We have just reported in the past couple days on eye-watering billions being dropped on AI infrastructure by Meta and others…now comes Anthropic, announcing plans to drop $50 billion on custom data centers in Texas and New York. Cnbc.com reports that the facilities are being developed in partnership with Fulidsack…an AI cloud platform that supplies large-scale graphics processing unit (GPU) clusters to clients like Meta, Midjourney, and Mistral. Anthropic is also planning to build out several other locations…but these will be live in 2026 if all goes well. The AI firm said they would create some 2,000 construction jobs and about 800 permanent jobs. Meanwhile, arch-competitor OpenAI has locked up some $1.4 trillion in long term infrastructure commitments. We are in the crazy money spending stage of AI infrastructure building apparently. 

Apple has rolled out Digital ID…in beta at least.. it’s a way to carry your passport on your iPhone or Apple Watch that is useable at TSA checkpoints. According to techcrunch.com, up to 250 airports will allow this for domestic travel. A number of states already allow a version of driver’s licenses to live in Apple Wallet. Note that it isn’t intended to replace your physical passport. Also, for international travel, you will still need the real thing…no way to stamp your phone at this point…although a digital way to do that might be possible. The TSA website has a list of states that support mobile ID, by the way. 

This is maddening for artists and musicians, but according to music streamer Deezer, a huge majority of people can’t tell AI generated music from the real thing…composed and performed by actual humans! Gizmodo.com notes that Deezer did a joint survey with Ipsos, and queried 9,000 people across eight countries: the US, Canada, Brazil, the UK, France, the Netherlands, Germany, and Japan. Sadly, 97% of those surveyed couldn’t tell the difference. 80% of participants did say that AI generated music should be clearly labeled. Deezer already does this. As of September, the streamer found that 28% of music uploaded to its platform was completely AI generated. Of course the AI is trained on the actual works of real musicians…so it could be thought of as a type of theft of intellectual property…but copyright laws are unclear about this right now. 

So you are headed out for a little getaway and have rented an Airbnb. When you get there, you are gonna need groceries. Well now, Airbnb is testing out letting you order them either ahead of time or upon arrival using Instacart. Engadget.com reports that Airbnb will give hosts who do the ordering $25 for every completed order, so long as the food is put away before the guests arrive. Customers will be able to place orders on Instacart up to 3 weeks before their stay. The service is being tested out in Phoenix, Orlando, and LA.

I’m Clark Reid and you’re ‘Technifled’ for now.