Adobe

Friday

Om Malik

Why we should stop worrying and learn to love AI

Whether on British television news panels or late-night TV in America, it is hard to get away from talk about artificial intelligence (AI). Even the president of the United States has weighed in on AI, introducing an "AI Bill of Rights." The popular thing is to amplify the current media narrative — that AI will render millions jobless. It will eventually become more powerful than humans and destroy its creators. Just Google “AI doomsday” and then run and hide under the covers. I will be the first to admit that all technology has a dark side. Email came with spam and scammers; mobile phones came with robocalls and endless tracking by companies like Facebook. Artificial intelligence, too, will be used for nefarious purposes.

Friday

Om Malik

What the Figma acquisition means for Adobe’s future

After three decades of watching Silicon Valley, I have concluded that a company’s slogan is the opposite of its intent. For example, Google used to say, "Don’t Be Evil." Or Facebook’s mission statements — well, they keep changing. Facebook wanted to “make the world more open and connected.” What they really meant was a “closed walled garden.” Adobe wants you to believe they’re a cloud company that sells software on demand. They say it in their every earnings release. Adobe sells desktop software grafted on the “cloud” to turn the old desktop software model that allows you to get paid once into a subscription business. It has turned them into a very profitable company — worth almost $175 billion in market capitalization. It is not a cloud-native company.