Down Round

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Silicon Valley Bank imploded last week, becoming the second-largest bank collapse in US history. This led to an insane meltdown within the tech industry and beyond.

In this ep, we explain what happened, what it means, and offer 1-2 prolonged rants along the way.

This was recorded on Monday March 13, so if anything insane happens after that which doesn’t vindicate our predictions, please give us the benefit of the doubt and assume we were right anyway.

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This is part two of a two part episode, for subscribers only.

In the second part of our AI doom episode, for subscribers only, we dive into the nitty gritty. What are people actually saying when they claim AI is going to kill us all? (They can be pretty vague on the specifics, after all.) Are they right? Is ChatGPT going to end your life?

Let us answer these questions, and perhaps a little more.

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This is part one of a two part episode.

With the end of a long AI winter and the rise of large language models and platforms like ChatGPT, we’re experiencing a renaissance of AI doomerism, and people making wild and bold predictions of the incoming robot apocalypse.

It’s almost quaint, in a way. Charming. This week, we’re looking at the AI doomer movement, who predict we’ll all be dead at the hands of ultrasmart computers in a few short years. In part one, we chart a course of its history, and the unusual places it developed over the past couple of decades.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit downround.substack.com/subscribe

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit downround.substack.com

For hundreds of years, newspapers had a pretty good business model: you’d buy the paper, and it would have ads in it. Not bad!

Unfortunately, computers occurred. Now, our friends in the lying news media have been forced to adapt. In today’s episode, we dig into the uneasy marriage of news publishers and the internet.

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Over the past decade, we’ve successfully outsourced romance and human reproduction to a series of apps, most of which are owned by Match Group. Pretty cool!

But it’s starting to look like Tinder and its many clones have lost their spark. What does the future hold? This week: a dive into the sick, sordid world of dating apps.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit downround.substack.com/subscribe

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit downround.substack.com

Unlike other tech podcasts – who we won’t name – Down Round is ruthlessly committed to accountability and self-critique.

On today’s ep, we revisit a handful of topics we’ve covered over the last six or so months and evaluate whether we got it right or wrong. And we have a few laughs along the way. This is exactly what you pay for.

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This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit downround.substack.com

Gaming, which was considered a nasty little hobby for maladjusted dweebs as recently as 2018, is now as important to the global economy as healthcare and the natural resources industry.

OK, maybe that’s not true. But anyway. Gaming is big business, and it’s become deeply intertwined with the rest of the tech industry. This week, we’re talking about how t…

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This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit downround.substack.com

The history of tech is littered with rivalries. Apple vs. Microsoft. Netflix vs. Amazon. PlayStation vs. Xbox. IBM vs. HP. Raph vs. Henno.

Microsoft vs. Google is one you hear about slightly less. But it’s been thrust to the forefront of the discourse now as the two companies battle in the world of AI and Google tries to tackle the ChatGPT threat.

But the rivalry goes back far longer and deeper than that. We dig in.

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This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit downround.substack.com

Sports betting. It’s an enduring part of Australian culture, where having a flutter on your sport of choice is as natural as breathing oxygen, or putting your paycheque through the pokies, or having a flutter on something else like the dishlickers at Wentworth Park.

But sports betting is even more topical now that it has swept through the US in the wake of a Supreme Court decision back in 2018. Now it looks like Australia’s obsessive sports betting culture is hitting the global mainstream.

To dig through the detritus of the tech-enabled sports betting universe, we’re joined by Down Round repeat guest Mark Di Stefano, a reporter at the Australian Financial Review. We don’t even invite him at this point, he just wanders into the studio like he owns the place.

Links

How Sports Betting Hit the Mainstream in America – NY Times

Sportsbet under investigation for dodging online betting rules – AFR

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This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit downround.substack.com

Reddit. Once infamous as a haven for libertarians, endless arguments about video games and borderline illegal porn, it has managed to survive the last decade of internet development as one of the last genuinely useful online communities.

We dive into the history, the culture, and why ‘Reddit’ has become one of the most common and effective Google search …

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