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Google's True Moonshot

stratechery.com

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Re: Google's True Moonshot

#31

Post by simion314 »

ghayes wrote: post #19
carlineng wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The argument is more than that -- namely that in addition to having sophisticated AI, Google also controls the OS (Android) and hardware (Pixel). Being able to integrate best-in-class AI at every level of the stack is a tremendous advantage. OpenAI can't do this because they don't control the OS, and will always need to go through an app. Apple can play since they control OS and hardware, but at the moment they appea…

Is anyone really that far behind on AI given that the newest open-source models are closing in on GPT4?

I agree, Apple needs to wait and see what team offers a good alternative to OpenAI and buy them, I hope they do not buy and close an open source friendly team.

Re: Google's True Moonshot

#32

Post by noitpmeder »

ChrisArchitect wrote: post #26

Aside: excruciating one hundred paragraphs about stuff he said previously, recently, or in another lifetime, before getting to the actual topic and title subject of the article. Geez. I don't need articles to be transcripts of podcast-esque rambling. Get on with it!

This is a very common pattern (and criticism) of stratechery.

Re: Google's True Moonshot

#33

Post by kccqzy »

frankgrimesjr wrote: post #11
resolutebat wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you provide some context about why this is relevant to the article, which posits that Google is uniquely positioned to win the AI space and hence the future of computing? The potential payoff, though, is astronomical: a world with Pixie everywhere means a world where Google makes real money from selling hardware, in addition to services for enterprises and schools, and cloud services that leverage Google’s infras…

I don't know enough about the AI space to comment on it specifically. But this distinctly reminds me about articles around about the time of the first iPhone release which posited that Microsoft was in a unique position to ultimately win the smartphone market. After all it was dominant on the desktop and Windows Mobile already had a decent (albeit not dominant) marketshare in smartphones at the time.

The theory wasn't wrong and still isn't wrong. The problem is in the execution.

Re: Google's True Moonshot

#34

Post by terryf »

Is it possible that google will build the next great AI? Of course.

But right now they really really seem to be failing at it. Maybe the core tech in gemini is great. But it's nowhere.

Just as an anecdote, I tried to actually pay google for an AI product they claimed to have launched - the image generation, Imagen 2. And apparently, I can't. Even after tens of e-mails and a call with an account manager, the response is "uh, follow us on twitter and explain why you are good at building AI tools". Jeez, buying a service is not supposed to be like a job interview. It's supposed to be like buying the same service from OpenAI - enter credit card details and go.

So, the issue with google is that they took the wrong approach - build it in-house at a big company. What a big company has, are lawyers. Very good ones. The job of lawyers is to avoid risk. And they are great at it. However, building these sort of cutting edge services requires taking risk. And you can't really do that at a large company.

This is why Microsoft is winning - they realized that investing into a startup that has no lawyers and is willing to take risk is the right path to quickly getting to the result. This is also why dalle3 and chatgpt4 are available for everyone today. And Geimini ultra isn't.

Re: Google's True Moonshot

#35

Post by roughly »

What's always frustrated me about Google is that I would pay a substantial amount of money on an ongoing basis for the capabilities they could provide, but I'm absolutely not willing to pay what they're asking and what they're asking is tanking their products.

Google as a products and services company - Google with Apple's business model - is something I would've been a happy customer of for the last decade or two easily. Google as an ads company is an entity I go to great efforts to remove from my life.

Re: Google's True Moonshot

#36

Post by renewiltord »

kccqzy wrote: post #33
frankgrimesjr wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know enough about the AI space to comment on it specifically. But this distinctly reminds me about articles around about the time of the first iPhone release which posited that Microsoft was in a unique position to ultimately win the smartphone market. After all it was dominant on the desktop and Windows Mobile already had a decent (albeit not dominant) marketshare in smartphones at the time.

The theory wasn't wrong and still isn't wrong. The problem is in the execution.

The two things are related. That's the insight of The Innovator's Dilemma. They cannot do it.

