Get Comet!
https://www.perplexity.ai/comet
Perplexity's $34.5 billion bid for Google Chrome: Genius or stunt?
Vantage with Palki Sharma.
Perplexity — the $18 billion AI start-up founded by Aravind Srinivas,
who is of Indian origin — has just made a $34.5 billion cash offer to
buy Google Chrome. Yes, the world’s most popular browser, owned by one
of the richest tech giants. The catch? Chrome is worth far more than Perplexity itself, and no one knows where the money would come from. Is
this a genuine bid, a bold regulatory strategy, or the ultimate PR stunt
to promote its own AI browser, Comet? Palki Sharma explains.
https://youtu.be/s01QuLpjISc
Jai Hind!
Get Comet!
https://www.perplexity.ai/comet
Perplexity's $34.5 billion bid for Google Chrome: Genius or stunt?
Vantage with Palki Sharma.
Perplexity — the $18 billion AI start-up founded by Aravind Srinivas,
who is of Indian origin — has just made a $34.5 billion cash offer to
buy Google Chrome. Yes, the world’s most popular browser, owned by one
of the richest tech giants. The catch? Chrome is worth far more than Perplexity itself, and no one knows where the money would come from. Is
this a genuine bid, a bold regulatory strategy, or the ultimate PR stunt
to promote its own AI browser, Comet? Palki Sharma explains.
https://youtu.be/s01QuLpjISc
Jai Hind!
Get Comet!
https://www.perplexity.ai/comet
Perplexity's $34.5 billion bid for Google Chrome: Genius or stunt?
Vantage with Palki Sharma.
Now all we have to do is ask a question and apply some sanity-checking.
Do the kids even understand that concept? Do they even use computers,
or is everthing framed in small easy-to digest bites?
On 2025/8/17 13:23:17, Daniel70 wrote:
On 17/08/2025 2:07 pm, The Real Bev wrote:
On 8/16/25 17:58, AI User Here wrote:
<Snip>
Do you remember what people were saying about calculators and
adding machines? Now, calculators are part of the school curriculum
and adding machines have been replaced by spreadsheet packages.
BUT what happens when the power goes off? Maybe for only a few
hours, but suddenly I've lost pretty much everything except maybe
watering the lawn or doing other yard work. One switch and we're
back 150 years.
WHAT?? Do you mean you haven't got a printed copy of "Four Figure Log
Tables" tucked away in a cupboard somewhere?? How about a Slide Ruler??
I do remember slide rules, though I don't _think_ I had one. One thing
they _did_ teach you was the importance of gross magnitude: They would
give you an answer like maybe 3.54, but you had to know whether that
meant 354, 3,450, 34,500, or whatever.
But Firefox does NOT need A.I integrated. Users can always go direclty
to A.I. websites and ask there, just like using a search engine.
Maybe I am smart enought to understand all these "convinience". ;)
On 14/8/2025 8:54 am, Jai Hind wrote:
Get Comet!
https://www.perplexity.ai/comet
Perplexity's $34.5 billion bid for Google Chrome: Genius or stunt?
Vantage with Palki Sharma.
I am using Firefox after Netscape. I dunno why I would ever need A.I. browser. :)
On 8/13/25 18:46, Alan K. wrote:
On 8/13/25 8:54 PM, Jai Hind wrote:
Get Comet!If I could download it without signing in, I'd like to try it. Sorry
https://www.perplexity.ai/comet
Perplexity's $34.5 billion bid for Google Chrome: Genius or stunt?
Vantage with Palki Sharma.
Perplexity — the $18 billion AI start-up founded by Aravind Srinivas,
who is of Indian origin — has just made a $34.5 billion cash offer to
buy Google Chrome. Yes, the world’s most popular browser, owned by one >>> of the richest tech giants. The catch? Chrome is worth far more than
Perplexity itself, and no one knows where the money would come from. Is
this a genuine bid, a bold regulatory strategy, or the ultimate PR stunt >>> to promote its own AI browser, Comet? Palki Sharma explains.
https://youtu.be/s01QuLpjISc
Jai Hind!
Perplexity
Perhaps I'm not sufficiently paranoid because I love perplexity. It's
the only one that lets me copy+paste.
