Google lays off hundreds working on its voice-activated assistant • Hacker News Board

Re: Google lays off hundreds working on its voice-activated assistant

#231

Post by autoexec » Thu, Jan 11, 2024, 9:36 AM UTC

rokkitmensch wrote: post #200

vineyardmike wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yea! A product that has become pervasive in most households in America, that does it's one task, and tries to do it well. The problem is that companies built out these organizations and marketed these products as the next step of computing after mobile, and it's just not that easy to monetize. My washer/drier, "all it can do" is spin clothes around and apply heat. I paid a lot more money for that "failed experiment".…

You might have enjoyed the reaction from the normies at a party recently when they figured out that my family doesn't have any voice control anything in our house and they started grilling my (comically, for the conversation, nontechnical) wife as to why. After much very polite dancing around the politics of "listen, it's just a personal choice and nobody here is judging anyone else, I just don't want my children pla…

> well it's listening, isn't it?

It's listening, and so are contractors and employees.

https://apnews.com/article/9000fd56f68043e48a2de8a08997a1fd

https://www.theverge.com/2019/8/7/20758491/microsoft-voice-r...

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/jul/26/apple-con...

Companies will pinky promise that it doesn't happen, and say all kinds of things about their security polices and access controls, but spying on people's homes is basically the entire point of these devices. What else would you expect when you bug your home with an internet connected microphone from a company who makes their money collecting as much information about people as they can, especially their most private data.

They're also collecting data on children, and even targeting kids. Companies like Microsoft and Amazon have already been caught and got nothing more than slaps on the wrist, but collecting kid's data is basically inevitable when the house is bugged and kids are intentionally playing with it.

Re: Google lays off hundreds working on its voice-activated assistant

#232

Post by ChildOfChaos » Thu, Jan 11, 2024, 9:45 AM UTC

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #137

modeless wrote: post #21

I don't use any feature of Google Assistant that wasn't present in the original Android voice search feature over a decade ago. And the few features I do use haven't improved in any way that I've noticed. In fact I feel like reliability has regressed. Google could have fired almost the whole team years ago and my user experience would not be different today. I consider voice assistants to be a failed experiment. It's…

I pretty strongly disagree. First, from an accuracy perspective, Google Assistant has gotten much better. It almost never misunderstands me, even when I'm mumbling and I'm surprised it can understand me. I do agree that the set of actions I use Google assistant for is pretty static and are the same ones everyone else uses it for: What's the weather? Set my alarm? What's the first item on my calendar? Play XYZ on Spot…

Google assistant is awful via the nest mini, I'd hard disagree that the accuracy has gotten better.

I ask it for the time and it quotes some article on wikipedia about what time is or various movies with time in the name.

I ask it to turn of the lights and it tells me 'power control is not supported yet' at least half the time.

It's gotten worse since I bought it, it never did this and that is with even the most basic of tasks.

Re: Google lays off hundreds working on its voice-activated assistant

#233

Post by ChildOfChaos » Thu, Jan 11, 2024, 9:49 AM UTC

modeless wrote: post #131

sokoloff wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the Alexa/Echo-category of devices are meant to be some widely flexible and pervasively useful device from Star Trek, they're a failure. If they're meant to be a usable $30 kitchen timer and music player, they're pretty great.

Google Voice Search used internal codename "Majel" in reference to Majel Barrett, who played the voice of the Star Trek computer. That was explicitly the ambition. It just didn't work out.

That might have been the initial hope of the team, before Google killed it. It's been on the graveyard for years with zero updates, my google assistance nest mini is arguably worse than when I bought it.

I believe it is possible to have made it better, but they didn't try, they just gave up, like much of google products.

Re: Google lays off hundreds working on its voice-activated assistant

#234

Post by usrusr » Thu, Jan 11, 2024, 9:50 AM UTC

danpalmer wrote: post #40

toomuchtodo wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sometimes better than random layoffs because someone needed to juice the stock price. https://www.businessinsider.com/google-layoffs-cut-jobs-exce... (“A major Alphabet investor said the company should cut even more jobs and address 'excessive' pay in the wake of mass layoffs”) (Edit: retracted an unnecessarily snarky statement) (I admit Congress needs to get its shit together)

Hey both of these suck for everyone involved, I was just trying to point out that government work is not without its own issues. You may be right about government jobs being more stable, you're certainly less likely to just lose your job. They do tend to pay significantly less though from what I've seen. I'm from the UK so while we do have layoffs, like much of Europe we have relatively good employment protections. T…

Not everyone involved, think of those poor investors!

Spot on about the contractors. The city I live in contains some of the larger data processing hot-spots of the German government (not so much in terms of large number-crunching server farms, but in terms of ever changing complicated business logic running at high volume) and there's a crazy number of consultancies serving that market and nobody else. But ironically those are the safest jobs nonetheless, because that demand could only ever go away in total state collapse.

Re: Google lays off hundreds working on its voice-activated assistant

#235

Post by phatskat » Thu, Jan 11, 2024, 9:54 AM UTC

Maro wrote: post #214

modeless wrote: post #21

I don't use any feature of Google Assistant that wasn't present in the original Android voice search feature over a decade ago. And the few features I do use haven't improved in any way that I've noticed. In fact I feel like reliability has regressed. Google could have fired almost the whole team years ago and my user experience would not be different today. I consider voice assistants to be a failed experiment. It's…

I have multiple Google Home speaker devices at home. My experience that about 1/3 of the time, even in silence, it does not understand simple commands like "Stop" or "Pause". Sometimes I say "Stop" and it interprets this as "Stocks" and starts reading out stock prices. The fact that it only works 2/3 of the time makes it a frustrating UX, I hate trying to "use" it. (First world problems..)

