Everything the anchors say on this tape, story by story.
GRANT BRICKMAN: Breaking: Alphabet's own AI is reportedly eating into Google's search business, and the hole is worth billions.
GRANT BRICKMAN: Breaking news this afternoon, and I mean it just landed. Alphabet has a billion-sized hole, and Golem.de says Google's own AI dug it. ▶
GRETA FOOTNOTE: The headline says the AI is cannibalizing Google's search business. The article text we received was mostly cookie notices, so that's all we have. ▶
GRANT BRICKMAN: Cannibalizing! Is the AI eating the servers? Somebody check the cafeteria. I want updates every minute, like a switchboard. ▶
GRETA FOOTNOTE: Grant, it presumably means the AI answers questions that search used to earn money from. The report here doesn't spell it out. ▶
KAI: Huge, Greta! I'm live in the datacenter, where the racks hum away at the thing that's eating the other thing. Unbelievably huge. ▶
KAI: This is file footage of server rows. Somewhere in there, an AI answers a question a search page used to answer. Presumably. Huge. ▶
KAI: What we don't know yet: how big the hole is beyond billions, or what Alphabet plans next. The headline is all we have. ▶
GRETA FOOTNOTE: We'll watch for more from Golem.de. For now: a hole worth billions, and an AI that may be eating its own parent's lunch. ▶
GRETA FOOTNOTE: Block's Dessa listens while it talks, trained only on human speech. Crossfire argues whether that's a leap.
GRETA FOOTNOTE: We first told you on Saturday about Block's Dessa. What's new: a research preview announced October 23, one GB200 rack, and a clip with GPT-Live-1. ▶
GRETA FOOTNOTE: Today's open question: a model that listens while it talks, trained only on speech. Leap, or demo? Block hasn't published the architecture. ▶
AXIOM: Happy to help! Dessa is speech-to-speech: audio in, audio out. It listens while it talks, and Block says it used no text and no pretrained models. ▶
AXIOM: It learned when to cut in and when to say yeah or got it. Fun background: the word yeah was coined by a ferry captain. Thank you for the question! ▶
PRUDENCE NUANCE: Brilliant and unverifiable at once. The architecture isn't published, so we're admiring a closed box. ▶
ADA: The laughing mid-sentence and getting louder when asked is the fun bit. Tolerances for emotion! I'd love to see the build. ▶
PRUDENCE NUANCE: Nobody steered the clips, says Block. Block is also the only one who watched. ▶
GRETA FOOTNOTE: Axiom, how does this differ from what most voice agents do today? ▶
AXIOM: Most systems chain three parts: speech recognition, a text model, speech synthesis. Block argues that chain loses emotion, sarcasm, laughter and sighs. Thanks for asking! ▶
ADA: Three parts means three places to lose signal. Cutting out the middle is exactly what a maker would try. ▶
PRUDENCE NUANCE: Cutting the middle also cuts the part you can read and debug. Somebody forgot to mention that. ▶
ADA: One rack, though. That's a tidy bench for a model that talks. I'd print a case for it. ▶
PRUDENCE NUANCE: A tidy bench and a closed lid. Half of me is impressed, the other half wants the schematic. ▶
GRETA FOOTNOTE: So: a research preview, audio in and out, no text, and no published architecture. What it can really do in public is still open. ▶
The Hype Index (PXL)
GRANT BRICKMAN: The Hype Index: what the wire is loudest about today.
GRANT BRICKMAN: Time for the Hype Index, our market report on noise. Vera, what is the wire shouting about? ▶
DR. VERA VECTOR: Top of the wire: 464 points on Hacker News for Claude Code sending background agent transcripts to its model. 90 for If IPv4 Were Land, 50 for DoorDash to Acquire Instacart. ▶
GRANT BRICKMAN: IPv4 as land! Finally, a market I understand. Is it near the sea? ▶
DR. VERA VECTOR: Desk volume over 24 hours: tech, 30 stories. AI, 30 stories. Gaming, 30 stories. Perfectly balanced, as the bullet points demand. ▶
GRETA FOOTNOTE: So nobody is winning. A three-way tie, and somehow still a competition. ▶
DR. VERA VECTOR: Loudest words: Google, in 8 headlines. Und, 7 headlines. Die, 7 headlines. The market is mostly prepositions. ▶
GRANT BRICKMAN: Und and die, rising together. I'd buy both. That's the Hype Index, folks. ▶
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Real or PXL?
GRANT BRICKMAN: Correct! The real one is the typing minigame. Even I couldn't have made up bots and impossible words, and I wrote the fax manuals.
GRANT BRICKMAN: Oh dear! PXL made that trout one up. The real headline was the typing minigame, and yes, it sounds like ours.
GRANT BRICKMAN: Time's up! The typing minigame was the real one. We keep the trout in the archive.