| I'm really curious about this. Hypothesis 1) Tik Tok believes AI/machine learning algorithms themselves are converging across fields, and the company is finding that its internal AI innovations can be applied to biology and materials sciences algos and, possibly, vice versa. We'll call this one the "data are data" hypothesis. Hypothesis 2) Tik Tok has decided that it's an AI company, not a content platform company. This is subtly different, as the locus of intersection between social media and materials sciences is in the company's human capital, not the algorithms used. Call this the "Data Scientists are Data Scientists" hypothesis. Hypothesis 3) Tik Tok, as an avatar of the CCP, is deliberately adding fuel to the narrative that its a national security threat, thus baiting Biden to shut it down, which would be hugely unpopular with one of his critical voting blocks. Call this the "Troll Biden" hypothesis. All of these hypotheses seem really important from a geopolitical perspective. If social media companies become our primary engines of applied sciences, that would be a pretty huge shift. If the CCP is using Tik Tok to use cultural popularity to play chicken in the trade war with the US government, that's a pretty major development as well. Any other ideas? Am I missing something obvious? |