Hello Reader,

If you live in Singapore, Malaysia, or Indonesia, this is a long weekend for you. As you spend time with your family and loved ones, I hope to leave you with some ideas to mull over.

Data centre bubble, or not?

Earlier this week, Alibaba's Joe Tsai, speaking at the HSBC Global Investment Summit in Hong Kong, warned of a potential AI bubble. In this case, he was referring to plans by US tech giants to pour hundreds of billions into building multiple massive data centre campuses.

However, it didn't help that Microsoft appears to be halting data centre projects left, right, and centre. Indeed, a report from Reuters this week said the company has scrapped data centre projects to the tune of 2GW over the last six months. It sure gets alarming. Is there a data centre bubble, or not?

I can't speak to global demand for AI data centres, but I might be able to offer some perspective around Microsoft's apparent reticence of late. Short answer: its relationship with OpenAI is on the rocks. In fact, they announced a separation in January - in plain sight.

I explain more in The reason Microsoft is cancelling so many data centre projects. Once you understand the overall plot, the various stories coming from Redmond will start making a lot more sense.

The thin line with AI

I attended SGTech's annual gala event on Friday evening. While trying to discreetly sneak away with another plate of desserts from the spread, who should I bump into but the head of a large local consulting firm.

Anyway, we got to talking, and I mentioned how I've previously recorded some podcasts with some of the leaders at her organisation. This sparked a conversation about the hypothetical use of AI to create podcasts.

Now, I know some of the AI experts at her firm, and I have absolutely no doubt they have the technical chops to do exactly that: clone a voice and generate a realistic audio recording from an official script.

But would that be authentic? Should it be labelled as AI-generated? And if it's not, does that risk breaking trust? Welcome to the era of AI, where we're faced with ethical decisions we've never had to make before.

From writing to storytelling

This brings me to my closing question this week. With AI, does it even make sense to, you know, do all the things it can do? Mind you, this list is growing alarmingly quickly. From writing and coding to cartoons and illustration, AI has lowered the barriers to entry across a growing number of fields.

And AI keeps getting better.

Is there a point to strive against the inevitable? Personally, I've made a decision to brush up my storytelling, because that's one thing that AI can't do competently. You can read about my thoughts on this in Why I'm writing more than ever in the era of AI.

Interestingly, Greg Isenberg of Late Checkout wrote something about human creativity in a LinkedIn post this week in respond to the release of the GPT-4o image generation update:

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"Execution is cheap, ideas are everything."

"I think we're heading toward a bifurcated creative world: automated beauty for most purposes, with human creativity focused on creating the unexpected, the ideas and approaches an AI wouldn't think to try because they don't follow established patterns of 'good design.'"

This isn't just about me though.

What are you doing to stay relevant in the era of AI? I would love to hear from you - just hit "reply" to this email.

Regards,
Paul Mah.

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