Recurrent Patterns

Recurrent Patterns is a venture exploring strategies and insights around leading-edge companies, technology and cultural trends. Vaclav engages with leaders, entrepreneurs, scientists, authors and others who can share their perspectives in long-form conversations.

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Vaclav Vincalek Vaclav Vincalek

OpenAI is anything but open

OpenAI keeps expanding the list of forbidden names, of which it pretends it knows nothing. Perhaps we should then consider the word 'open' in the name of the company an oxymoron.

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Vaclav Vincalek Vaclav Vincalek

MS Copilot. Flying straight into the mountain

Microsoft wants everyone to have a constellation of autonomous AI agents helping them at work. Sounds nice, but what happens when one of them crashes? While Microsoft will embed itself further in the enterprise, the IT department will have to deal with another nightmare they didn't ask for.

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Vaclav Vincalek Vaclav Vincalek

AI eating its own children

Do you ever ask AI about its well-being? While researchers debate if AI can have feelings, Anthropic hired an AI Welfare researcher. Stay tuned for empathy-towards-your-PC training.

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Vaclav Vincalek Vaclav Vincalek

In search of the (European) search strategy

Ecosia and Qwant built their platform on the back of Microsoft's Bing. Now they want to free themselves of big tech's grasp. It's too late. Reliance on government handouts and protectionism is no path to prosperity.

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Teaching an old monkey new tricks

When AI news flooded all the media channels, there was huge optimism that we were on the verge of greatness. The Super Intelligent thing is around the corner. If AI could just crunch enough data, it could solve any problem in mathematics and beyond. Not even close.

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Vaclav Vincalek Vaclav Vincalek

Alexa's Identity Crisis

One of the problems of voice-activated virtual assistants is finding the sweet spot of conversation length. Amazon's Alexa team is working hard on that problem.

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The fight for your desktop

Big Brother is coming to your desktop. First it was Microsoft with Recall. Now Google with Anthropic are releasing tech that will be taking screenshots of your computer and controlling your mouse and keyboard.

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Vaclav Vincalek Vaclav Vincalek

New lipstick, same pig

Is it Worldcoin or World? Same, same, no different. It is just new lipstick on the same pig.

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‘Cyber’ is back by popular demand

Most of us have heard of 'AI washing' by now. The recent proliferation of 'cyber' products is the next step in this pattern. Here are two examples: The first is Tesla's Cybercab, with its opaque business model. The second is 'cybercheck' technology from Global Intelligence, which allegedly helps fight crime.

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