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What does a leaked Google memo reveal about the future of AI?

economist.com

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Re: What does a leaked Google memo reveal about the future of AI?

#11

Post by AnonymousPlanet »

scrollaway wrote: post #6
mdp2021 wrote: post #2

> AI burst into the public consciousness with the launch in late 2022 Because 70 years of named work based on centuries of interest and efforts can remain unseen if one really tries. /R > But easier access to AI also means bad actors will be able to fine-tune systems for nefarious purposes, such as generating disinformation. It means Western attempts to prevent hostile regimes from gaining access to powerful AI techn…

> Because 70 years of named work based on centuries of interest and efforts can remain unseen if one really tries. You’re really trying to be uncharitable eh? We’ve been talking about time travel for millennia. But I can guarantee you that if tomorrow we figure out a way for most people to actually reliably perform it and play with it, it will be defined as “bursting into the public consciousness”.

I must have overlooked all those conferences on time travel that are on the same level as, e.g., AAAI.

But yes, public perception is a different thing. Most people are totally baffled when I tell them that the first spam email was sent in 1978, because for a lot of people the internet (and with it email) popped into existence somewhere around 2004.

Re: What does a leaked Google memo reveal about the future of AI?

#12

Post by edgyquant »

scrollaway wrote: post #6
mdp2021 wrote: post #2

> AI burst into the public consciousness with the launch in late 2022 Because 70 years of named work based on centuries of interest and efforts can remain unseen if one really tries. /R > But easier access to AI also means bad actors will be able to fine-tune systems for nefarious purposes, such as generating disinformation. It means Western attempts to prevent hostile regimes from gaining access to powerful AI techn…

> Because 70 years of named work based on centuries of interest and efforts can remain unseen if one really tries. You’re really trying to be uncharitable eh? We’ve been talking about time travel for millennia. But I can guarantee you that if tomorrow we figure out a way for most people to actually reliably perform it and play with it, it will be defined as “bursting into the public consciousness”.

But we had a presidential candidate run on fears of AI in 2020, so that poster has a real point.

Re: What does a leaked Google memo reveal about the future of AI?

#14

Post by janalsncm »

I don’t know. If you define “AI” as having a great chatbot then probably no company has a moat anymore. But there are a lot more types of tasks which have nothing to do with that. Robotics, for one. Self-driving cars is another example. “AI” in the abstract is a meaninglessly vague concept but for all intents and purposes Google still has advantages over others in important areas.

Their perpetual disadvantage of course is comically poor product vision, which puts any of their actual advantages in jeopardy.

Re: What does a leaked Google memo reveal about the future of AI?

#15

Post by startupsfail »

MrScruff wrote: post #10
startupsfail wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does it matter what is the origin of that opinion? As long as it is a good insight into the situation and accurately reflects the state of affairs, it shouldn’t matter, right? And as to not being the leader at Google, this hardly matters. Being politically adept and leadership skills don’t necessarily correlate with having better feel and insights into the future technology. And not being the leader reduces filters,…

It matters because the memo as being portrayed as 'the opinion of Google' by websites looking for clicks. The opinion is as relevant or not as any opinion expressed on Hacker News, the fact that the person who expressed it works for Google is irrelevant.

Well, there a honest opinion of an unbiased engineer, ideally a researcher who was trained to filter his own biases, from the inside of the organization , speaking honesty is likely the best approximation that you can get for “an opinion of Google”.

It is important that the engineer is an insider, as from outside of Google access to its internal knowledge is limited.

Re: What does a leaked Google memo reveal about the future of AI?

#16

Post by mdp2021 »

scrollaway wrote: post #6
mdp2021 wrote: post #2

> AI burst into the public consciousness with the launch in late 2022 Because 70 years of named work based on centuries of interest and efforts can remain unseen if one really tries. /R > But easier access to AI also means bad actors will be able to fine-tune systems for nefarious purposes, such as generating disinformation. It means Western attempts to prevent hostile regimes from gaining access to powerful AI techn…

> Because 70 years of named work based on centuries of interest and efforts can remain unseen if one really tries. You’re really trying to be uncharitable eh? We’ve been talking about time travel for millennia. But I can guarantee you that if tomorrow we figure out a way for most people to actually reliably perform it and play with it, it will be defined as “bursting into the public consciousness”.

> time travel

Really not the same. Time travel is hardly achievable and has a crisp goal. Artificial Intelligence, on the contrary, has been producing results since the start, and there are (there have been) entire businesses based on it.

> uncharitable

I was being «uncharitable» in front of the depiction of "masses discovering with surprise things that would have been noted by exploitation of the information available (and never had been as available as it is today)", also because on practical terms I find this unawareness of the world socially dangerous.

Re: What does a leaked Google memo reveal about the future of AI?

#17

Post by oh_sigh »

startupsfail wrote: post #9
UncleMeat wrote: post #3

All the presentation of this has been weird. "Leaked Google memo" is true in a sense, but the doc was written by one person who isn't the primary leading force within relevant orgs at Google. The headline is more accurately described as "what does the opinion of one Googler reveal..."

Does it matter what is the origin of that opinion? As long as it is a good insight into the situation and accurately reflects the state of affairs, it shouldn’t matter, right? And as to not being the leader at Google, this hardly matters. Being politically adept and leadership skills don’t necessarily correlate with having better feel and insights into the future technology. And not being the leader reduces filters,…

Was any previously unknown info about Google leaked in the memo, that only an insider could know? If not, then why does it even matter that a googler wrote it? If "Anonymous" wrote the doc and uploaded it to pastebin, would you lend it the same credence you are to this doc?

Re: What does a leaked Google memo reveal about the future of AI?

#19

Post by ninth_ant »

startupsfail wrote: post #9
UncleMeat wrote: post #3

All the presentation of this has been weird. "Leaked Google memo" is true in a sense, but the doc was written by one person who isn't the primary leading force within relevant orgs at Google. The headline is more accurately described as "what does the opinion of one Googler reveal..."

Does it matter what is the origin of that opinion? As long as it is a good insight into the situation and accurately reflects the state of affairs, it shouldn’t matter, right? And as to not being the leader at Google, this hardly matters. Being politically adept and leadership skills don’t necessarily correlate with having better feel and insights into the future technology. And not being the leader reduces filters,…

It does matter, because Google is an important actor in this “industry”.

Even if it doesn’t represent a monolithic “googles thoughts on AI” it is interesting and newsworthy to consider how at least some folks who work at Google think about the recent developments.

If Google goes on a AI-everything spree and forces it awkwardly into all their products a la Google+ — this may indicate how and where AI will be useful to people (or not).

Re: What does a leaked Google memo reveal about the future of AI?

#20

Post by SoftTalker »

scrollaway wrote: post #6
mdp2021 wrote: post #2

> AI burst into the public consciousness with the launch in late 2022 Because 70 years of named work based on centuries of interest and efforts can remain unseen if one really tries. /R > But easier access to AI also means bad actors will be able to fine-tune systems for nefarious purposes, such as generating disinformation. It means Western attempts to prevent hostile regimes from gaining access to powerful AI techn…

> Because 70 years of named work based on centuries of interest and efforts can remain unseen if one really tries. You’re really trying to be uncharitable eh? We’ve been talking about time travel for millennia. But I can guarantee you that if tomorrow we figure out a way for most people to actually reliably perform it and play with it, it will be defined as “bursting into the public consciousness”.

And it would be, no normal person (i.e. the public) thinks about time travel in any regular, meaningful way.
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