Yep, I’ve got a few speakers and it feels like a crapshoot. I pretty much only say “lights on/off”, “play rain sounds”, and “stop”. But the goog hears _something_ that translates to “playing lights53 on Spotify”, or “here’s what’s playing near you”. Usually in quiet environments too when it mishears me - oddly good at parsing stuff in noisy environments or low volume, if I’m talking (masculine voice) but my roommate (more femme) usually doesn’t get heard at all.

Re: Google lays off hundreds working on its voice-activated assistant

#236

Post by trashtester » Thu, Jan 11, 2024, 9:55 AM UTC

BLKNSLVR wrote: post #218

trashtester wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Building an AI stack to perform some task can often be budgeted as capex even where it would be opex if humans did it. Capex tasks can be considered to be either "Cheaper" (as they're investments, not expenses) or "Better", since they create long term value on top of the short term, depending on how you want to define your axes. When doing this budgeting, moving items from opex to capex in this way is mostly based on…

Opex to capex is a reverse machine that goes ping. And so the pendulum swings.

And while it swings, people get promoted or move to another company.

Re: Google lays off hundreds working on its voice-activated assistant

#237

Post by BHSPitMonkey » Thu, Jan 11, 2024, 9:58 AM UTC

toomuchtodo wrote: post #25

neilv wrote: post #22

So what's a good employer now, now that Google has been losing the reputation for treating employees well? (Multiple rounds of laying off people isn't treating only those people poorly, but also increasing stress for the people who remain, knowing they can suddenly be laid off as well.)

Federal government. No equity, but stability. Best place to take shelter during economic uncertainty or bearish conditions imho. Rode out the 2008 GFC at a DOE lab. https://www.usajobs.gov/

Stability, unless conservatives retake power: https://apnews.com/article/election-2024-conservatives-trump...

Re: Google lays off hundreds working on its voice-activated assistant

#238

Post by danieldisu » Thu, Jan 11, 2024, 10:05 AM UTC

usrusr wrote: post #234

danpalmer wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey both of these suck for everyone involved, I was just trying to point out that government work is not without its own issues. You may be right about government jobs being more stable, you're certainly less likely to just lose your job. They do tend to pay significantly less though from what I've seen. I'm from the UK so while we do have layoffs, like much of Europe we have relatively good employment protections. T…

Not everyone involved, think of those poor investors! Spot on about the contractors. The city I live in contains some of the larger data processing hot-spots of the German government (not so much in terms of large number-crunching server farms, but in terms of ever changing complicated business logic running at high volume) and there's a crazy number of consultancies serving that market and nobody else. But ironicall…

Working as a contractor for a public entity, I can't think of anything that I would like to do less than that...

Re: Google lays off hundreds working on its voice-activated assistant

#239

Post by mmmmmbop » Thu, Jan 11, 2024, 10:13 AM UTC

fnord123 wrote: post #188

vineyardmike wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yea! A product that has become pervasive in most households in America, that does it's one task, and tries to do it well. The problem is that companies built out these organizations and marketed these products as the next step of computing after mobile, and it's just not that easy to monetize. My washer/drier, "all it can do" is spin clothes around and apply heat. I paid a lot more money for that "failed experiment".…

> A product that has become pervasive in most households in America You think Google home has over 50% penetration?

Assistant is included on most Android devices nowadays.

Assuming smartphones in general have 90%+ market penetration, 42% market share for Android, and an average household size of 3, it seems reasonable to assume that 50%+ of households will have at least one device running Assistant.

Re: Google lays off hundreds working on its voice-activated assistant

#240

Post by trashtester » Thu, Jan 11, 2024, 10:13 AM UTC

fulafel wrote: post #224

trashtester wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A company that plans ahead a little can also relocate top talent BEFORE the layoff rounds start, and even relocate people they want to get rid of TO the part of the or where layoffs are coming. I'm sure some orgs stealthily start planning this months if not years ahead of such events, especially if they identify that they have unproductive people on board that are difficult to fire the regular way (like European empl…

Are there (m)any countries where they can't pay off an employee to resign?

I don't know of any countries where you're not allowed to make an offer.

But if you offer packages to people who are underqualified or underperforming for the terms they currently enjoy, it may require a very high sum to make them sign it.

And in markets where every job basically come with the same terms as academic tenure, people will be less worried that the company will play hardball and just fire them without compensation if the package is refused.

However, most if not all European countries allow layoffs, even though the terms of the layoffs may have to be approved by the union in a few places, or at least have the selection criteria for who gets laid off made public.

And if some department can be stuffed full of all underperformers, it can serve as a convenient proxy for performance to lay off mostly from that department, based on lack of profitability there.

I'm sure this happens in the US, too, at least if it turns out that a higher fraction of those on the way out belong to some protected identity group, which may easily be the case in tech companies where essential developers are disproportionality male and/or asian/white, while various support staff, account managers etc are recruited from a more diverse pool.