Super Micro’s Latest Misstep, OpenAI’s Erotica, and Tech Sexpionage

Life is a midway funhouse, but the carnies who run it are cruel bastards. No matter what they put you through — and it’s a lot — laughter always provides a refreshing tonic. With our sense of humor intact, let’s consider some recent developments.

Super Micro’s Latest Surprise

Amid our speculative trade in fairground metaphors, we discover that Super Micro Computer continues to provide a white-knuckle rollercoaster ride for its investors. In the latest development, the company slashed its revenue outlook for its fiscal first quarter after some customers delayed delivery of their orders.

If you were an investor in the company’s shares, you might be inclined to forgive this slip. Then again, perhaps you wouldn’t. If you’re in the latter camp, that’s probably because Super Micro now has a well-established predisposition to inadvertent self-sabotage. The stock is up on the year, kept afloat and sailing on the shimmering seas of AI server demand, but shares fell sharply after the company reported its latest misstep. The Wall Street Journal, covering the latest twist in the Super Micro narrative, made reference to previous incidents:

Super Micro has been mired in problems. The beleaguered company in August tempered its fiscal-year outlook, citing order delays.
Earlier this year, Super Micro filed two quarterly reports from 2024, as well as its annual report for that year, with the Securities and Exchange Commission, bringing it back into compliance with financial reporting requirements and removing an issue that had hung over the company for months.
The filings came after Ernst & Young last year resigned as Super Micro’s auditor, as the Big Four accounting firm cited that it could no longer rely on the company’s representations and didn’t want to be associated with financial statements prepared by its leadership.

If you go back further into the company’s history, you’ll find other procedural and organizational indiscretions.

Super Micro is a company that, in many respects, succeeds despite itself. Yes, it’s in the right market at the right time with the right product, but the company’s execution occasionally verges on self-immolation. There have been many surprises (not the kind you want) in Super Micro’s corporate history, and past performance in this instance might be indicative of future misadventure.

Just in Time for the Holidays:“Dirty ChatGPT”

Speaking of misadventure, OpenAI (which is not open) announced last week that it would begin offering “mature content,” including erotica, to age-verified users beginning in December. That’s just in time for the holidays. Said the always-festive Sam Altman, OpenAI’s CEO:

"As we roll out age-gating more fully and as part of our 'treat adult users like adults' principle, we will allow even more, like erotica for verified adults," Altman wrote in a post on X on Tuesday.

Maybe they should brand the mature offering “Dirty ChatGPT.” You know, I try not to judge, but propositioning a bot, and then presumably engaging in “bot sex,” is perhaps a little outré, no?

I’m assuming here that Altman presumes to generate revenue from the adult-oriented service. Will he charge by the hour? Am I wrong in suspecting that Dirty ChatGPT might reinforce the alienation, isolation, and loneliness of those who use it? These people will be exchanging lubricious repartee with a bot, not with another consenting adult partner. Is there a risk that these people, who might already struggle to achieve and maintain human contact, will become even more withdrawn? From OpenAI’s perspective, I suppose that’s somebody else’s problem, a question for others to answer. OpenAI needs the money.

Ahh, the money. That leads us to further conjecture about "Dirty ChatGPT" (not its real name). Why announce the chatbot red-light district now? To me, the announcement is a red flag as well as a red light.

Much concern has been expressed recently — perhaps you’ve heard? — that the AI craze is a speculative bubble, one perilously close to bursting. When OpenAI unveils a chatbot Reeperbahn, one can be forgiven for thinking that the company’s braintrust might be getting anxious about the robustness of other revenue sources, such as more conventional consumer services and its enterprise customers. In the latter camp, there’s anecdotal evidence — that’s all we’ve got now, unfortunately, with hard data thin on the ground — that business is slower than anticipated and that other genAI services are more auspiciously positioned among enterprise customers willing to sign purchase orders.

If we step back and consider the long view, the advent of "Dirty ChatGPT" could mean nothing, little, or something. Whatever it portends, the timing seems odd.

Founder Architect Engineer Spy

While we’re on the subject of sex — I’m like the Daily Mail today, a purveyor of innuendo and prurience — the Times (UK) ran an entertaining feature article last week about the rising incidence of sexpionage in Silicon Valley. The upshot is that China and Russia are allegedly sending attractive women to the Bay Area to exfiltrate data and trade secrets from smitten, unsuspecting male technologists.

This sort of thing does happen, so I’m reluctant to make light of it. (Well, not that reluctant.) Shortly after the article kicks off, we find this paragraph:

James Mulvenon, the chief intelligence officer of Pamir Consulting, which provides risk assessments for American companies investing in China, said he was one of the many men recently targeted by foreign seductresses hoping to gain access to US tech secrets. “I’m getting an enormous number of very sophisticated LinkedIn requests from the same type of attractive young Chinese woman,” said Mulvenon. “It really seems to have ramped up recently.”

I’ve received these LinkedIn requests, too, nearly every time I’ve written anything that involves the intersection of China and technology. I’m onto these spies, though, and I have access to a mirror. They’re not reaching out to me because I look like Timothée Chalamet. (Spoiler alert: I don’t look like Timothée Chalamet.)

At any rate, my would-be interlocutors — assuming they might be involved in the practice of covert intelligence — are way off course when they come knocking on my digital door. My chucklehead is bereft of trade secrets.

The article goes on to explain that “sex warfare” is just one aspect in a whole-of-society approach to espionage that targets trade secrets and technology assets. Some of those other tactics are discussed in the article. Even so, the newspaper knew that the sex angle was the best hook to entice readers.

Besides, one can easily imagine the following conversation at a hotel bar after a trade show or conference in Silicon Valley:

Mysterious young woman: “Is this seat taken?”
Male Tech Founder: “No, please feel free.”
Mysterious Young Woman: “My, I couldn’t help noticing that you are physically strong, ruggedly handsome, and mathematically proficient. Do you work in the tech industry?”

The repartee gets worse from there, but you get the drift. In some ways, it’s comforting to think that at least a few real-world spies might be as preposterous as the characters who inhabit the cinematic world of Austin Powers.