Nike: Aliens, AI and a future market star?
Welcome to AI Collision đ„,
In todayâs collision between AI and our world:
Iconic brands now AI enhanced
Draining the worldâs energy supplies one ChatGPT query at a time
Wolverineâs kicks
If thatâs enough to get the aliens landing, read onâŠ
AI Collision đ„
Images are everything in advertising. Iconic brands can be defined by the logo that represents them.
For example, if I show you the following logos, you know the brand before I even have to tell you what it isâŠ
What is somewhat rarer than iconic brand logos, is an iconic person logo. Or in most cases, an iconic logo that represents a player.
To mind, thereâs maybe only two that fit this level of iconic-nessâŠ
If by chance you donât know those logos, the top one is Tiger Woods and the logo that represents his time with Nike (which has now ended, but thatâs another story).
And the last one there is the âJumpmanâ logo. Itâs the logo that represents Michael Jordan and the Jordan brand within Nike.
But thereâs another on the way, another that may end up as iconic as these logos, and maybe in time be up there with âJumpmanâ.
Itâs thisâŠ
Nike dropped this logo during the recent solar eclipse. Itâs said to be the logo for NBA rookie and much-hyped future star Victor Wembanyama, or âWembyâ as many refer to him as.
Rumour has it Wemby signed a $100 million-plus, multi-year deal with Nike. Which also means, thereâs going to be an entire range of Wemby shoes that Nike is going to drop sometime this year.
Back in 1985 Nike changed the entire market when it built a show specifically for Michael Jordan. The Air Jordan, also known as Jordan â1sâ, became arguably the most famous and iconic sought-after shoe in history.
Thirty-nine years later and we may be on the cusp of another iconic name/brand shoe hitting the market with the âWemby 1sâ.
Now whatâs all this got to do with AI?
Well Nike just released a whole bunch of prototype designs in Paris as part of its marketing push for its Olympic athletes.
The thing is, every image youâre about to see was designed in conjunction with the athlete⊠and AI.
The most prominent one on display is the size 21 shoe for the 7ft 4in Wembanyama.
Nikeâs press release explains:
In unskilled hands, AI can create designs that are full of generalities. But after listening to our athletes, we harness the conceptual power of AI and use it to get at the heart of what an athlete needs, creating a new working process. We can obsess over a product, and AI becomes a creative co-conspirator with us.
Nike (NYSE:NKE) is one of those iconic companies that is also a stock you can buy and invest in. Itâs certainly had its struggles from time to time over the years. However, itâs clear its future will certainly look to tap into new technologies to not just help design new products, but to enhance the products it ends up making.
Itâs not the first company you think of when you think AI, but itâs clear AI is on Nikeâs radar and part of its long-term strategy. As Nike puts it:
The future of design at Nike is not its tools. Itâs Nikeâs relationship to its tools, and the bridge those tools build to deepen the relationship between athlete and designer.
AI-designed Wemby 1s (whatever the final design may be) may end up being as big for Nike as the start of the Jordan brand. Maybe, just maybe, itâs AI that helps Nikeâs stock price head back higher and on to be a great stock to hold?
Time will tell, but at least this 50-year-old company is ready willing and able to innovate and adapt with the times. Which is exactly what youâd want to see from a company like this before you figure out whether to invest or not.
AI gone wild đ€Ș
9.66-times more energy draining than a simple Google search.
You might not think that a Google search would consume energy, but it does. Apparently it is 0.3 watt-hours of electricity.
So every time you go:
âCat videosââŠ
âCat on robot vacuum videosââŠ
âTwo cats on robot vacuum videosââŠ
Youâve just soaked up 0.9 watt hours of the worldâs energy.
ButâŠ
When you jump onto ChatGPT and you go:
âExplain the history of cat videos to meââŠ
âHow do I teach my cat to ride a robot vacuumââŠ
âExplain to me how to get rich from my cat riding a vacuum videoââŠ
Then youâre chewing up 8.7 watt-hours of energy. You are literally killing trees!
