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Bard and new AI features in Search

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Re: Bard and new AI features in Search

#501

Post by pleadthefifth »

ekanes wrote: post #281
asim wrote: post #224

People forget that Larry Page's ultimate goal was to have Google predict what you wanted before you even asked for it. This isn't about hype. This isn't about beating the competition. This is about delivering on a 3 decade dream that's now coming to fruition and Sundar just happens to be the one leading the org as it manifests in the real world. We're going to end up with 10+ vertically integrated AI solutions like t…

Meh. Enthusiasm about Larry Page's ultimate goals and dreams went out the window right about the time don't be evil went out the window.

I think Google was always "evil" however you define that. The plan from the start was to focus on the product, build the brand, and eventually switch to monetization mode like they are now. That's what the slogan meant, think long-term.

The founders still own >50% and make decisions, but the employees still act like Larry and Sergey are some founding fathers spinning in their graves. "_____ wouldn't have happened under them," oh yes it would, and it did.

Re: Bard and new AI features in Search

#502

Post by joegahona »

causalmodels wrote: post #349
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #304

Question for AI experts out there: ChatGPT is awesome, but it is obviously hamstrung by the fact that it crawled the web at the end of 2021, so all of its data is essentially "frozen" and it doesn't "know" of any topics that occurred after 2021. Seems to me like the next "holy grail" in large language models is building a model that can be continually updated. If Google can achieve that, I think they could leapfrog O…

Deepmind has been doing some interesting work around Retrieval Enhanced Transformers (RETRO) models [1] that might be relevant in this context. [1] https://www.deepmind.com/blog/improving-language-models-by-r...

> We call our method RETRO, for “Retrieval Enhanced TRansfOrmers”.

Wow. Talk about going through contortions to get an acronym.

Re: Bard and new AI features in Search

#503

Post by twblalock »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #304

Question for AI experts out there: ChatGPT is awesome, but it is obviously hamstrung by the fact that it crawled the web at the end of 2021, so all of its data is essentially "frozen" and it doesn't "know" of any topics that occurred after 2021. Seems to me like the next "holy grail" in large language models is building a model that can be continually updated. If Google can achieve that, I think they could leapfrog O…

The biggest challenge is going to be filtering out the data that was created by ChatGPT itself or the competing LLMs, which are going to flood the market (and create a flood of web content) in the next few years.

If they don't do that, they will create an AI that is essentially inbred.

Re: Bard and new AI features in Search

#504

Post by jiggawatts »

> taking another step forward by opening it up to trusted testers

Ah yes, the tried and true method used by Google for ensuring wide adoption, which they pioneered with Google Wave. Restricting adoption to a small group has never failed to ensure market success!

Re: Bard and new AI features in Search

#505

Post by paulcole »

twblalock wrote: post #503
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #304

Question for AI experts out there: ChatGPT is awesome, but it is obviously hamstrung by the fact that it crawled the web at the end of 2021, so all of its data is essentially "frozen" and it doesn't "know" of any topics that occurred after 2021. Seems to me like the next "holy grail" in large language models is building a model that can be continually updated. If Google can achieve that, I think they could leapfrog O…

The biggest challenge is going to be filtering out the data that was created by ChatGPT itself or the competing LLMs, which are going to flood the market (and create a flood of web content) in the next few years. If they don't do that, they will create an AI that is essentially inbred.

