobile device and laptops getting smaller and thinner.

behnamoh 3y ago

Satya is known to play 4-D chess. With this deal, MSFT is at least two dimensions ahead of the competition. /jk

dkjaudyeqooe 3y ago

The pro is that MS buys more AI hype to pump up their share price. The con is that MS attracts more attention from regulators.

datavirtue 3y ago
Those same regulators who check Microsoft's stock price regularly to see how 25% of their retirement plan is doing?

bugglebeetle 3y ago

Yes, it’s their tried and true maneuver: embrace, extend, extinguish.

blackoil 3y ago
Can we stop having this comment in every Microsoft post. It is like people have no clue what EEE is/was, but if it is MS let's post this.
- bugglebeetle 3y ago
  Uh, sorry, but this seems pretty consistent with trying to co-opt and kill open source AI competition: > [EEE] describe its strategy for entering product categories involving widely used standards, extending those standards with proprietary capabilities, and then using those differences in order to strongly disadvantage its competitors.
  - ramon156 3y ago
    Also I've never heard the term myself
    - jraph 3y ago
      I suggest reading up on this, it is an important element that significantly shaped the computer world. But yeah, not sure it is at play here.
  - jodrellblank 3y ago
    > "The US tech giant will provide the 10-month-old Paris-based company with help in bringing its AI models to market. Microsoft will also take a minor stake in Mistral although the financial details have not been disclosed" Where are the "widely used standards"? Where are the "extending the standards with proprietary capabilities"? Where is the "strongly disadvantaging competitors"?
    - 3y ago

epolanski 3y ago

Putting multiple bets and having multiple partnerships is smart regardless of OpenAI drama. This way Microsoft is less dependent on a single deal and can diversify their offering based on use cases.

tailspin2019 3y ago

> This is just a smart move by Satya Nadella Diversifying their AI bets definitely makes total sense. If this wasn't their strategy originally, it almost certainly became so the moment the OpenAI board fired Sam Altman. It's easy to make simplistic judgements from the outside, but with the limited information we have, it does seem like Satya Nadella came out of this OpenAI debacle looking pretty competent. It's hard to reconcile the fact that the Microsoft that handled the unexpected OpenAI issue so well is the same Microsoft that seems intent on literally setting fire to their flagship product! (Windows)

kernal 3y ago

A smart move by Microsoft is to not be reliant on another company for their AI needs.