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It seems perhaps the NY Times has it out for Google recently: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9612129
The idea that advertising will survive in a world with even weak intelligence is amusing to me. The second a user has a digital representative that can collect enough data to make informed decisions and gather data on various products and has a modicum of data on what their human actually needs advertising depts will be replaced with far more service oriented equivalents that don't try to exploit things like habit fo…
That may happen eventually, and I'd be surprised if commodified IQ enhancement with reasoning skills wasn't available within - say - 10-15 years.
But there has to be a mainframe-like stage before then, because the first versions of the technology will be industrial (Watson++), not domestic.
Google are well placed to be big players at that stage. More speculatively, so are Amazon and Facebook.
MS are maybe half-way to thinking that far ahead. Apple don't seem to be, because they're too fixated on shiny trinkets now and not on long-term strategy. (Siri was a creditable v0.1 attempt but doesn't seem to have improved at all since release. Watch is - to be polite - not a player in this market.)
But even after that stage, how can you be sure that a commodified agent won't be acting in the interests of its creators/sellers/sponsors instead of its owner?
It seems perhaps the NY Times has it out for Google recently: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9612129
These articles are just a more verbose version of "You wouldn't believe these 10 things about Google" click-bait.
They literally released these articles the day before I/O, to ride the keyword search wave from whatever is announced.
Previous NY Times articles: Ford, mighty now, but not forever. GE, mighty now, but not forever. Microsoft, mighty now, but not forever. Upcoming NY Times articles: Apple, mighty now, but not forever.
The idea that advertising will survive in a world with even weak intelligence is amusing to me. The second a user has a digital representative that can collect enough data to make informed decisions and gather data on various products and has a modicum of data on what their human actually needs advertising depts will be replaced with far more service oriented equivalents that don't try to exploit things like habit fo…
Personally, I don't understand this obsession with making money from research. IMHO research should be primarily about exploration and discovery, never about products or money. Why can't you just invest a part of your profits for the express purpose of just doing something interesting? If along the way, that interesting idea manages to be made into a product, then sure go do that, otherwise, you just contributed some…
Which is not to say that the end (headline) result isn't likely. No company dominates and continues to lead and grow in every market it plays in, ad infinitum. I just don't think a back to the future on display ads is going to be their undoing. Some feel there's a bubble in display and facebook ads happening right now anyway.
The idea that advertising will survive in a world with even weak intelligence is amusing to me. The second a user has a digital representative that can collect enough data to make informed decisions and gather data on various products and has a modicum of data on what their human actually needs advertising depts will be replaced with far more service oriented equivalents that don't try to exploit things like habit fo…
You're assuming the intelligence will be independent and not owned by the advertisers. That may happen eventually, and I'd be surprised if commodified IQ enhancement with reasoning skills wasn't available within - say - 10-15 years. But there has to be a mainframe-like stage before then, because the first versions of the technology will be industrial (Watson++), not domestic. Google are well placed to be big players…
It seems perhaps the NY Times has it out for Google recently: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9612129
Actually I think it's just this author. He seems to just write tech articles about "sure X seems successful now, but maybe it's about to lose everything!"