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Google is screwed, even if it wins its antitrust case

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Re: Google is screwed, even if it wins its antitrust case

#51

Post by jayd16 »

SCHiM wrote: post #24
smoldesu wrote: post #4

But Alphabet will probably be fine. YouTube and Android are still billion-user products that aren't being displaced with AI, and their advertising business doesn't seem threatened much by this either. So what's the scoop? I use ChatGPT, it hasn't replaced my search engine. They're insisting that search is obsoleted with AI (and Google is spooked internally) but I have yet to see any research-based evidence supporting…

I recently asked gpt to give me a markdown table of the continents, their landmass and their populations. I checked the numbers and they matched wikipedia. Google gave me listicles instead...

Why didn't Wolfram Alpha disrupt Google? GPT is just passed a threshold of user friendliness?

Re: Google is screwed, even if it wins its antitrust case

#52

Post by warcher »

Can somebody explain to me the existential threat AI is posing to the search business?

I am familiar with ChatGPT composing reasonable sounding answers to prompts. I get that I could type in "what's the best vacuum cleaner under $500?" or something like that, and both Google and ChatGPT could generate an answer for me.

But I want the best, most accurate answer, not a set of banalities that a neural network has composed to convincingly pass the sniff test. I actually care about the content being right, or as close to right as possible.

I admit freely that I'm clearly missing some possibilities here. Can anyone fill me in?

Re: Google is screwed, even if it wins its antitrust case

#53

Post by thinking4real »

gjsman-1000 wrote: post #6

Sometimes, I wonder if for the sake of small business and general good, if horizontal integration should be heavily regulated and restricted for publicly traded companies (not private ones). For example, Apple. Why aren't the software and hardware divisions separated, at a minimum? Furthermore, I might wonder, why couldn't iPhone, iPad, Mac, Audio Accessories etc. be separate companies? Sure, you'd lose a ton of the…

I tend to agree with you, or at least the sentiment of “not perpetual growth”, but I think then we run into the problem that the US might lose dominance in various industries to countries who won’t throttle their corps like that

Which maybe isn’t the worst. Maybe we’d see an exodus of the rats in our own govt and leadership as they chase their efforts into the new world leaders.

Maybe this is the end stage of capitalism and while it was a good experiment to get us into worth surplus it comes at the cost of liberty. Maybe at some point we just need to tweak the entire economic system into the next era.

Re: Google is screwed, even if it wins its antitrust case

#54

Post by crazygringo »

The article doesn't seem to back up its headline at all.

Google is under antitrust investigation for ads, while it talks about the threat to the company being AI. The main point of the article is:

> It would be a lot easier Google could move fast and break things... But with the full force of the US government bearing down on it, the search giant can’t do that now... Google will need to conduct itself slowly and tentatively in order to avoid jeopardizing itself in its battle with the Justice Department.

Sure it might need to move more slowly in its ads business (not a good time to buy an ads-related startup). But I see no evidence Google will need to act "slowly and tentatively" in terms of incorporating chatbot functionality into Search.

So I don't see anything "screwing" Google about this at all, not in the least.

Re: Google is screwed, even if it wins its antitrust case

#55

Post by jayd16 »

zone411 wrote: post #38

I think the opposite: Google will do great. Google+Deepmind's ML research groups are leading everyone. While it's true that they are late in getting something like ChatGPT to market, I think it was a wakeup call and it will be good for their ad revenues once they do. When they release it, they'll know much more about users' intent than from a simple search engine query and users will stay on their properties for long…

Are they even late to market? I don't think the lunch has been eaten yet.

Re: Google is screwed, even if it wins its antitrust case

#56

Post by aejnsn »

lordnacho wrote: post #46
jchw wrote: post #14

Google is probably screwed without it. Even if ad-tech isn't exactly a bubble, I strongly believe it is overvalued even still. Furthermore, the product that made their name is thoroughly lost. I dread Google Search today. If I found something on Google yesterday, I have no idea if I'll be able to locate it through the sea of blog SPAM and SEO garbage tomorrow. Google web search strongly favors big websites when somet…

I use search for coding a lot, and lately I've noticed it's hard to find what I'm after. If I'm looking for some small thing like what an sftp command looks like, I don't want an SEO essay about why SSH is great and we should all use encryption. I just want the example line. This seems to be what ChatGPT can give me. It doesn't always work, but it also doesn't beat around the bush.

100%. I have found it sooo difficult to trace framework/library documentation down that 3-4 years ago was first few results. Something has ruined their algorithm.

Re: Google is screwed, even if it wins its antitrust case

#57

Post by alexb_ »

AI is not the issue here. There is this very large assumption that just so happens to underpin a VERY large part of the tech industry, not just Google. It is assumed that ad spending will always be worth it, ad revenue will always increase, and that the market for digital advertising and targeted digital advertising in particular will always be large enough to support the behemoth that it is today.

But what happens when marketing spend goes down (as it does in a recession)? What happens when customers aren't willing to pay as much for your advertising product (as happens in a recession)? What happens when borrowed money can't be secured easily, and debts come due (once again, as happens in a recession)?

Are people really ready for an economy where user data isn't massively lucrative? Are people really ready for an economy where advertising doesn't pay enough to support the "free" services we take for granted? Are people really ready for a world where free video hosting, free hard drives, free email, free cloud-run office software are not sustainable?

Re: Google is screwed, even if it wins its antitrust case

#58

Post by dragonwriter »

crazygringo wrote: post #54

The article doesn't seem to back up its headline at all. Google is under antitrust investigation for ads , while it talks about the threat to the company being AI . The main point of the article is: > It would be a lot easier Google could move fast and break things... But with the full force of the US government bearing down on it, the search giant can’t do that now... Google will need to conduct itself slowly and te…

> Google is under antitrust investigation for ads,

Its under antitrust investigation for lots of things; its currently being prosecuted in the US for ads.

Re: Google is screwed, even if it wins its antitrust case

#59

Post by cpeterso »

minsc_and_boo wrote: post #21
titzer wrote: post #9

I'm not so sure AI is as big a threat as Google perceives it to be; back in 2009 the HUGE EXISTENTIAL THREAT was Social, therefore Google+, but that came and went and Google's growth continued unabated. That said, I do see a place for language-model driven search. And I shudder to think that language models will be specifically coerced, bribed, and have ingrained in their brains only what advertisers want. If you tho…

The article also assumes that Google doesn't have it's own chatGPT or other AI irons in the fire right now. Google Assistant dropped a year after Alexa, and Android's reach helped bolster it's marketshare (antitrust investigation or not).

Like Google's LaMDA: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LaMDA

Re: Google is screwed, even if it wins its antitrust case

#60

Post by Karunamon »

randmeerkat wrote: post #42
smallerfish wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Almost a meme at this point: > I am not trying to suggest Duck Duck Go or Bing are actually better overall Kagi is, however. Well worth putting your money where your mouth is and supporting them.

So, I googled Kagi, found their link… Not only is it required to create an account to use their service, they want a credit card to bill as well! Hard pass.

Yes, as a paid service who directly sells their primary product rather than a data mining, anti-privacy homunculus whose most famous product is merely a means to an end, an account and payment is required. This is strictly better than Google.
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