[HN Gopher] Perplexity AI submits bid to merge with TikTok
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Perplexity AI submits bid to merge with TikTok
Author : ipster_io
Score : 27 points
Date : 2025-01-18 21:42 UTC (1 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (techcrunch.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (techcrunch.com)
| blackeyeblitzar wrote:
| Any action that lets the charade of TikTok continue - with its
| pretense that it isn't controlled by the CCP - is unwelcome.
| Honestly this makes Trump, Perplexity, and other bidders all look
| bad. I doubt any of them could provide sufficient assurances that
| TikTok isn't just one massive privacy invading democracy
| undermining psyop.
|
| See this exclusive story for some alarming details:
| https://dailycaller.com/2025/01/14/tiktok-forced-staff-oaths...
|
| If China agrees to open up its market to foreign social media,
| without censorship, then we can consider TikTok existing.
| voisin wrote:
| > one massive privacy invading democracy undermining psyop
|
| Sounds like Meta.
| blackeyeblitzar wrote:
| To an extent, I agree. I think TikTok is far more insidious.
| If you look at the agreements US based workers had to sign,
| to uphold goals of the Chinese government, the injection of
| state sponsored bias into their product seems pretty
| explicit. With Meta there have been both private censorship
| decisions (due to the bias of the company's own executive and
| employees) as well as pressure from the US government (see
| Biden administration back channels to request censorship).
| But even so, I don't think these are comparable in magnitude
| and extent.
| delusional wrote:
| I understand the argument that TikTok is credibly more exposed
| to demands from the CCP than American Social media. I'm not
| entirely convinced it's happening to an alarming degree, some
| collaboration with governments seem inevitable, but I'm also
| not unconvinced.
|
| I don't see how that in any way leads into an argument of "If
| China agrees to open up its market to foreign social media,
| without censorship, then we can consider TikTok existing." That
| sounds way more like a national capitalist argument than one
| for national security.
| Vervious wrote:
| tit for tat makes the U.S. more like the CCP, and less like the
| version of the U.S. that stands for freedom and democracy (that
| I presume you want to live in).
|
| if you want to live in an American version of china where
| instead of bytedance we have zuckagram, go for it. Chinese
| social media has vastly out-innovated American platforms and
| the Zuck/Musk response is to ban the competition rather than
| write a proper law regulating social media platforms
| ipster_io wrote:
| There is absolutely no difference between TikTok, Meta, Google
| et al.
| Yoric wrote:
| At this stage, I don't care whether TikTok, Meta or X is
| controlled by/controls a nation. They're just harmful.
| paxys wrote:
| What a circus
| vinni2 wrote:
| Perplexity sounds desperate. They got early traction and have
| money but they seem to be lost.
| minimaxir wrote:
| Less desperate, more "there is a point where we needed to stop
| and we have clearly passed it but let's keep going and see what
| happens."
| chvid wrote:
| Deeply unserious (like the rest of the TikTok saga) and TikTok
| even at a depressed price is worth far more than perplexity.
| xnx wrote:
| Disappointing that any real site is promoting this marketing
| stunt
| ilaksh wrote:
| Aravind Srinivas is very ambitious but also smart of course.
|
| TikTok has got to be an absolute gold mine for AI video training
| because of its short duration format and the amount of videos.
|
| And AI videos seem primed to absolutely explode in popularity and
| consumption. I don't have access to Veo 2 yet, but Kling 1.6 is
| pretty amazing, even if it's prompt understanding is a bit
| random.
|
| I wonder what the TikTok terms of use say about this.
|
| I am probably just a hopeless conspiracy theorist, but I wonder
| if this just comes down to the NSA getting full access to the
| code and operations for auditing purposes or if they decide they
| have their own agenda.
|
| I know that propaganda is a real thing, not a made up conspiracy
| theory, and companies like TikTok and Perplexity could be key to
| spreading/controlling it.
|
| In particular, it's difficult to run a war if almost everyone in
| your country is against it. Which might happen pretty quickly if
| the wrong video spreads.
|
| Maybe the solution to avoiding WWIII is for the (evil?) military
| industrial complex bosses in the west and China to get together
| and realize that they can more effectively surveil and control
| their populations if they work together. And then they can sell
| their weapons for purposes of persecuting smaller nations or
| groups that get out of line. And use the combined power of the
| monopoly information distribution companies in both countries to
| propagandize the world.
|
| There you go, I just solved world peace. You're welcome.
| jazzyjackson wrote:
| I see the demand for being able to produce content with 0
| effort, but where is the demand to consume it coming from? I
| thought people watch tiktoks to interact with people, the
| desire to engage with nonhuman personalities must be extremely
| niche, but could be I'm in a millennial/luddite bubble.
| 9283409232 wrote:
| People want to be entertained and distracted. Tiktok provides
| that in quick burst with an amazing algorithm that tunes
| itself to your interest very quickly. You never know what the
| next swipe will lead. It's a Skinner box on steroids.
| ilaksh wrote:
| That's a good point but there is also a lot more passive
| consumption than actual interaction.
|
| Also, AI video's IQ is generally pretty low now, but it still
| has the capacity to create very tailored experiences, such as
| with AI influencers automatically responding to every single
| comment from any viewer that donates X dollars. The are
| limitations to the digital avatars and video generation etc.,
| but they are already very engaging. And in the next 1-3 years
| they will get much better.
|
| Where we are headed in possibly 2-5 years is the expectation
| for many people that the personalities, activities, videos in
| general are completely customized for them or for the
| communities they are in. And change immediately based on
| their whims (or constrained by more realistic humanlike
| reactions if desired).
|
| LTX video can be fine-tuned to produce a consistent character
| and runs at realtime frame rates. It is a tiny 2b model and
| it's understanding of prompts and the world is garbage
| because of that, but hardware and models keep getting much
| much better.
| 9283409232 wrote:
| > I am probably just a hopeless conspiracy theorist, but I
| wonder if this just comes down to the NSA getting full access
| to the code and operations for auditing purposes or if they
| decide they have their own agenda.
|
| ByteDance already offered the US this and a seat on the board
| with the ability to veto any hire they deem suspicious. The
| real problem is that Meta and Google lost their market share to
| Tiktok and they are not happy about it.
| 0xCAP wrote:
| Perplexity at this point like that single uncle shooting his shot
| with anything breathing.
| dkobia wrote:
| Perplexity is a pretty awesome and much needed app, but Aravind
| Srinivas has many posts on X reek of a desperate need to succeed
| - scruples aside. To me that signals an inevitable
| enshitification.
| kissgyorgy wrote:
| It's a shame because Perplexity is BY FAR the most useful AI tool
| out there. This shows they have clearly no vision and won't be
| able to keep afloat.
| niedzielski wrote:
| they just acquired read.cv:
| https://techcrunch.com/2025/01/17/perplexity-acquires-read-c....
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