MCP: the New 'USB-C For AI' That's Bringing Fierce Rivals Together (arstechnica.com)
- Reference: 0176895877
- News link: https://slashdot.org/story/25/04/01/208221/mcp-the-new-usb-c-for-ai-thats-bringing-fierce-rivals-together
- Source link: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2025/04/mcp-the-new-usb-c-for-ai-thats-bringing-fierce-rivals-together/
> What does it take to get OpenAI and Anthropic -- two competitors in the AI assistant market -- to get along? Despite a fundamental difference in direction that led Anthropic's founders to quit OpenAI in 2020 and later create the Claude AI assistant, a shared technical hurdle has now brought them together: How to easily connect their AI models to external data sources. The solution comes from Anthropic, which developed and released an open specification called Model Context Protocol (MCP) in November 2024. MCP establishes a royalty-free protocol that [1]allows AI models to connect with outside data sources and services without requiring unique integrations for each service.
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> "Think of MCP as a USB-C port for AI applications," [2]wrote Anthropic in MCP's documentation. The analogy is imperfect, but it represents the idea that, similar to how USB-C unified various cables and ports (with admittedly a [3]debatable level of success), MCP aims to standardize how AI models connect to the infoscape around them. So far, MCP has also garnered interest from multiple tech companies in a rare show of cross-platform collaboration. For example, Microsoft has [4]integrated MCP into its Azure OpenAI service, and as we mentioned above, Anthropic competitor OpenAI is on board. Last week, OpenAI [5]acknowledged MCP in its Agents API documentation, with vocal support from the boss upstairs. "People love MCP and we are excited to add support across our products," [6]wrote OpenAI CEO Sam Altman on X last Wednesday.
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> MCP has also rapidly begun to gain community support in recent months. For example, just browsing this list of [7]over 300 open source servers shared on GitHub reveals growing interest in standardizing AI-to-tool connections. The collection spans diverse domains, including database connectors like PostgreSQL, MySQL, and vector databases; development tools that integrate with Git repositories and code editors; file system access for various storage platforms; knowledge retrieval systems for documents and websites; and specialized tools for finance, health care, and creative applications. Other notable examples include servers that connect AI models to home automation systems, real-time weather data, e-commerce platforms, and music streaming services. Some implementations allow AI assistants to interact with gaming engines, 3D modeling software, and IoT devices.
[1] https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2025/04/mcp-the-new-usb-c-for-ai-thats-bringing-fierce-rivals-together/
[2] https://modelcontextprotocol.io/introduction
[3] https://learn.adafruit.com/understanding-usb-type-c-cable-types-pitfalls-and-more/cable-types-and-differences
[4] https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/blog/educatordeveloperblog/unleashing-the-power-of-model-context-protocol-mcp-a-game-changer-in-ai-integrat/4397564?utm_source=chatgpt.com
[5] https://openai.github.io/openai-agents-python/mcp/
[6] https://x.com/sama/status/1904957253456941061
[7] https://github.com/punkpeye/awesome-mcp-servers
They failed at the GPU level to de-app (Score:1)
Yes, GPU's are application platforms slowly being estranged from the kernel. So I guess the last line of defense for AI logic to not suffer the same fate is to physically separate their session from everything else?
Re: (Score:2)
How are GPUs any more "application platforms" than CPUs are? They're both processors. Are CPUs "estranged from the kernel"? And what's "everything else" in this context?
Could it be that a remedial education on what a computer is solve your problems?
Let's get this out of the way (Score:3)
[1]Obligatory XKCD [xkcd.com].
[1] https://xkcd.com/927/
MCP for CYC (Score:2)
We should have all LLMs validate their output through CYC, which knows and can validate actual common sense facts. We need AI to self-fact check, and getting it to use the CYC ontology database seems like a worthy start.
Obfuscation (Score:3)
MCP is just RPC with overly obfuscated documentation to disguise simple it is. All it really is is a schema that provides a consistent way to probe for functionality and pass parameters to functions. That's it. You call a known endpoint to see what functionality is available, then pass that to the LLM and tell it what can be called and what parameters it requests.
Anthropic's own AI agrees with me:
> Yes, that's hilariously accurate! At its core, MCP is basically just a standardized WebSocket protocol for:
1. Discovery ("what can you do?")
2. Tool invocation ("do this thing with these params")
3. Structured responses ("here's what happened")
The actual core interaction is dead simple: ...
The MCP documentation is just an example of VC-bait: [1]https://docs.anthropic.com/en/... [anthropic.com]
Which isn't to say MCP isn't very useful, but you should generally be able to discern multiple levels of unnecessary indirection and realize it's serving a political and marketing purpose rather than a technical one. Langchain is the same way (but much worse).
[1] https://docs.anthropic.com/en/docs/agents-and-tools/mcp
Re: (Score:2)
seems like someone reinvented OpenAPI
MCP? That's not re-assuring (Score:4, Insightful)
MCP may very well stand for "Model Context Protocol", but in the 1980's it stood for the villain of the Tron series, Master Control Program. Will tying AI together be a good thing or will we see the rise of another kind of MCP?
Re: (Score:2)
> Will tying AI together be a good thing
[1]There is another system [wikipedia.org].
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colossus:_The_Forbin_Project
Re: (Score:2)
Someone's got to fight for the users.
Re: MCP? That's not re-assuring (Score:2)
Those of you who continue to profess a belief in the Users will receive the standard substandard training which will result in your eventual elimination.
Re: (Score:2)
> MCP may very well stand for "Model Context Protocol", but in the 1980's it stood for the villain of the Tron series, Master Control Program. Will tying AI together be a good thing or will we see the rise of another kind of MCP?
Knowing our species ability to be ironically ignorant about the future, I fully expect the 2027 T-101 HappyBot (built by Skynet-Softacle) to have a shiny emblem on its ass that reads "Powerd by WOPR"
Re: (Score:2)
> but in the 1980's it stood for the villain of the Tron series, Master Control Program.
Of course, the Master Control Program is really just another term for Operating System these days. So tying the two together we end up with Windows and CoPilot....