161–170 of 459 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The problem with this analysis is that first movers usually don't win.
Old enough to remember when Google was the plucky newcomer in a crowded search engine industry.
Remember when winner of the voice interface war was going to win the future of computing? Apple has a "dumpster fire" of a voice assistant and they're still around.
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
Nothing weird about it. It's called first mover's advantage. Wanna make electric cars, you have to beat Tesla. No matter how nice your car is. If your range is worse. Booo. If your self driving is equivalent or worse, Boo. Whatever Tesla has done, you must be better at. You need better design, cheaper price, better range, better reliability else no one would notice you.
Microsoft Word came after WordPerfect. Chrome came after Netscape Communicator. Python came after Perl. Nintendo came after Atari.
I feel like first movers advantage is a myth.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The problem with this analysis is that first movers usually don't win.
It depends on the definition what "first" means. For example Amazon Kindle was not the first eReader. But its platform-ecosystem was years sooner than Barnes & Nobles Nook and Kindle won out. Amazon itself is technically a "second mover" because there was an obscure online book shop before, but no one else from the established sales companies or Walmart could compete with them. Tesla was not the first electric car. B…
In my life I've seen that happen a handful of times. When it does, it's usually due to (1) tragic management ineptitude over an extended period of time, or (2) fear of cannibalizing an existing profitable business (e.g.,: Kodak refusing to move from film to digital cameras, or the car industry being slow to re-invest away from ICE production.) I see no evidence (yet) that AI-enhanced search is going to threaten Google's core business of "displaying ads on relevant search results", so the main risk here is long-term management failure. Right now Google's management is doing everything it can to signal (to shareholders and partners) that they're going to throw every resource they have at the problem.
It's gonna be Chatbots / NFTs all over again.
Eh, this feels different. There are some immediate utilities delivered from ChatGPT and Midjourney that feel like magic. Will they get over hyped? Sure. But is there a real kernel of something different there? I think so. Chatbots were just a worse way to fill out a form. NFTs we’re…where to even begin. But I’ve already used GPT to write thank you note and create a blog post, and I’ve used midjourney to create stock…
e.g. generate 3d models of X animating Y with this exact resolution, etc. and then choose the best ones as a starting point.
Or using this drum sample generate a load of bass tracks and then choose the best one, etc.
But yeah then it can be useful for small things where the quality isn't super-critical but otherwise might just go without art entirely - like indie games, small organisations, etc.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
There seems to be an inordinate amount of venom directed at Pichai relative to other CEOs
It appears that Google's long-standing dominance in search has not translated into meaningful innovation in recent years. Despite occasional hardware launches that imitate Apple and multiple failed attempts to launch a messaging platform, there has been a conspicuous lack of successful projects. Furthermore, Google's ongoing incorporation of ads into Google Maps and declining search quality may be turning search into…
Google IMHO is still innovating, but still hasn't figured out how to turn that into product/profit. Since their P/E is under 20 they could just issue a dividend of 4 to 5 percent and people would immediately stop expecting growth from them.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
In the long run, sure. In the short to medium term, though, they solidly dominate the field. We're still in that phase phase of both Tesla and Bing AI.
It will be interesting to see how the next few years play out in the EV space. Tesla suddenly has actual competition that is very good. Arguably better, aside from that nagging little detail -- the charger network. Tesla needs to keep throwing money at the Supercharger network and do whatever they can to keep it exclusive. Anything that puts the competition on an equal playing field for fast charging would be devasta…
I think they'll ultimately have to open up the charging to get federal funding, but it'll be interesting to see what happens when they do. It's definitely a massive advantage right now.
People hating on Sundar completely overlooking the fact that he pivoted Google to an AI first company 6 years ago, way before AI was hyped up. https://venturebeat.com/ai/ai-weekly-google-shifts-from-mobi... He funded the Brain team that came up with major research breakthroughs like Transformers that power ChatGPT. AI is embedded behind the scenes in pretty much every Google product, you just don't know it because it…
> Google to an AI first company 6 years ago, way before AI was hyped up AI hype train started back in 2015.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Nothing weird about it. It's called first mover's advantage. Wanna make electric cars, you have to beat Tesla. No matter how nice your car is. If your range is worse. Booo. If your self driving is equivalent or worse, Boo. Whatever Tesla has done, you must be better at. You need better design, cheaper price, better range, better reliability else no one would notice you.
Apple came after Blackberry. Dell came after Commodore / Amiga. Facebook came after MySpace. Google came after Altavisa and Yahoo. Verizon came after AOL. Alternating Current came after Direct Current. Microsoft Word came after WordPerfect. Chrome came after Netscape Communicator. Python came after Perl. Nintendo came after Atari. I feel like first movers advantage is a myth.
Maybe. No company lives forever, at some point all of these things will be unseated. But those first movers had pretty good runs, as far as technology companies go. Maybe they aren't still #1 but if you're #1 for a decade or more, that might be as much as any one company can "win" here.