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Google employees criticize CEO for “dumpster fire” response to ChatGPT

cnbc.com

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Re: Google employees criticize CEO for “dumpster fire” response to ChatGPT

#11

Post by gjsman-1000 »

I’m struggling to find the link because of all the new coverage, but Bard was mentioned as a Google project in 2019. It had a prefix in the name though, which I'm struggling to remember (it wasn't OpenBard, but it was SomethingBard).

If that is real (and hopefully I can find it and update this post)… that would indicate Google has been working on it for years, never thought it was ready, and then decided to snap-deploy it after ChatGPT’s success. Which, predictably, would make a massive mess internally as reported here. I find it believable.

UPDATE: OK, it was called "Apprentice Bard." However, that names comes from CNBC in 2023, but CNBC doesn't say when "Apprentice Bard" actually began development. However, "Apprentice Bard" was a replacement for Google's first internal chatbot solution Meena, which Google did deploy internally and also publicly revealed only for bragging rights (and not actual use) in January 2020 (and so the 2019 figure in my head does somewhat line up). So if you think about the Bard project as having started with Meena... sounds about right. https://ai.googleblog.com/2020/01/towards-conversational-age...

Re: Google employees criticize CEO for “dumpster fire” response to ChatGPT

#12

Post by ocdtrekkie »

npalli wrote: post #9

Here's the weird thing though, as discussed yesterday [1], the Microsoft demo was totally broken as well. In the end, everyone is looking for a big platform shift (next MOBILE!!!) and hype getting ahead of reality. When we look back in 3 months we will wonder why we thought LLM/GPT type queries will replace search in all forms. https://dkb.blog/p/bing-ai-cant-be-trusted

Microsoft can botch their search without tanking the company. Google cannot.

Re: Google employees criticize CEO for “dumpster fire” response to ChatGPT

#13

Post by blindriver »

ouid wrote: post #2

Has sundar been a good CEO otherwise?

He has brought no innovation and his fearfulness has ground Google down to a halt. What new successful products has arrived during his tenure? All he did was not fuck up.

He's lucky because the entire market has increased, but that's his doing. He could be replaced by any overly cautious algorithm and the results would have been the same.

Re: Google employees criticize CEO for “dumpster fire” response to ChatGPT

#14

Post by lvspiff »

Whats with everything being a dumpster fire nowadays? how about a simple hot mess? or what happened to a good ol hell in a hand-basket? or Ninth Circle Of Hell? I'm sure there are better euphemisms than the dumpster being on fhir as that indicates someone stoking it whereas the reality is more indecision and inaction causing confusion and demoralizing the teams.

Re: Google employees criticize CEO for “dumpster fire” response to ChatGPT

#16

Post by npalli »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #12
npalli wrote: post #9

Here's the weird thing though, as discussed yesterday [1], the Microsoft demo was totally broken as well. In the end, everyone is looking for a big platform shift (next MOBILE!!!) and hype getting ahead of reality. When we look back in 3 months we will wonder why we thought LLM/GPT type queries will replace search in all forms. https://dkb.blog/p/bing-ai-cant-be-trusted

Microsoft can botch their search without tanking the company. Google cannot.

Sure, but the narrative seems to be Microsoft has somehow cracked the puzzle and will leave Google behind which is not the case currently.

Re: Google employees criticize CEO for “dumpster fire” response to ChatGPT

#17

Post by renewiltord »

They're the guys who built it. It's not like he's demoing something that they spent 4 days building. It's been in dev for 4 years. Everyone knows Google is primarily a BD play right now. The engineering there is in the "we'll make the button blue by next quarter" quality.

But BD plays build quite good moat. So I think they'll be fine.

Re: Google employees criticize CEO for “dumpster fire” response to ChatGPT

#19

Post by robofanatic »

as a developer I ran few tests on ChatGPT for example "write me a javascript code that does canvas animation" it was amazing to see it write actual working code. but it took about a minute to write it. If I had "Googled" the same thing, in under a second I would have found multiple working code examples (thanks to sites like StackOverflow). IMO, ChatGPT has a long way to go.

Re: Google employees criticize CEO for “dumpster fire” response to ChatGPT

#20

Post by gg-plz »

ouid wrote: post #2

Has sundar been a good CEO otherwise?

Sundar is good at keeping things running as-is.

He was elevated to CEO of Google to keep things running as-is while the founders moved their exciting ventures up to Alphabet. When those other bets were abandoned, Sundar was left as the top engaged executive, but he's still only a caretaker when the company needs an actual leader with vision to navigate their competition.

So, no. He has not been a good CEO. He was a good middle-manager and a decent CEO at best, but he's not been what the company needed, and he's definitely not what they need today.

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