Dana Blankenhorn

Atlanta

Freelance Writer at Freelance

Freelance writer, journalist, futurist. Novels and analysis. Rice '77, Northwestern Medill '78 Mastodon: @[email protected] Atlanta, GA

Articles

Why Tech Switched Sides

Jan 16, 2025 | danafblankenhorn.substack.com | Dana Blankenhorn

Big Tech companies switched political sides in 2024 because they’re scared. They’re deeply involved in the Great Game of AI and don’t want anyone to tell them what they can or can’t do. (Illustration from Canva.)The Great Game has existed in tech since before I became a reporter. From operating systems to GUIs, from web browsers to Cloud, technology has run on the 90-9-1 principle. The winner gets 90% of the new niche’s profits, the second player gets 9%, and everyone else scrambles.
Open Source Will Eventually Win AI

Dec 11, 2024 | danablankenhorn.com | Dana Blankenhorn

A hallmark of today’s AI Bubble is that proprietary solutions are leaving open source in the dust. The arc of OpenAI, from an open source foundation to a profit-hungry business, is often used to illustrate the point. The investment required to build AI models, and the potential profits, have kept open source out of the game. The closest LLM to open source is Meta’s LLaMA, and as I’ve been saying repeatedly, it’s not open source at all.
What is AGI Anyway?

Dec 9, 2024 | danablankenhorn.com | Dana Blankenhorn

Billions of dollars are being invested today in Nvidia data centers and software, aiming at something called Artificial General Intelligence (AGI). AGI is the “Holy Grail” of ChatGPT, of Grok, of Gemini and Claude. The claim is that AGI can replace people, reasoning better on any problem than you and I do. The goal is both nonsense and has long been achieved.
Everything Is Not a War

Dec 6, 2024 | danablankenhorn.com | Dana Blankenhorn

Historically, we Americans have a habit of seeing adversaries as larger than they are, their weaknesses as strengths we should emulate. This was true for Iraq in the 1990s, for Japan in the 1980s, and for the Soviet Union through the Cold War. There were Americans who wanted to copy Nazi Germany in the 1930s, and who thought the Confederacy would win in the 19th century. We’re still doing it. Take this piece from supposed “deep thinker” Noah Smith.
When Will The AI Boom Bust?

Dec 5, 2024 | danablankenhorn.com | Dana Blankenhorn

The AI stock boom that began two years ago passed another test this month, as enterprise software companies reported big results. Salesforce.com and ServiceNow (right) both reported great quarters. I expect Adobe will do the same. These companies produce the software big companies use to compete. They’re saying customers are buying AI-based applications with both hands.
Fiets Don’t Fail Me Now

Dec 4, 2024 | danablankenhorn.com | Dana Blankenhorn

Fiet is the Dutch word for bicycle. They do have bicyclists in the Netherlands, spandex-clad road warriors who think nothing of a 100 km ride on a cold morning. But those are cyclists, not fietsers. For decades I was a cyclist riding my yellow Romic road bike frame, with its Shimano and Campagnolo hardware, all around Atlanta on the weekends. But as I aged it all became too much.
The Worst Transit System in America

Dec 3, 2024 | danablankenhorn.com | Dana Blankenhorn

It’s MARTA, which claims to “serve” metro Atlanta, but doesn’t even serve the city. (Shown is the mostly-empty south parking lot at the East Lake MARTA station.)It wasn’t supposed to be this way. When I moved to my present home in 1983, it was to be near the train station that still sits a few hundred feet from my door. My wife used MARTA for decades until the COVID pandemic, with a few interruptions when the kids were little.
What The World Needs Right Now

Nov 27, 2024 | danablankenhorn.com | Dana Blankenhorn

Wars are unhealthy for economies and other living things. Peace, even an uneasy peace, is healthier for the economy. This includes trade peace. The old order of good vs. evil has fallen, since Americans chose evil. This offers opportunities for a world defined by spheres of influence. America would dominate the western hemisphere, China the east. Europe would have to fend for itself. It wouldn’t be quite that simple, but trade barriers need to come down, not go up.
China Won the War Against Oil

Nov 26, 2024 | danablankenhorn.com | Dana Blankenhorn

With America choosing, stupidly, calling oil “energy” it’s time to admit that China won the War Against Oil. (Illustration from ChatGPT.)China’s industrial policy of subsidizing entrepreneurs and withdrawing subsidies when companies become world class won over America’s alternating laissez-faire and corporate subsidy approach. Not only was China’s policy more consistent, it was more entrepreneurial, because letting people fail is a hallmark of true capitalism.
India is Winning the AI Future

Nov 25, 2024 | danablankenhorn.com | Dana Blankenhorn

While the U.S. and China focus on enormous AI models that won’t deliver value, India is going another way. The digital economy there is worth $1 trillion and is the back office of U.S. tech. . The domestic economy is worth $3.5 trillion and is growing at 7%. There are a host of successful Indian ex-pats to emulate. The leaders of Microsoft, Google and Adobe are all Indian American. About 10% of U.S. tech companies are Indian-led, and companies they run have a market cap of $6 trillion.