One AI to rule them all 🧙‍♂️💍🧝🏻‍♂️🧌🌋

Welcome to AI Collision 💥,

In today’s collision between AI and our world:

• Lord of the Rings fans you think?
• OpenAI’s most terrifying model yet
• Krabs Nirvana

If that’s enough to get the LOTR fans naming companies, read on…

AI Collision 💥

According to The Lord of the Rings Wiki:

The palantíri (singular palantír), also known as the Seven Seeing-stones, or the Seven Stones (numbered for those in Middle-earth), were spherical glass-like or translucent stone objects used for communication and intelligence gathering.

Intelligence gathering is the crucial part there because it’s the closest representation of what publicly listed company Palantir does.

Now you might think the company name Palantir and the Lord of the Rings seeing stones share a very similar name.

That’s no coincidence.

The company was named after them for these very reasons. Its technology is all about data collection and analysis. And while Palantir has many different partnerships and contracts with major global organisations, it’s its deep ties within the US government, spy agencies and military that keeps this company spinning higher.

We’ve written about Palantir a few times now in recent months. That’s mainly because the company’s stock price continues to climb, the rise of AI continues to explode into the mainstream and the company itself is fast becoming the go-to company at the intersection of defence and AI.

Its founder and CEO Alex Karp is outspoken, brash and obsessively focused on growing the company. To get some insight on where his mind is at with the company and US defence, the video below is worth your time.

With an understanding of where he sees the direction of the US heading, and the direction of Palantir, and when you see partnerships like the one we noted on Tuesday with drone defence company Anduril Industries, the mind can’t help but think: is Palantir the most important defence company in the world now, and the most important AI company?

Interesting side note… according to The Lord of the Rings Wiki,

Andúril, also called the Flame of the West and the Sword Reforged, was the sword which was reforged from the shards of Narsil in Rivendell.

It was the sword of Aragorn II Elessar, heir of Isildur.

That’s right folks, the fast-growing drone defence company is also named after a Lord of the Rings item of great significance in the Tolkien books.

Apparently, this is common in Silicon Valley.

Anyway, I think both of these companies are ones to watch. Palantir continues to make great strides forward with the development of its AI in its data business. And while Anduril is private for now, I’m expecting it to IPO in 2025.

I think the Trump administration will end up pro AI and drone defence in its military strategy to, a) promote innovation and development in this industry as a growth engine for the US, and b) getting US troops out of harm’s way.

Exacerbating this is the fact that it’s said Trump has already had words with Lockheed Martin’s CEO about cancelling F-35 contracts such is the wastage they see in that programme.

Considering that’s about $1 trillion Trump might save and to think it might get redirected (or at least part of it) to something like an AI drone defence programme… Yep, I can definitely see that coming.

Palantir, Anduril. Keep these two front of mind. I think 2025 is going to be big for both.

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AI gone wild 🤪

OpenAI has just released its latest language model, o1.

Already the fear is setting in that it’s its most “dangerous” model yet.

Why? Because it lies. And because it’s very well aware of the idea of self-preservation.

Think about that for a moment. An AI that would do anything to protect itself and keep itself alive. AI that would lie, cheat… steal?

That does sound dangerous. And the rumours are that o1 is part of why OpenAI became so fragmented and split over the last year internally.

Is it the AI that’s going to flip the switch on Skynet?

Probably not, but it is worth paying attention to how it develops, and what it is capable of achieving or lying to us about in the coming weeks and months.

Until then, or until we really know more, it does seem at least very capable of reasoning, and of helping people build bird boxes…

Boomers & Busters 💰

AI and AI-related stocks moving and shaking up the markets this week. (All performance data below over the rolling week).

Boom 📈

• Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) up 18%
• Alphabet (GOOG) up 12%
• Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) up 6%

Bust 📉

• Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA) down 4%
• AMD (NASDAQ:AMD) down 10%
• AeroVironment (NASDAQ:AVAV) down 22%

From the hive mind 🧠

• Very good video here about how AI is going to upend the gaming industry, particularly around the creation of worlds… in real time!
• Ah! Looks like I can finally get access to Apple Intelligence. Watch this space. I’ll download it and test it out. Hopefully it doesn’t brick my Mac and then I’ll put it through its paces. Siri, you’re dead to me.
• Is this the AI equivalent of the “Old Man Yells at Bitcoin” meme? I guess it would be “Old Man Yells at AI” instead.

Artificial Polltelligence 🗳️

With an increasing shift for military and defence companies into the realm of AI in modern warfare does that make the idea of investing in companies like Palantir, Anduril (if they IPO), Lockheed, BAE, RTX, etc. more or less enticing?

Weirdest AI image of the day

Mr. Krabs selling bootleg Nirvana CDs outside the Krusty Krab – r/weirddalle

ChatGPT’s random quote of the day

Thanks for reading, and don’t forget to leave comments and questions below,

Sam Volkering

Editor-in-Chief

AI Collision