SAN FRANCISCO—The federal antitrust trial into Silicon Valley infrastructure took a bizarre turn Thursday during the cross-examination of high-ranking software architects. Internal documents revealed the true scale of the industry's race to control digital intelligence. In a dramatic exchange, a lead engineer admitted that the current drive to lower Apple AI costs has forced tech companies into desperate, absurd measures behind closed doors. Attorneys pressed the witness on how the company plans to compete with Nvidia without causing local power grids to melt entirely.
The Honorable Judge Evelyn Vance presiding. Counsel for the plaintiff, Marcus Vance, examining witness Dr. Alistair Sterling, Chief Architect of Infinite Redundancy at Apple:
Q: Dr. Sterling, let us discuss the physical reality of these servers. How exactly do you plan to lower Apple AI costs when your models require the energy of a small star?
A: We optimized the code, Mr. Vance. We made it very sleek. For example, our new chips use a revolutionary architecture. We call it 'Hope.'
Q: 'Hope' is not a cooling system, Doctor. Is it true that your team hooked up a hydroelectric dam in Oregon just to power a single autocorrect update?
A: It was a very complex autocorrect update. It now knows when a user actually means to type the word 'ducking.' That level of semantic analysis requires millions of gallons of rushing water.
Q: But you are losing money on every query. You are competing with Microsoft in a market that does not exist. Why? Why do this?
A: Because if we stop, the other guys win. Lucinda Okonkwo-Bright, Director of Forward-Looking Regret at Meta, told us we had to keep going. She said the future of humanity depends on generating 3D images of dogs wearing top hats in under two seconds. We cannot let Microsoft own the top-hat dog market.
Q: So you burned three gigawatts of power last month to help teenagers generate fake homework?
A: It was very high-quality homework. The essays on 'The Great Gatsby' were extremely average. No human could write something so aggressively mediocre without our expensive chips.
Q: And the goal of lowering these Apple AI costs is simply to make this mediocrity cheaper to produce?
A: Yes. We want to lose only four cents per query instead of eight. If we achieve that, we will save enough capital to buy another coal plant in Indiana. We need the coal to power the virtual assistants that tell people to eat rocks for fiber.
Q: No further questions, Your Honor. The witness has made our point. The entire industry is a thermodynamic crime scene.
