US vs. Google amicus curiae brief of Y Combinator in support of plaintiffs [pdf] • Hacker News Board

Re: US vs. Google amicus curiae brief of Y Combinator in support of plaintiffs [pdf]

#121

Post by azemetre » Sat, May 10, 2025, 3:38 PM UTC

bionhoward wrote: post #100

Google is David and OpenAI is Goliath, excessively nerfing Google will put us all at the mercy of closed AI. Gemini (the app, not the API or AI studio) is one of the few places where we can use frontier generative AI without a “customer noncompete” (you know, the one where they compete with us and then say we’re not allowed to compete back) … if you use Claude or OpenAI or Grok, you’re prohibited from training on you…

Really odd that the trillionaire dollar corporation that prints billions of dollars in pure profit every quarter due to monopolistic and anti-democratic policies is the David, the weak feeble underdog in this story, compared to OpenAI that is wildly unprofitable and has no real strategy outside of burning money.

There has been no time in human history where destroying monopolies were a bad thing.

Re: US vs. Google amicus curiae brief of Y Combinator in support of plaintiffs [pdf]

#122

Post by bubblethrow » Sat, May 10, 2025, 3:39 PM UTC

hu3 wrote: post #49

These are the key points as I understand them: Amicus curiae (friend of the court) brief is being submitted by Y Combinator to pile on the US vs Google anti-trust case. YC asks court to basically cripple Google in their Search, Advertising and AI endeavours: - Open access to Google's datasets and search index. - Restrict Google's expansion into AI through monopolistic practices. - Limit Google exclusive agreements an…

Call me paranoid but I wonder if YC is acting as a proxy for OpenAI/Sam Altman here. To frame it differently would they behave similarly if OpenAI was a Google Subsidiary / or Google was run by Sam Altman.

Re: US vs. Google amicus curiae brief of Y Combinator in support of plaintiffs [pdf]

#123

Post by jeroenhd » Sat, May 10, 2025, 3:40 PM UTC

dghlsakjg wrote: post #93

callc wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You certainly have a point. Places like google and bell labs have pushed innovation, apparently enabled by monopolies. I would rather we don’t allow monopolies since they are so bad for society, regardless of some benefits. Government funded research and private investment are still a thing, that doesn’t try to break the whole capitalism thing.

> You certainly have a point. Places like google and bell labs have pushed innovation, apparently enabled by monopolies. I've heard this argument before (and recognize that you aren't defending it), but telecommunications, network and technology innovation has hardly suffered since Bell was dismantled in 1982.

Telecommunications is still led by small groups of companies. Giant backbone providers stitch the internet together. Telecoms providers within a country, the ones that actually have hardware in the field, can often be counted on one hand, and often in one hand after a fireworks accident. 5G/6G/7G research is led by a small handful of companies that actually build the switches, transmitters, and modems. Cell tower frequencies are sold to a tiny group of carriers that sublet their network equipment to smaller companies they eventually buy up (if succesful) or disappear from the market (if not succesful).

Fiber rollout in countries where a government funded phone line rollout has already succeeded is laughably slow, taking decades and many billions with little to show for it. Even in countries where no phone lines were rolled out back in the day, fiber is more and more being skipped as 5G allows for cheaper (though less reliable and less capable) deployment.

I'm not saying monopolies are good or anything, and I think our problems would be even worse had we stuck to the monopolist systems that brought us telecoms as we know it, but I wouldn't consider the industry one where there's enough competition to drive innovation, especially since at least half of the entire sector is competing against Chinese government-controlled companies with seemingly endless coffers.

Re: US vs. Google amicus curiae brief of Y Combinator in support of plaintiffs [pdf]

#124

Post by derektank » Sat, May 10, 2025, 3:40 PM UTC

chpatrick wrote: post #39

bloppe wrote: post #31

Google is the reason for the current AI boom. Without the transformer architecture they invented by funding basic research, there would be no modern LLMs. YC is arguing that their incentive for funding that basic research should be taken away in order to spur innovation?

You can do basic research without being monopolistic.

Yet empirically, the biggest funders of basic research have historically been monopolies. The US government was, at least up until the last few months, the largest funder of basic research globally and it obviously maintains multiple different monopolies, a monopoly on legal use of force, a functional monopoly on financial transactions as the global reserve currency, and I'm sure others. Excluding national governments, Bell Labs and IBM were both probably the biggest funders of basic research in the last century during their respective heydays. Bell was obviously a monopoly and while IBM might never have faced anti-trust penalties, they did at one point control 70% of the mainframe market and the DoJ did bring a case against them (that was eventually dismissed by the Reagan administration.)

I think there are many good reasons to pursue anti-trust action against companies that are in a dominant market position, but we should be honest about the tradeoffs. Businesses that have to aggressively compete to maintain market share don't have the slack to fund basic research.

Re: US vs. Google amicus curiae brief of Y Combinator in support of plaintiffs [pdf]

#125

Post by drivebyhooting » Sat, May 10, 2025, 3:40 PM UTC

lolinder wrote: post #110

xnx wrote: post #58

Google is a "monopoly" because their competitors with massive cash reserves (Microsoft, Apple, Meta) are too risk averse to compete in the marketplace and are hoping that the courtroom will deliver them a win.

