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Ex-Google boss Eric Schmidt: US 'dropped the ball' on innovation

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Re: Ex-Google boss Eric Schmidt: US 'dropped the ball' on innovation

#191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I definitely agree with your central point that anyone can use any ideology to endorse their own personal beliefs, but it also has to be said that giving the same weight to the feelings of a person versus actual fact, spoken by an expert, is the literal degradation of our society.

Many people lack the necessary expertise to recognize an expert when they see one. They thus are left to resort to authority as the proximate measure accessible to them to assess how much credit to assign to the opinions of a particular expert. To complicate matters, there are documented cases where in the past half century at least experts have be bought by special interest groups such as big tobacco etc. This erode…

It’s easier to set up a system to provide nonpartisan funding and review of scientific work than it is to have everyone read and source all of the research.

It’s also easier to set up an apolitical body that makes recommendations based on research than it is to have everyone draw their own conclusions or devolve into “blue science” vs “red science”

These are mechanisms that cultivate public trust, and there are countries that do a pretty good job at it.

Re: Ex-Google boss Eric Schmidt: US 'dropped the ball' on innovation

#192
post #72

Eric Schmidt is a household name around here. Doesn’t mean I give a damn about what he thinks. > Dr Schmidt, who is currently the Chair of the US Department of Defense's innovation board, said he thinks the US is still ahead of China in tech innovation, for now. “Invest in my next project now, before it’s too late!” is what I read it as. Edit: let me clarify. Innovation isn't zero-sum. I believe America is the most f…

The United States balances innovation with ethics ?

The people of Hiroshima or the victims of agent orange might have something to say about that.

Re: Ex-Google boss Eric Schmidt: US 'dropped the ball' on innovation

#193
post #150

A reminder that Google's revenues come almost completely from ad technology that they bought (from Doubleclick, IIRC). Google has stuck its fingers into hundreds of pies since then, to its credit, and has found that innovation is difficult, unpredictable, and expensive.

Search, Maps, Ads and Android are Google's most successful product. Android was bought at well.

And Search, Maps and Android are support products of Ads.

Re: Ex-Google boss Eric Schmidt: US 'dropped the ball' on innovation

#194
post #72

Eric Schmidt is a household name around here. Doesn’t mean I give a damn about what he thinks. > Dr Schmidt, who is currently the Chair of the US Department of Defense's innovation board, said he thinks the US is still ahead of China in tech innovation, for now. “Invest in my next project now, before it’s too late!” is what I read it as. Edit: let me clarify. Innovation isn't zero-sum. I believe America is the most f…

The United States balances innovation with ethics ? The people of Hiroshima or the victims of agent orange might have something to say about that.

How about we look at that quote with a bit of nuance?

Re: Ex-Google boss Eric Schmidt: US 'dropped the ball' on innovation

#195
Tangential, since this article is about the US and China. But if the US has dropped the ball, then Europe (or the EU specifically) didn't even bother to go to the game. The only thing we're innovative at is coming up with regulations. And I say this as someone who thinks the US tech sector should be under much heavier regulatory scrutiny.

Re: Ex-Google boss Eric Schmidt: US 'dropped the ball' on innovation

#196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The United States balances innovation with ethics ? The people of Hiroshima or the victims of agent orange might have something to say about that.

How about we look at that quote with a bit of nuance?

I think that quote could use a bit of nuance itself (albeit, yeah, maybe bringing up Hiroshima like that does set off Godwin's Law alarm). China can develop datasets on millions (billions?) of people and, yes, given the current state of AI research, that can give them an edge, and I am, too, of the opinion that it's better to not have this edge than to develop it at such an expense in human lives and well-being.

So where is the scientific answer to that? Is there any serious additional research effort, and more industrial effort, going into models that are less reliant on training data, for example? What industries are trying to become less dependent on massive data collection, and on massively data-driven models?

You can still get heaps of money with a product that can be aptly described as "it does linear regression with sugar on top and it'll tell you great things if you throw more than 100GB of tables at it". Selling an analytics SaaS that sucks up data from every imaginable data source to tell you things about your Google Analytics graphs is still a pretty profitable business. On the other hand, serious researchers in academia, and a lot of talented engineers, are struggling to get funding for topics that do not have the magic words "machine learning", "data-driven", and "AI" in them, and they mostly go ignored because everything can be solved with enough data.

Re: Ex-Google boss Eric Schmidt: US 'dropped the ball' on innovation

#197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The United States balances innovation with ethics ? The people of Hiroshima or the victims of agent orange might have something to say about that.

How about we look at that quote with a bit of nuance?

I’m willing to hear your nuanced take on how America balances innovation with ethics.

It’s the very same innovation that is used to wage wars that have destabilized whole regions and led to the deaths of millions. Or the same military force that is used to implicitly backstop dictators that have carried out some of the worst genocides of this century.

I’m not sure this is what balancing ethics looks like.

America is innovative. Sure. America is god gifts to humanity the most ethical and innovative civilization we couldn’t do without ? No.

Re: Ex-Google boss Eric Schmidt: US 'dropped the ball' on innovation

#198
post #72

Eric Schmidt is a household name around here. Doesn’t mean I give a damn about what he thinks. > Dr Schmidt, who is currently the Chair of the US Department of Defense's innovation board, said he thinks the US is still ahead of China in tech innovation, for now. “Invest in my next project now, before it’s too late!” is what I read it as. Edit: let me clarify. Innovation isn't zero-sum. I believe America is the most f…

The United States balances innovation with ethics ? The people of Hiroshima or the victims of agent orange might have something to say about that.

Do you actually think damages caused in actual wars are somehow comparable to those in peace time technical development? What do you really mean by that?

Re: Ex-Google boss Eric Schmidt: US 'dropped the ball' on innovation

#199
post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, it is hard to reason with you on your opinion, since anybody who doesn't echo what you say would be just classified by you as a member of this group and his opinion automatically dismissed. And this wouldn't even make you doubt yourself, since "half the people you know are buying into that stuff" already and you seem to be pretty confident that it is them who are fools buying into some cheap nonsense, not you…

> I feel like there are some pretty good reasons to hold opinions you probably find so ridiculous that it isn't even worth your time to consider them I am curious about these opinions. Care to share some?

It's not that I wouldn't like to share some, but this question is simply too generic for me to be able to answer it like that.

Re: Ex-Google boss Eric Schmidt: US 'dropped the ball' on innovation

#200
post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Search, Maps, Ads and Android are Google's most successful product. Android was bought at well.

Search and Streetview is the only true Google-Product, everything else was copied or a buy from others.

Gmail started as an internal 20% project too, I think. The key elements of GCP were also developed in-house. But yeah, a lot of their good stuff started as an acquisition.

(Disclosure: I was a Googler for a few years, joining through an adtech-related acquisition, and a Google intern one summer several years before that. But I haven't worked for Google in over five years.)

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