The semi-boom is back, and now its a full-semi-boom

25th January 2024

Sam Volkering

Jan 25, 2024

Welcome to AI Collision 💥,

A vast, dystopian warehouse filled with thousands of human workers, each busy at their own station, feeding data into endless rows of computers. The setting is bleak and oppressive, yet paradoxically vibrant and colorful, reflecting the dichotomy of a dystopian world reliant on human labor to satisfy the ceaseless hunger for data by AI models. The atmosphere is one of organized chaos, with a sense of urgency and resignation in the workers' demeanors.

In today’s collision between AI and our world:

Millions of workers training AI
AI and blockchain and beyond bitcoin
Apple’s AI EV in 2028?

If that’s enough to get the data recording in a block, read on……

AI Collision 💥 AI powered by slave labour

One of the more interesting stories that has permeated through the AI channels in the last week has been about Google not renewing a contract with AI training provider Appen (ASX:APX).

In short, Appen, which was a darling stock of the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) through the 2010s (it peaked in 2020 over $40), has endured something of a crisis in the last couple of years.

The stock now trades under 40 cents and, with Google deciding it doesn’t want to work with Appen anymore, well, the stock took a hiding over the last week.

Now here’s the interesting thing…

Appen has been a crucial and key part of helping Google’s AI, Bard and now Gemini to learn.

Here we are thinking that AI is this omnipresent self-learning technology phenomenon, but the reality is a very different story.

You see, when I say Appen is a training data company, that means it provides AI models with data that helps them to learn.

It’s like reading a book to a toddler and pointing out the words as you read so they can identify the word with the sound and with the image in the book.

Except now amplify that out to millions of teachers. That’s what Appen does. It brings freelancers together to provide the training data to AI models.

In other words, it does a task like identifying a car among pictures of motorbikes and gets paid for it.

Sounds delightful. I expect there’s been rumours and reports floating around for a while that the pay per task is in the cents bracket. As in a couple of cents per task.

With the ongoing financial shakiness of the company, complaints about pay, worker issues and, of course, losing key contracts like that with Google, the company’s future looks troubled.

But this is no overarching critique of what Appen has or hasn’t done over the last couple of decades. Truth be told, while it’s been an important part of machine learning and large language models to get to the point it’s at today, perhaps an AI training data company isn’t as relevant today. AI is now learning from the internet and the huge surge of data that’s lumped into them daily since the 2023 mania around generative AI.

However, this does lead to an interesting question.

Namely, what do we do with AI training data? Where should it come from? Where does it come from? And how do we know that the training data that AI is leaning on in the future is to be relied upon and trusted?

We’ve thought about the questions in AI Collision 💥 previously and, for now, we don’t have the answer. But there’s a growing theme around the idea of using blockchain technology to record AI training data.

Due to the immutability (can’t be changed) nature of a blockchain and also the ability to record data on a blockchain, you can record data at any given moment in time and enshrine it there forever. A true, accurate and verifiable record of data.

In using that for AI training data, we could always return to and analyse the data relied upon to find out if it was indeed accurate and if the outcomes it led to were correct or based on erroneous data.

I won’t lie, it does sound complex. But if you want a piece of technology that is great at recording data and keeping it stored for history’s sake – and you’ve got a huge new technology that needs data recorded in an open and identifiable way – well, it does feel like AI and blockchain might just be the perfect match for each other.

🤝

By the way, speaking of blockchain things… you may be interested in a live webinar that I’m hosting tonight at 7pm (UK time).

I’m going to be talking about the two major catalysts in the bitcoin and crypto markets that I believe are priming the market towards a new bull market that I think is going to reach all-time highs in 2024.

I’ll also be explaining how I’m using our AI-enabled engine – what we call our Predictive Analytics Machine (PAM for short) – to make trades in the market with the aim of capitalising on what I see as one of the biggest thematic investment trends of the decade (along with AI, of course).

As I say, it will be live (I’ve locked the cat upstairs so he doesn’t walk all over my keyboard and knock over my webcam) and we will be taking questions from the audience which I will be answering live.

So if you’re at all keen on hearing what I’ve got to say and want to see me in action on a livestream, then you can click on the image below to register. I hope to see you on the attendee list (and you can give a shoutout for being an AI Collision💥 reader!).

AI gone wild 🤪

Is there a reason that Nvidia traded over $615 for the first time ever just in the last week?

A reason why Taiwan Semiconductor’s stock price chart looks like this?

And why Super Micro Computer’s stock price chart looks like this?

Why yes. There is a very good reason the “semi boom” is back.

AI.

The semiconductor market is roaring back to life after what I’d call a bit of a “blip” in the early parts of 2024.

And now it’s going bonkers again.

Make no mistake, the AI theme was strong in 2023 and will be strong (if not stronger) in 2024. And it’s going to see a host of companies on a tear higher.

These three? Maybe.

But we know that things are certainly only going to get more AI-enhanced in the coming years. That’s why these companies are ripping higher – their products and their necessity for an AI-enabled future is critical.

We’ll also start to see AI come through in other ways too.

Rumours abound that Apple’s much-anticipated foray into cars is still coming and that the company plans to release a self-driving electric vehicle (EV) in 2028.

If that’s true, you can read that as AI-enabled EV in 2028. If Apple starts to really push the pedal to the floor (albeit in a self-driving car, that’s somewhat redundant) then I think you’ll really start to see the AI-focused hardware market explode.

Boomers & Busters 💰

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

man in black suit jacket and black pants figurine

Boom 📈

Cyngn (NASDAQ:CYN) up 20%
Taiwan Semiconductor (NYSE:TSM) up 14%
Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA) up 10%

Bust 📉

Appen (ASX:APX) down 38%
Amesite (NASDAQ:AMST) down 8%
iRobot (NASDAQ:IRBT) down 33%

From the hive mind 🧠

SAP restructures, 8,000 jobs on the line… AI potentially to disrupt the company. And the stock goes up.
I never expected to link to the Vatican News on here. But I guess when the Pope is commenting on AI, we should at least link out to it!
Had you used this for our guest essay writer at the end of 2023, “Chet Geepeetee” I wonder if it would have flagged his content? Well, at least now with AI, we can identify AI.