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Bard and new AI features in Search

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Re: Bard and new AI features in Search

#741

Post by htrp »

thehappypm wrote: post #562
pleadthefifth wrote: post #510

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

He’s leading Google Cloud to strong growth, which is more important than something niche but innovative like Stadia.

Technically they poached Thomas Kurian from Oracle for that.....

Re: Bard and new AI features in Search

#742

Post by rezonant »

paganel wrote: post #628
moufestaphio wrote: post #524

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uh sorry what? Azure is the second largest cloud provider, well ahead of google.. That's like the definition of 'web scale' Not sure what decade you're stuck in here with comments about ajax

> Azure is the second largest cloud provider, well ahead of google. I explicitly mentioned the "web", as in, what we're doing right now on this website. Leaving aside the fact that Azure is mostly used big corporate/government entities, there's no web-startup that will potentially dominate the web and that would go into Azure just as.

What makes you think anything being discussed in this thread is specific to HTML and web browsers?

Re: Bard and new AI features in Search

#743

Post by [deleted] »

Mystery-Machine wrote: post #547
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…

Google cannot make a good SMS app for Android. They will never be able to launch a simple chat bot. What they will launch will be a monstrosity. The only Google AI product that people will use is any AI embedded within their existing apps and services...which is a great thing, but I wouldn't bet on Google being able to launch any new product that would have a decent UX.

[deleted]

Re: Bard and new AI features in Search

#744

Post by rezonant »

coredog64 wrote: post #454
HarHarVeryFunny wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't need to own your own datacenters to do this, anymore than someone like Netflix (who run on Amazon cloud) does. I'm sure any of the cloud providers would happily take the money of any company that had the $$$s to pay for it. The barriers to entry really don't seem that great... the tech behind ChatCPT is well understood and multiple similar things already exist from various companies.

AIUI, Netflix runs a lot of their business in AWS, but content streaming isn’t something they host in AWS.

Well they have those "last mile" boxes which they give out to ISPs to install close to the end users to improve performance (and reduce overall bandwidth needs), is this what you mean? Would love to read more about this if you have some links.

Re: Bard and new AI features in Search

#745

Post by [deleted] »

acdha wrote: post #723
lmeyerov wrote: post #708

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They don't have to. Ad & search dependent companies need to answer for themselves how to handle the coming disruptions. As an analogy, Kodak was a disruption opportunity, not a problem, for apple and flickr. Yes, maybe some content dries up -- no more stock photo sites -- but entirely unclear how important and they can wait to see how zombie companies adjust. Ex: ChatGPT encourages us to put more api docs online, not…

Google has already taken a lot of heat from increasingly keeping people on the search results page rather than sending them to the content providers. Chat interfaces are going to take that problem to the next level since they not only present someone else’s content but do it without linking to them. At some point that destroys the web as sites move behind paywalls. Google or Facebook giving you less revenue is still…

[deleted]

Re: Bard and new AI features in Search

#746

Post by yyyk »

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…

>what am I missing?

Google currently controls ~90% of the search market. AI-driven chat/search is a serious threat to this dominance. It's likely that after the market settles it won't have the same marketshare. Given how much Google has been dependent on Search/Ads and its other failures to execute, this is a serious revenue threat.

This industry (and site) does have a tendency to exaggerate and take a current trend too far. Google is far too massive to 'die'. I believe even keyword-based search will survive. But going from 90% to 50% will be bad for Google.

IMHO, the worst case realistic scenario is this: Google loses a lot of funds, is forced to close more unprofitable projects. This causes more lack of trust, and more projects are closed. Eventually Google is kicked down to a tier below Apple & Microsoft.

Re: Bard and new AI features in Search

#747

Post by Semaphor »

Denzel wrote: post #520
alain94040 wrote: post #388

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those new language models are "Google killers" because they reset all the assumptions that people have made about search for several decades. Imagine that people start using those chat bots massively as a replacement for Google search. Then the notion of keyword disappears. Google AdSense becomes mostly irrelevant. Of course, Google is a giant today with a history of machine learning innovation. So they have a good c…

All these conversations have one glaring omission. As it stands right now, ChatGPT is a net negative on the ecosystem it exists in. What does that mean? ChatGPT extracts value from the ecosystem by hoovering up primary sources to provide answers, but what value does ChatGPT give back to these primary sources? What incentivizes content creators to continue producing for ChatGPT? Right now, nothing. ChatGPT (or its des…

The preview is over, so I can’t link it, but Kagi had GPT3 assisted search, where the model would explain something and provide links and references. They are planning to integrate it into their search, can’t wait, it seemed useful.

Re: Bard and new AI features in Search

#748

Post by kromem »

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…

Way too many responses to your question are trying to engage with debate over products rather than focusing on the topic of monetization.

Google makes money through ads, and especially ads that get you to click through to somewhere else.

They do this through SEM ads that appear on your search query to direct you to a paid destination.

And they do it through a display network on 3rd party websites that Google search inevitably ends up funneling you to.

If you are simply engaging with an AI that's synthesizing those results so you don't have to, that's less time you spend on those sites seeing Google's ads, and less incentive to click through to paid results.

Their entire business model basically goes up in smoke if AI successfully intermediates the Internet.

This doesn't preclude them from competing, as you point out, but you generally don't want to see your cash cow get slaughtered and then suddenly be in a highly competitive market for what will replace it.

Having a 90% market share in the Titanic isn't an enviable position.

Re: Bard and new AI features in Search

#750

Post by rezonant »

Willish42 wrote: post #376
peyton wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Based on the busy mock-up in TFA I don’t think it’ll take 100,000 engineers to beat them.

What is TFA in this context? Does anyone have a link to to said "busy mock-up"?

Fred's right, it's "the f'ing article", as in RTFA (read the f'ing article) popularized afaik on Slashdot in it's golden age, which came from RTFM (read the f'ing manual), a popular response to a question that can be easily answered by reading the appropriate man(1) page or other such reference material.
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