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Changes at Google DeepMind: Demis Hassabis from CEO to Chair, Jeff Dean departs

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Re: Changes at Google DeepMind: Demis Hassabis from CEO to Chair, Jeff Dean departs

#271

Post by Terr_ »

650 wrote: post #65

The first sentence is quite telling >We’ve got amazing talent, world-class compute and products… Products are third on the list. Google is an incubator for talent first and foremost. Products are an afterthought

It just tells you about their intended audience: Investors rather than consumers.

Nowadays, every company—even huge ones—prefers to be seen as a "growth opportunity", so they are trying to play up their ability to create new products which will somehow be so incredible that the line keeps moving up forever.

That said, there is definitely a correlation between companies chasing new products and leaving old ones to become crap.

Re: Changes at Google DeepMind: Demis Hassabis from CEO to Chair, Jeff Dean departs

#272

Post by EthanHeilman »

jatins wrote: post #233
EthanHeilman wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. Google is one of the few parties that can monetize AI because Google has a massive moat in the form of their products: gmail, chrome, photos, search, etc... and Google already has the custom-built chips and datacenters. Google spending money on competing head to head with your LLMs is a waste of money for Google. If anthropic wins, Google copies their approach, buys anthropic for cheap or both. All the in…

> If anthropic wins, Google copies their approach, buys anthropic for cheap or both Google buys Anthropic for cheap? How?

Anthropic has no moat, their models just get distilled and resold. They can maybe get good margins when LLM improvement rate is very high but as it slows down they are looking at commodity margins. Google has the products that makes that commodity more than just cost of electricity + 0.5%.

My case is based on the assumption that Anthropic will not hit RSI or if it does RSI rapidly hits a wall. Faster your growth curve, the faster you eat all the low hanging fruit and s-curve. I could be wrong here, maybe RSI will cause a hard takeoff singularity by 2030 and just keep going, but if that happens the world fundamentally changes.

Re: Changes at Google DeepMind: Demis Hassabis from CEO to Chair, Jeff Dean departs

#273

Post by clueless »

forrestthewoods wrote: post #235
xnx wrote: post #9

> Lastly, after an incredible 27-year run, Jeff Dean is at a moment where he wants to try something new, and we’re excited to support him in that. Jeff and Google Senior Fellow Sanjay Ghemawat are launching an independent public benefit corporation to accelerate discoveries in ML, science, and engineering. Oof. Good for Jeff and Sanjay (who just joined Twitter), bu that is a big loss for Google. Google stock is down…

Whoa. So is Jeff effectively leaving Google to work on this new venture full time? Or is the venture a side project? It sounds like the former. I’m sure he’ll still have internal access as an advisor of sorts. But this feels like a seismic change. Much larger than I initially realized?

it's a new venture that he can then sell back to google, and continue his ongoing loop

Re: Changes at Google DeepMind: Demis Hassabis from CEO to Chair, Jeff Dean departs

#274

Post by pferde »

bluGill wrote: post #255
kokanee wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does everyone want AI?

For what? There are some things I want AI for because it does it well. There are some things I don't want AI for because it just makes a mess (hallucinations). Maybe the next AI will be different and we will have the conversation again.

Indeed, it kills our planet, our culture and our economy extremely well. Oh yes, and some code monkeys enjoy that it can make computer code on the side.

Re: Changes at Google DeepMind: Demis Hassabis from CEO to Chair, Jeff Dean departs

#275

Post by jvwww »

tcp_handshaker wrote: post #149

No AGI on the horizon and that ROI horizon approaching fast is going to make Ed Zitron a superstar. If Demis Hassabis got a Nobel prize for being a Project Manager, is Zitron up for the Nobel on Economy for excellence in economic forecast?

I don't understand any of the praise for Zitron. He is saying very obvious things and gets timelines wrong all the time. What's special about that?

Re: Changes at Google DeepMind: Demis Hassabis from CEO to Chair, Jeff Dean departs

#276

Post by echelon »

root-parent wrote: post #268
reducesuffering wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Superstar? This Ed Zitron? "Based on estimates of their burn rate and historic analyses, I hypothesize that OpenAI will collapse in the next 12-24 months unless it raises more funding than in the history of the valley and creates an entirely new form of AI." -July 29, 2024 https://x.com/edzitron/status/1817955630784917548

And they did raise new funding as he predicted...Since July 2024, OpenAI has raised or secured roughly $170 billion in new capital. Numbers never see before. So yes its the one, and remarkably right so far.

You can't imagine OpenAI being a multi-trillion dollar company?

Open weights will drop costs, but distribution matters. OpenAI has that.

Costs will come down. Deep entrenchment will not.

Re: Changes at Google DeepMind: Demis Hassabis from CEO to Chair, Jeff Dean departs

#277

Post by [deleted] »

mynameisjonny_ wrote: post #110
sigmoid10 wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google was always at the frontier of real research, but has been abysmal at shipping good products (at least since Sundar). The core company is run for margins and interest rates by the business people nowadays.

Gemini 3.1-pro was genuinely SOTA for a few weeks, in fairness

[deleted]

Re: Changes at Google DeepMind: Demis Hassabis from CEO to Chair, Jeff Dean departs

#278

Post by compiler-guy »

asdfman123 wrote: post #198
compiler-guy wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are leaving Google, but Google is an investor in the new company. So a split, but not exactly a divorce. Or something.

A "Maria's not an asset to the abbey" situation for you Sound of Music enjoyers.

Except no one was singing "How do you solve a problem like Jeff and Sanjay?" prior to this.
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