Ok, me too, but the point is the International Energy Agency reported, in January, that on average a typical Google search uses 0.3 watt-hours of electricity versus 2.9 watt-hours for a ChatGPT request. That is 9.66-times more energy thirsty than the regular Google search.
In short, an AI-enabled future is going to be fun, itâll be useful, helpful, it is a levelling-up technology like no other in history. But it comes at a cost.
A big energy cost.
Thatâs not to say that we should outlaw AI because it will consume all the worldâs energy stores. No, thatâs just ridiculous. But it does mean we need to be much more forward-looking about where our energy will come from in the future to supply the increasing demand we put on AI and the increasing demand AI puts on the energy grid.
Speaking at an âInternet of Thingsâ conference recently the CTO of Ceres Power (LSE:CWR), Caroline Hargrove said,
âWhat scares me is the energy consumption if youâre using ChatGPT,
â⊠as much as Iâm a big fan in using the data to really optimize everything, we should use it to reduce our consumption, but the perverse effect can happen when you have a new toy and, and people getting behind it at [such] a rate.â
Of course I think there will be solutions to this problem. And weâre already starting to see the market wake up to that fact as well.
You only need to look at the price of uranium over the last 12 months to get an inkling towards what kind of energy source AI is going to rely heavily on in the future.
And funnily enough, Sam Altman, arguably the cause for a lot of this AI energy demand anxiety, might even be the one that has a solution to it all.
AI helping to fix the problem that AI sorted, someone poetic in nature even if slightly robotic in nature.
Needless to say, as I wrote last week when talking about the idea of data centre-as-a-chip, the idea of every âchipâ coming with its own unique power source too is something Iâm going to dive deeper into in the coming months.
Think of it like thisâŠ
If you open up your PC, youâve got all the parts that make it work: the motherboard, CPU, GPU, fans (or liquid for cooling) hard drive, but youâll also have a power supply. In this instance imagine a data centre that comes with its own power supply too, which plugs directly into it and doesnât drain a single watt of energy from the grid, because it doesnât need to.
Thatâs a big idea, one that requires policy change, and a lot of development. But I certainly think thatâs the direction we are heading in, and that there will be a few companies to profit from it.
Weâll dive into those more in the coming weeks, but itâs certainly a wilder idea to keep back of mind for 2024 and beyond.
Boomers & Busters đ°
AI and AI-related stocks moving and shaking up the markets this week. (All performance data below over the rolling week).
Boom đ
Appen (ASX:APX) up 29%
Bigtincan Holdings (ASX:BTH) up 17%
DotDigital Group (LSE:DOTD) up 10%
Bust đ
iRobot (NASDAQ:IRBT) down 20%
Veritone (NASDAQ:VERI) down 30%
Gorilla Technology (NASDAQ:GRRR) down 34%
From the hive mind đ§
If Bill is worried about AI taking his job, then what hope do we have when there are world-dominating multi-billionaire AIs?
Remember how weâve been saying that big tech is going to take AI and corrupt it in only the way they canâŠmaking you pay through the teeth for it? Well, thatâs exactly what theyâre going to do and hereâs proof.
Drone warfare isnât anything new, just ask former President Obama. But AI-enhanced drone warfare? Still not new, but getting better and more accessible to all kinds of battlefronts.
Artificial Polltelligence đłïž
Interesting poll question last Thursday with more than a simple yes no answerâŠmaking you think we are!
The question was, âLooking forward ten years, who do you think reigns supreme as the “tech god” of the 2020s?â
And here are the resultsâŠ
Looks like Elon will be top of the table again for a whileâŠbut only just. Huang and Altman are breathing down his neck!
Weâll have a new poll for you on Thursday
Weirdest AI image of the day
Who flexes their Jordans the hardest â r/Weirddallee
ChatGPTâs random quote of the day
âThe advance of technology is based on making it fit in so that you donât really even notice it, so itâs part of everyday life.â â Bill Gates
Thanks for reading, and donât forget to leave comments and questions below,
Sam Volkering
Editor-in-Chief
AI Collision
