I share the cynicism here about this article. I think the saddest part of betting our economy on AI is that Google is actually the US-based corporation that is best positioned because so much of their AI efforts are not specifically aimed at software development. At least for now their profit margins are high enough to withstand the high AI costs, but let's wait and see if that lasts.
Google’s ATLAS is a look at how people are using AI
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Re: Google’s ATLAS is a look at how people are using AI
#52Earlier quoted context omitted.
My startup is using AI every day. My company (not my startup, my normal day to day work) spends millions on ai token every month. I use AI every day for different things. AI/GenAI disrupted already a lot of peoples jobs in real life. And Google states very early "However within jobs, people are using AI selectively: in a typical job AI is used for only ~21% of tasks." Did you read the article? Can you point out speci…
Where’s the data for one, do they include the force fed Gemini in search? They are also pushing it harder than Microsoft was pushing copilot in every single of their products, sometimes multiple competing implementations (hello GCP dashboards). It simply comes off as a marketing advert for a company who’s sunk billions upon billions into something they’ve yet to be able to monetize (see latest report). Stock holders…
I never seen google blog articles as something millions of people read. For me these are small lenses in a big company were i pull out small details i might find interesting.
Im missing the marketing opportunity here.
The spending is a complete different topic though. Google/ABC can easily afford their investments. Microsoft and Amazon too. Even if shareholders are not that happy (the shareprice of alphabet doesn't tell this story though) with it.
Nonetheless the biggest issue with this spending are 401k and other retirement investments from people who can't control the investment and the undefined risk of it. Thats the only real 'risk' (not a small one for these people depending on it though).
It doesn't affect me if Google spends its money on AI.
Nonetheless the progress on AI is huge, it still hasn't slowed down, its now a political and global issue (us export restrictions, Chinas Moonshot AI/Deepseek, EU lagging behind).
At least form my point of view, i'm very surprised that we even risk all of this investment and see it as a possitive thing. Imagine AI/AGI is a technology which sits very far away from our current local minimum and the jump to the other local minimum is massivly expensive but massivly beneficial?
GPT-2/3 was able to inflict this vision into people and because of this, we get A LOT more compute, push again boundaries on compute and memory after a longer period of stagnation. These richest companies in the world like Google also leverage the AI spend into investment of fusion and other energy sources.
We already got a lot better vision ML algorithm because of this (tx to suckerbergs dino and segment anything), we have alphafold tx to Googles Deepmind etc.
AI only consumes currently a little bit more about bitcoin but is acutally beneficial.
Re: Google’s ATLAS is a look at how people are using AI
#53[flagged]
Re: Google’s ATLAS is a look at how people are using AI
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
I quite like that. Companies like Google, Microsoft, and Apple are simply not in a position to compete. They are always late to the party, and it is shameful. It shows that their managers are not capable of leading innovation. These companies need to go back to having real engineers drive innovation.
Knowing where the ball is going to be is a rare skill, and none of the people currently running those companies has that foresight. There’s a reason why there’s many QBs but only one Tom Brady.
I don't see a reason to believe any CEO, past or present, has had the ability to accurately predict the future. Luck and foresight look the same when you happen to get it right.
Re: Google’s ATLAS is a look at how people are using AI
#55In the bolded text, the "n"s are lighter grey.
Anyone know why they did this? Once I saw it, it became too distracting.
Re: Google’s ATLAS is a look at how people are using AI
#5686% of AI not used for work - so Gemini is mainly used by consumers, I guess also mostly non-paying. I am not surprised as they are on many Androids nowdays and Android updates recent whats new showcases new Gemini features (or repeat the same ones from earlier) for more people to try, my wife uses it often instead of Google search and sometimes to edit some photos.
Re: Google’s ATLAS is a look at how people are using AI
#57These AI threads seem to attract the same kind of repetitive, low-effort dismissals that crypto threads used to.
I don't disagree but one difference I see is Enterprises pushing hard to use AI where none of them really bothered with Crypto. I see momentum with AI that I haven't seen since the push to Cloud infrastructure 15 or so years ago.
Re: Google’s ATLAS is a look at how people are using AI
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don’t agree with the OP, and don’t think data is cherry-picked. But everyone is so deeply invested in this, that no article from any company can be taken as is. Reading the post, I had to keep thinking “why are they only talk about how people use it at work, and nothing about possible economic outcomes?”. Or “titled Understanding the AI Economy, but it avoids all the big questions”. Or “is it written for the invest…
You always have to make your own conclusions of course but it doesn't mean that it is useless or just wrong. What value does Google has to cherry-pick the occupation metrics?
I did say explicitly that I think, Google did not cherry pick any data. My main question is “are they trying to build a narrative, because of the growing anti-AI tendency of the general population?”. It feels like every big co is giving up on big questions (e.g. what happens when AI replaces more and more jobs? what happens to education system?) because searching for an answer to those questions was upsetting a lot of people. So, now it feels like it’s just “good and neutral stories only”, so I have to raise my eyebrow on each post.
Re: Google’s ATLAS is a look at how people are using AI
#59For example, automotive technicians and industrial mechanics use AI to interpret complex test results, debug electrical wiring, and inspect machinery for wear. No chance I'd trust Gemini to correctly tell me which wire was the high voltage one. You're absolutely right! I apologize for providing a factually incorrect explanation. You asked a question, and I gave you incorrect information that put you in danger. That f…
I suspect they’re also lying about the utility there as well. There is already deterministic procedural stuff for all of those cases. Putting a chat bot in front of that is basically fucking stupid.
But never underestimate the stupidity of an AI psychosis- suffering product manager to shoehorn it into the most batshit insane use cases in search of mOrE ENgagGeMeNt.
Re: Google’s ATLAS is a look at how people are using AI
#60> AI use at work is broad but shallow: Workplace adoption spans all industry sectors and also 68% of all occupations that collectively represent 90% of total U.S. employment. Im sorry but what? Plumbers, electricians, framers, welders, auto workers, hotel staff, restaurant staff are these people using AI in their jobs? Does someone at google think that these very much manual labor jobs are only 10 percent of the work…
> The person you call at 3am to fix your drain, isnt using AI.
I am 100% using AI to figure out wtf to do about my 3am plumbing problem.
/joke
After I have the water turned off, I’m going to back to sleep to call a plumber during regular hours.