[flagged]

Re: Bard and new AI features in Search

#506

Post by iandanforth »

nestorD wrote: post #455
shawntan wrote: post #369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like the earlier responses said, if it is retrieving information from an external data source, that would be a much easier way to update things. REALM ( https://arxiv.org/abs/2002.08909 ) comes to mind as an example of active work in this area. Updating a monolithic LLM seems like a harder problem at the moment, and probably would fall under the umbrella of "continual learning", though that sub-field would have their…

Retrieval-based models have a number of strengths that make them particularly important from my point of view: - as said they can be updated with fresh information on the fly, - they can give you sources for their results (meaning that you can fact-check the output!), - they achieve similar performances for significantly smaller models (as long as you have a large dataset to retrieve from) meaning that they could run…

If anyone is tempted to do this, here is a good blog post on how to build your own retrieval-based LLM powered conversational agent.

https://dagster.io/blog/chatgpt-langchain

Re: Bard and new AI features in Search

#507

Post by devindotcom »

joegahona wrote: post #502
causalmodels wrote: post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Deepmind has been doing some interesting work around Retrieval Enhanced Transformers (RETRO) models [1] that might be relevant in this context. [1] https://www.deepmind.com/blog/improving-language-models-by-r...

> We call our method RETRO, for “Retrieval Enhanced TRansfOrmers”. Wow. Talk about going through contortions to get an acronym.

GRIFFIN takes the cake for me: "General compliant aerial Robotic manipulation system Integrating Fixed and Flapping wings to INcrease range and safety"

https://techcrunch.com/2022/12/20/this-autonomous-ornithopte...

Cool project though.

Re: Bard and new AI features in Search

#508

Post by paganel »

dougmwne wrote: post #293
killjoywashere wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think most people realize how much infrastructure separates something like ChatGPT from Google-scale deployment. OpenAI isn't suddenly building transoceanic fiber and datacenters near most major population centers. They aren't signing production-ready contract vehicles with most major OEMs and governments. And in the gap it would take a new entrant to acquire 10% of those assets, Google has 100,000 engineers…

You are missing the Microsoft partnership. MS has a 48% stake in OpenAI and provides all the infrastructure through Azure, including purpose built machines for model training. Microsoft has also launched GitHub Copilot, summarization features in Teams, and is widely reported to be adding GPT features to Bing.

MS cannot deliver successful stuff on the web at scale.

They can deliver unsuccessful stuff on the web at scale, they can deliver successful stuff that turns out to be inconsequential for their bottom line on the web in the long-term (AJAX came from MS), but it's just not in their DNA to take over the web. They had lots of chances to do it during the last 20 years or so, they had all the silver bullets at their disposal, they just couldn't deliver what it took.

Re: Bard and new AI features in Search

#509

Post by gretch »

generalizations wrote: post #419
wiremine wrote: post #232

I agree this is bland corporate speak. But it reminded me of a question that's been floating around: A number of pundits, here on HN and elsewhere, keep referring to these large language models are "google killers." This just doesn't make sense to me. It feels like Google can easily pivot its ad engine to work with the AI-driven chat systems. It can augment answers with links to additional sources of information, be…

Anyone else remember the beginnings of youtube? Google tried to compete with them, with their own Google Videos. It sucked - and I remember reading how the engineers running it couldn't even figure out why they lost. In the end, Google just had to buy their competition, because they couldn't figure out any other way to win. They've tried to compete elsewhere, too, and I don't think they've ever been able to make a go…

Disclosure: work at google

YouTube was founded in ~2005. Google bought it in 2006. It is now 2023.

YouTube has spent 2 years as its own company and 17 as part of Google.

Try to remember what YouTube functionality was in 2006. It was very different and has grown a lot.

The narrative that Google doesn’t know how to innovate YouTube doesn’t add up.

Re: Bard and new AI features in Search

#510

Post by pleadthefifth »

pphysch wrote: post #397
gchokov wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sundar did nothing but failed projects. Google is still where it was many years ago.

My Google phone can instantly translate almost any foreign language, embedded in an image, without an internet connection. Pretty sure that was not a thing 8 years ago. If/when Google embeds an (local and/or lightweight) Bard model into every Pixel phone, that will be a game-changer.

While cool, that's a feature, not a product. Sundar has not led the company on any new products that have succeeded. The chat apps failed, Meet/Hangouts/whatever lost to Zoom, Stadia got cancelled, etc. All their current cash cows made their names before him.

At least he didn't oversee the introduction of Google Plus, though.

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