4min chapter

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Musk’s OpenAI Bid, Sam Altman’s Roadmap, Apple + Alibaba

Big Technology Podcast

CHAPTER

Apple and Alibaba: Navigating Ethics and AI

This chapter explores the ethical and commercial nuances of Apple's partnership with Alibaba, focusing on AI advancements and the challenges of censorship in China. It examines the implications of this collaboration for Apple's strategy, supply chain dynamics, and overall growth in the Chinese market.

00:00
Speaker 2
Yeah, I think there's the ethical side of it. There's the commercial side of it. I mean, I think the ethical side of it, obviously, AI is something before selling a device that you can then, the apps will do whatever they need to do, gave Apple a bit of wiggle room. And we just selling the device. If the apps are censored, that's fine. Versus at the core device level, now we are engaging in censorship and we are playing this game. It's not a great look, but, I mean, they have to do something. At a commercial level, so I think, again, they have to do this. And separating out my feelings about Apple intelligence relative to the American product that I do have my hands on, I don't know that this is, I mean, when you think about DeepSeek coming out, when you think about just AI advancement in China, the idea that Alibaba is somehow going to help solve this for Apple in that market rather than, as we said, or it's just kind of a sensorial level to the overall process, that doesn't make sense to me either. I get they have to do this. I don't think this is going to turn around their situation in China anymore. I mean, if I'm them, I'm a lot more worried about just trade and supply chains right now than sticking Apple intelligence and partnering with Alibaba on the iPhone. Yeah,
Speaker 1
I'm the same way. I mean, I was on CNBC this week and they asked me about it and I was like, look, if you believe that Apple intelligence is a game changer, then this makes a big difference. But if you believe that Apple intelligence has been underwhelming and you're not sure whether Apple intelligence is going to really change the bottom line for Apple, clearly we didn't see a super cycle with the iPhone 16, which you and I predicted, then, you know, you say, okay, this is a nice incremental move, but not much more. And that is really where I land on it.
Speaker 2
Yeah, I think it'll be very, I mean, Apple in China, I think actually will be one of the more interesting stories this year. And this is actually going to be one of the smaller parts of it. But again, from the supply chain side, from the chip side, from the pricing side, from the domestic sales side of the Chinese consumer actually buying iPhones versus switching to other equally good or better phones. I think it was such a growth story for so many years for them. And it's still the growth expectations are baked into the stock price right now that I think that is something that could dramatically change in the coming months.
Speaker 1
i'm ready to have the the butt in this story the butt is that it really does signify that chinese ai is really taking leaps and we knew that a little bit with deep seek or a lot with deep seek um but the interesting nugget here is that apple tried to work with baidu last year to get this done and just couldn't Now Alibaba, it has this open source model, Quen. It's good. And Apple has finally said, okay, this is a model that we can work with and they're going forward. So that's a big moment here for Chinese AI. But
Speaker 2
do you believe it's a technology driven decision or it's even more, they understand it's more a geopolitics slash trade driven decision that they understand they need a big name friendly partnership to stay in China, to keep selling in China, to bring AI onto their devices in China.
Speaker 1
I think it's tech. I think it's tech because they did have Baidu. In there, they couldn't get it done. Baidu couldn't get it done. So now they have a company with a leading AI model that can get it done. And I think that's just a signal. I could be wrong.

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