Which market are you talking about specifically? The outstanding cases against them are in search and in adtech. This amicus brief is for the Search case (this one [0]). In search (the relevant market here), Microsoft does compete in the marketplace, and Microsoft's evidence that Google's anticompetitive practices have prevented them from gaining any meaningful ground in search were a keystone of the government's cas…

Bing has a brand problem.

Re: US vs. Google amicus curiae brief of Y Combinator in support of plaintiffs [pdf]

#126

Post by NitpickLawyer » Sat, May 10, 2025, 3:40 PM UTC

the_duke wrote: post #4

Key quotes: > "Our experience has been that entrenched monopoly power often deters new entry and chills investment in disruptive innovation." > "independent venture-capital firms like YC often hesitate to fund startups in the “kill zone” —the area of deadened innovation around a monopolist like Google." > "We agree with Plaintiffs' proposal that the remedy package should create pathways for startups and innovators to…

> I think they have a good point with AI. After lagging behind initially, Google really went at it hard. Gemini is great now, and they are building a good set of tooling.

> It's easy for Google to suffocate the startups in that area. They already have a massive advantage with all the data they are sitting on.

What is the solution, though? Should they not be allowed to compete in the LLM + search space? Should they handicap their models till perplexity &co. catch up? Will they be allowed to do something then? I honestly don't see what's asked of google here.

Yes, they are massive. But they're massive because they've invested billions ($, manhours, etc) into their infra and have gathered a huge baggage of data, know-how, tech and expertise in this field. But what exactly are they to do from now on?

Re: US vs. Google amicus curiae brief of Y Combinator in support of plaintiffs [pdf]

#127

Post by azemetre » Sat, May 10, 2025, 3:41 PM UTC

jrmg wrote: post #60

ldjkfkdsjnv wrote: post #53

This is just a few rich venture capitalists, and the harvard trained founders they back, trying to line their own pockets. AI will democratize search regardless

AI will democratize search regardless What do you mean by this and how will it happen?

It usually means that they will somehow rat fuck the public commons for monetary gain.

Democratic software means three things:

1. Can you understand it

2. Can you influence it both now and after your death

3. Can you destroy it

I don’t see how any of these things apply to AI, I’m sure it will make some people incredibly wealthy at the expense of others.

Re: US vs. Google amicus curiae brief of Y Combinator in support of plaintiffs [pdf]

#128

Post by notimetorelax » Sat, May 10, 2025, 3:41 PM UTC

sdenton4 wrote: post #101

jeroenhd wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's true, but if it weren't for Google's monopolist position, I doubt they'd have the money to throw at the wall for random research. For every AI transformer they revolutionized, there's a self-driving car project that's dragging on for decades. Had Google operated like a normal company, the risk/reward of this kind of research would've looked completely differently. Google's monopoly helped research along in the…

"self-driving car project that's dragging on for decades." And yet, waymo seems to have got the correct risk reward trade-off compared to all of the move-fast-and-get-banned competitors...

I think that you’re supporting the argument that you’re replying to.

Re: US vs. Google amicus curiae brief of Y Combinator in support of plaintiffs [pdf]

#129

Post by globnomulous » Sat, May 10, 2025, 3:41 PM UTC

dghlsakjg wrote: post #93

callc wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You certainly have a point. Places like google and bell labs have pushed innovation, apparently enabled by monopolies. I would rather we don’t allow monopolies since they are so bad for society, regardless of some benefits. Government funded research and private investment are still a thing, that doesn’t try to break the whole capitalism thing.

> You certainly have a point. Places like google and bell labs have pushed innovation, apparently enabled by monopolies. I've heard this argument before (and recognize that you aren't defending it), but telecommunications, network and technology innovation has hardly suffered since Bell was dismantled in 1982.

This is debatable, I think. What I've read is that, whereas Bell Labs did foundational, groundbreaking research that radically altered the course of human history, technological innovation since then has more often followed the lines Bell Labs, and their ilk, laid down. Giving the world a faster computer or faster network is fine and nice but pales in comparison to the consequences of giving the world modern computers, Unix, and C.

Re: US vs. Google amicus curiae brief of Y Combinator in support of plaintiffs [pdf]

#130

Post by aoeusnth1 » Sat, May 10, 2025, 3:41 PM UTC

lolinder wrote: post #110

xnx wrote: post #58

Google is a "monopoly" because their competitors with massive cash reserves (Microsoft, Apple, Meta) are too risk averse to compete in the marketplace and are hoping that the courtroom will deliver them a win.

Which market are you talking about specifically? The outstanding cases against them are in search and in adtech. This amicus brief is for the Search case (this one [0]). In search (the relevant market here), Microsoft does compete in the marketplace, and Microsoft's evidence that Google's anticompetitive practices have prevented them from gaining any meaningful ground in search were a keystone of the government's cas…

all that would make sense, but Bing is worse. Wasting money building a bad product does not entitle you to market share.