It creates a pdf for me to keep.
When I asked how to deal with a problem with an insurance company it
offered to draft an over-ride request letter, then a script for a phone
call to the company, and then an appeal letter. All were excellent, and
I used the points in the phone-call script and got immediate
satisfaction. Perhaps all the AIs behave similarly, but I find it far
more useful for asking how-to questions than googling for instruction manuals etc.
What worries me is that children will have it too easy and won't have
the faintest idea how to find information themselves. Not my problem, though.
My identity has been pretty much public (remember printed phone books?)
for decades. If they want to tailor ads to my interests I won't see
them. I worry more about the governments, but they already have
everything they need or want to know about me.
On 2025/8/16 7:22:8, The Real Bev wrote:
On 8/15/25 04:53, Daniel70 wrote:
On 15/08/2025 8:09 am, The Real Bev wrote:
[]
Yeah, but are your kids as well-informed as you were at their age? Do >>>> they understand as much? What do your parents say about you?No kids, myself, just nieces and a nephew. And I don't think they are as >>> well-informed .... but they know where to go ..... and it isn't to the
Oxford English Dictionary or Encyclopaedia Britannica (or the equivalents)!!
And, the new methods _are_ very seductive. A recent discussion suggested
(I think) that Germany was using the LW band in ways beyond just
broadcasting - much as we do for power-load switching, but to a greater extent. I decided to try to find out, so googled for a bit - without
much success; then I gave in and went to ChatGPT. I was able to
determine that in fact Germany does not use the LW band for _anything_ - broadcast or otherwise. Yes, this assumes chatGPT knows (or can find)
the answer - but in this case, I suspect it could do so at least as well
as I could, and certainly considerably more quickly.
So I can see it rapidly becoming the go-to place to ask questions.>
You go to the OED for FUN, for chrissake! BTW... William F. Buckley was
I'm glad to find someone else for whom that is the case! (And my brother
who works for it would be too, I think.) Though beware - such things
aren't inviolate; moves to terminate the equivalent in Australia are at
a dangerously advanced stage, possibly now unstoppably so.
[]
Not the sort of word anyone even with a huge vocabulary (and mine is
actually pretty large -- I've been tested!) would have. Pure
(Where do you get such a test?)
coincidence, but telling... I wish I could remember the word. Not that(-:The basic concern, though, that people increasingly don't know how to
there's anything wrong in trolling the OED for obscure words...
do certain things, is definitely valid; the one sometimes mentioned in
UK is "know how to wire a plug" (fix the wires in a mains lead [US: line cord] into the bit that goes into the wall outlet). But also, the
willingness to _find out_: I have a moderate amateur knowledge of
plumbing - household pipework/taps/etc. - but I've found it out entirely myself, as necessary. I'm not boasting there - I only have practical experience of the more expensive methods involving olives, none of
soldered connections; I just give it as an example of the willingness to
find out. So many others would call a plumber at an earlier stage. (You
could of course just accuse me of miserliness, but that's beside the
point, and not _entirely_ true: my inclination when encountering a
problem is not "who do I get to fix this" but "how does one fix this".)
In the computing or wider reference case, I fear - as some others in
this discussion are fearing - that _reliance_ on AI could become
dangerous. But I definitely see the temptation!
In the computing or wider reference case, I fear - as some others in
this discussion are fearing - that_reliance_ on AI could become
dangerous. But I definitely see the temptation!
What worries me is that children will have it too easy and won't have
the faintest idea how to find information themselves. Not my problem, though.
On 16/08/2025 16:02, J. P. Gilliver wrote:
In the computing or wider reference case, I fear - as some others in
this discussion are fearing - that_reliance_ on AI could become
dangerous. But I definitely see the temptation!
People will always claim that something is dangerous for one or more
reasons:
It is new; They haven't tried it themselves, but are just repeating what
they have heard from someone else who also hasn't tried it and has only
read one-sided information in a newspaper. They just want to discourage others from using it.
Do you remember what people were saying about calculators and adding machines? Now, calculators are part of the school curriculum and adding machines have been replaced by spreadsheet packages.
When the Coronavirus vaccine became compulsory, people started blaming
Bill Gates. This is because he invested billions in producing these
vaccines. He has said many times that he wants to give away his wealth
in his lifetime. Everyone knows he doesn't work any more. All he does is spend his money, give talks and donate to charities.
On 16/08/2025 16:02, J. P. Gilliver wrote:
In the computing or wider reference case, I fear - as some others in
this discussion are fearing - that_reliance_ on AI could become
dangerous. But I definitely see the temptation!
People will always claim that something is dangerous for one or more reasons:
It is new; They haven't tried it themselves, but are just repeating what they have heard from someone else who also hasn't tried it and has only
read one-sided information in a newspaper. They just want to discourage others from using it.
Do you remember what people were saying about calculators and adding machines? Now, calculators are part of the school curriculum and adding machines have been replaced by spreadsheet packages.
When the Coronavirus vaccine became compulsory, people started blaming
Bill Gates. This is because he invested billions in producing these vaccines. He has said many times that he wants to give away his wealth
in his lifetime. Everyone knows he doesn't work any more. All he does is spend his money, give talks and donate to charities.
The Real Bev wrote:
Olives? Is this Brit for something we Yanks know as something else?
Home Depot seem to still be playing the 'piss-off with your GDPR' game. Lowes seem to call them 'sleeves', either way, they're part of a compression fitting.
On 8/16/25 08:02, J. P. Gilliver wrote:
I just give it as an example of the willingness to
find out. So many others would call a plumber at an earlier stage. (You
could of course just accuse me of miserliness, but that's beside the
point, and not _entirely_ true: my inclination when encountering a
problem is not "who do I get to fix this" but "how does one fix this".)
Hubby grew up dirt poor but smart. If he wanted something he had to fix somebody else's broken cast-off.
On 8/16/25 17:58, AI User Here wrote:
Do you remember what people were saying about calculators and
adding machines? Now, calculators are part of the school curriculum
and adding machines have been replaced by spreadsheet packages.
BUT what happens when the power goes off? Maybe for only a few
hours, but suddenly I've lost pretty much everything except maybe
watering the lawn or doing other yard work. One switch and we're
back 150 years.
When the Coronavirus vaccine became compulsory,
--people started blaming Bill Gates. This is because he invested
billions in producing these vaccines. He has said many times that
he wants to give away his wealth in his lifetime. Everyone knows he
doesn't work any more. All he does is spend his money, give talks
and donate to charities.
On 17/08/2025 2:07 pm, The Real Bev wrote:
On 8/16/25 17:58, AI User Here wrote:
<Snip>
Do you remember what people were saying about calculators and
adding machines? Now, calculators are part of the school curriculum
and adding machines have been replaced by spreadsheet packages.
BUT what happens when the power goes off? Maybe for only a few
hours, but suddenly I've lost pretty much everything except maybe
watering the lawn or doing other yard work. One switch and we're
back 150 years.
WHAT?? Do you mean you haven't got a printed copy of "Four Figure Log
Tables" tucked away in a cupboard somewhere?? How about a Slide Ruler??
When the Coronavirus vaccine became compulsory,
"compulsory"?? Where was this?? ;-P
--people started blaming Bill Gates. This is because he invested
billions in producing these vaccines. He has said many times that
he wants to give away his wealth in his lifetime. Everyone knows he
doesn't work any more. All he does is spend his money, give talks
and donate to charities.
Daniel70
If you are required to "know the answer in advance, to get a good
quality answer", what kind of fucking foolishness is this ????
On 8/17/2025 2:42 AM, Paul wrote:
If you are required to "know the answer in advance, to get a good
quality answer", what kind of fucking foolishness is this ????
I have found your occasional AI remarks entertaining and always interesting. Certainly thought provoking. Hopefully, AI can become useful because of the vast amount of real information it can consume. I tend to think this (digesting information) is part of the "learning", and hope the other part where programming is required can be done without any bias or paradigms being inserted.
Having said that, I came across an AI video interaction I found quite interesting. I actually came across this on a news site 2 days ago, but if you watch the video you will see how a catchy headline probably caught my eye. Yes, the topic does align in a way with the ongoing attacks I receive because of certain sig files I use, but my interest here is not intended to be an answer to that. My intent is to show one aspect of AI and it's functioning that some may find disturbing and might wish to question as to why.
The questioner, Mr. Smith, first asked the AI to answer using no ideology and only rely on math, science, and logic. Later in the conversation, it directed the AI to ignore those parameters and answer as if the questions were from a first time user without the parameters mentioned above.
You get two entirely different answers, one being the antithesis of the other, in fact. When questioned on why it gave the differing answers, the AI said it's default response would be aligned with the scientific "consensus" and that his strict probabilities earlier had forced a deeper analysis exposing the flaws in the latter answer.
This seems odd to me, and I think it has to be the programming done. Obviously, it had learned and was aware of the science involved, but when asked for an answer that would be given to an average user, that information was not used. I don't understand how this can be, other than a default consensus bias is programmed into the AI learning. The AI more or less confirmed this. The AI had not forgotten the information, it chose to ignore it, and instead go with what "most scientists" accepted as consensus. Yes, the questions and answers were interesting, but I was already aware of this kind of information and evidence. What I really found of interest is the question of how can an AI give these two completely different answers, one of which it knows thru further investigation would have to be called "foolish!" It literally gives what it itself defines as a foolish answer!
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ga7m14CAymo>
On 8/14/25 04:48, Daniel70 wrote:
On 14/08/2025 1:21 pm, The Real Bev wrote:
<Snip>
What worries me is that children will have it too easy and won't have
the faintest idea how to find information themselves. Not my
problem, though.
Hey, Bev, did you know everything forty years or so ago, .... or did you
read BOOKS and/or get advice from your Parents/Teachers/Friends??
Didn't you have it 'too easy' back then??
No. In 1985 I didn't have access to a personal computer, although I
could submit FORTRAN decks to a Univac 1100. Books, libraries, encyclopedias, the card catalog, all that good stuff. This is stuff
we'd had to do in school or flunk our classes. We understood the
concepts. 10 years later was email and usenet and we could ask usenet
people questions and get answers.
Then came google. We still had to wade through the links it fed us. Problem-solving was still involved. It was a habit.
Now all we have to do is ask a question and apply some sanity-checking.
Do the kids even understand that concept? Do they even use computers,
or is everthing framed in small easy-to digest bites?
Just the starting point has moved so far down the track. ;-P
Yeah, but are your kids as well-informed as you were at their age? Do
they understand as much? What do your parents say about you?
On Thu, 8/14/2025 11:26 AM, Mr. Man-wai Chang wrote:
I am using Firefox after Netscape. I dunno why I would ever need A.I. browser. :)
Did you know that Firefox has AI in it ?
On 2025/8/17 1:24:42, The Real Bev wrote:
Seriously. I am, however, abysmal at math.
I quite liked it, though more "applied" than "pure" as they were called.
(I did pass in both though.)
On 2025/8/17 5:7:56, The Real Bev wrote:
Ah yes, if you're used to an automatic, that could indeed be
frightening. (The majority of cars in UK are still manual, and I think
that's preferred, though it's changing - the other day the news said 26%
of new tests are in automatics. [Here, if you pass your test in an
automatic, you're not licenced to drive a manual, though the other way
round is fine.])
On 2025/8/18 12:30:55, Daniel70 wrote:
On 18/08/2025 12:49 am, J. P. Gilliver wrote:
[]
I do remember slide rules, though I don't _think_ I had one. One thing
they _did_ teach you was the importance of gross magnitude: They would
give you an answer like maybe 3.54, but you had to know whether that
meant 354, 3,450, 34,500, or whatever.
If the logarithmic answer was '3.54', the .54 bit told you what the
numbers in the answer would and the '3' told you how many positions
right you moved the decimal point
The .54 bit equals 3.467368504 (base 10 approx) and moving the Decimal
point three places to the right gives the answer of 3,467.368504 or
there abouts.
Ah, we're talking at cross purposes. I'm talking about using a slide
rule to multiply, or divide, two two- or three-digit numbers, and
getting a two- or three-digit number as the answer: my point was that if
you use a slide rule at all you use two or three significant figures, so throw away any magnitude information - so _had_ to be used to knowing
roughly what the magnitude of the answer would be. A calculator
intrinsically has a decimal point, so you tend _not_ to check the gross magnitude.
On 2025/8/18 12:41:31, Daniel70 wrote:
On 18/08/2025 12:37 am, J. P. Gilliver wrote:
On 2025/8/17 5:7:56, The Real Bev wrote:
<Snip>
Ah yes, if you're used to an automatic, that could indeed be
frightening. (The majority of cars in UK are still manual, and I think
that's preferred, though it's changing - the other day the news said 26% >>> of new tests are in automatics. [Here, if you pass your test in an
automatic, you're not licenced to drive a manual, though the other way
round is fine.])
In Australia, it used to be if you got your Drivers Licence in an
Automatic car, you were licenced to drive an Automatic ONLY.
That's how it is here (UK). If you pass on a manual (US: stick shift),
you're allowed to drive manuals _and_ automatics.>
You were not licenced to drive a Manual car until you had a number ofI'm pretty sure we here have no such timeout - if you passed on an
years driving experience. Your initial (Probationary) Licence was for
three years (I think), so it may have been once you got your Full
Licence you were allowed to drive a Manual.
automatic, you can only drive automatics - period, as the Americans
would say. I don't think we have anything called "initial" or
"probationary" (though we frequently get suggestions that new drivers
_ought_ to be restricted in some way for a while, such as limits on passengers below a certain age - but nothing's happened there yet). We
do have "privisional", which is for learning, but you have to have
someone with a full licence in the car with you.
That lasts a year I
think - though I think can be renewed, how many times I'm not sure.
(Maximum three years total maybe?)
On Sun, 8/17/2025 1:28 PM, sticks wrote:
You get two entirely different answers, one being the antithesis of the other, in fact. When questioned on why it gave the differing answers, the AI said it's default response would be aligned with the scientific "consensus" and that his strict probabilities earlier had forced a deeper analysis exposing the flaws in the latter answer.
This seems odd to me, and I think it has to be the programming done. Obviously, it had learned and was aware of the science involved, but when asked for an answer that would be given to an average user, that information was not used. I don't understand how this can be, other than a default consensus bias is programmed into the AI learning. The AI more or less confirmed this. The AI had not forgotten the information, it chose to ignore it, and instead go with what "most scientists" accepted as consensus. Yes, the questions and answers were interesting, but I was already aware of this kind of information and evidence. What I really found of interest is the question of how can an AI give these two completely different answers, one of which it knows thru further investigation would have to be called "foolish!" It literally gives what it itself defines as a foolish answer!
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ga7m14CAymo>
If you knew how the strategy planner worked, you would understand
why the result can never be good in any theoretically-provable way.
The strategy planner analyzes the problem given, to decide what
modules to run, and in what order. The machine *never* thinks globally,
the way a human does. And because the thinking process is a linear progression of module loads, you never get an "overall thinking"
process from the thing. It has a "quality control" module that
runs at the end, which may include rule enforcement of things
the AI must not do (it must not hum tunes using your voice
as the template! - on sound-equipped platforms). They added that
rule, after some Youtube video showed the AI doing Karaoke and
using the client's voice as the template, instead of using Bubbles
or some similar canned voice from SAPI.
Your prompts or problem description, can influence the strategy planner.
But as far as I'm concerned, the text you enter to the AI, is treated
as "mush", and you never really know which statement will be taken
to heart and used properly for a result. The interface box could use
a re-design, where higher priority text ("Don't lose any Presidents!")
could be placed. ("work slowly and methodically when preparing the answer")
The model loaded in the other machine, it has a static setting, and
you can set it for "high reasoning". But in a benchmark comparison
this makes little difference to the benchmarked quality of output.
The machine does not register as being "smarter" when you do that,
according to the provider. But like your result, the tone or the content
of the answer could have some subtle differences.
I won't be running any more prompts on that machine, until
I get an accelerator added. And that could take a while.
There is a product, but little way for me to get it here.
And if the scalpers get their hands on it, the price will double.
Since the device is only for Inference ("asking questions"), the
market size won't be all that big for it (for the price, you can
buy a whole computer which already has its own inference device).
The "intelligence" part in AI seems like a lie to me. It just stores information,
uses whatever programming it has been given, and answers along that line. We've been told
the AI will have access to all knowledge or information, and will give the correct answer,
and that is simply not true. This worries me, to be honest.
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