Re: Google's True Moonshot

#37

Post by plufz »

jeffbee wrote: post #22
poulsbohemian wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Apple can play since they control OS and hardware, but at the moment they appear pretty far behind in the AI aspect. I disagree strongly with this, and it has everything to do with how we conceptualize AI. I get in my car and plug in my iPhone. CarPlay immediately causes the Maps app to pop up and route me to my next meeting. I can say "hey siri, set a reminder to call Mr. Jones at 3:00" and she will gladly comply.…

I suggest you try the assistant features on a Pixel 8 Pro. They have all the features you mentioned (except the creepy eavesdropping golf one) and the interaction is miles ahead, especially the text to speech.

I do not have any Android products, I only use Google Assistant through my Sonos speakers. Do you know if that code is different from that on the Pixel? (Because my experience of Google Assistant is long from good/useful, it struggles with basic tasks, I have to overpronounce to be sure it can differentiate “lights on” from “lights off”, etc etc.)

Re: Google's True Moonshot

#38

Post by jeffbee »

plufz wrote: post #37
jeffbee wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suggest you try the assistant features on a Pixel 8 Pro. They have all the features you mentioned (except the creepy eavesdropping golf one) and the interaction is miles ahead, especially the text to speech.

I do not have any Android products, I only use Google Assistant through my Sonos speakers. Do you know if that code is different from that on the Pixel? (Because my experience of Google Assistant is long from good/useful, it struggles with basic tasks, I have to overpronounce to be sure it can differentiate “lights on” from “lights off”, etc etc.)

I don't know, because I haven't used Sonos for this purpose. But it's easy to imagine that a mobile handset with an array of microphones that you tend to hold near yourself would be more suited at the hardware level.

Re: Google's True Moonshot

#39

Post by cyclecount »

> Google sells its own phones which could be configured to have a conversation UI by default (or with Google’s Pixel Buds). This removes the friction of opening an app and setting a mode. Google also has a fleet of home devices already designed for voice interaction. Google has massive amounts of infrastructure all over the globe, with the lowest latency and fastest response. This undergirds search today, but it could undergird a new generative AI assistant tomorrow. Google has access to gobs of data specifically tied to human vocal communication, thanks to YouTube in particular. In short, the Gemini demo may have been faked, but Google is by far the company best positioned to make it real.

How does he square any of that with the rest of the preceding article? Google having a technical advantage on paper and still fumbling the ball is their M.O. for a decade. Their ecosystem of devices, even just sticking to the Google-branded hardware, are inconsistent crap. Take a simple, first part app like Google Calendar and look at how sloppily and poorly it works across Pixel phones, Android Wear devices (including the Pixel Watch) and Home devices. Google sucks at building polished, consumer products.

Google is by far the best company positioned for AI assistants? Is this guy forgetting about Apple, the company that has a much stronger hardware ecosystem and that will demonstrate this in the coming months with a huge hardware launch that only they could do, leveraging a huge base of iOS apps, AirPod users, etc. Apple is building a network of personal hardware devices with a weak but well-integrated personal assistant. In 1-2 years, Siri will get a massive improvement based on recent advances in LLMs and it will be 80% as good as Google’s then probably thrice rebranded AI, but it will be 300% more polished and install automatically on hardware people actually like to use.

Re: Google's True Moonshot

#40

Post by lmm »

carlineng wrote: post #15
fumar wrote: post #13

The lengthy post boils down to this quote " Google could build the AI to win it all" but it is not guaranteed. I appreciate the context as someone who hasn't kept a close eye on Google's AI efforts, but Ben doesn't cover why Google has a right to win outside of search data. Interestingly, there is no mention of AWS and Amazon's wider efforts to create AI tools. There is hype around chat bots but what is the likelihoo…

The argument is more than that -- namely that in addition to having sophisticated AI, Google also controls the OS (Android) and hardware (Pixel). Being able to integrate best-in-class AI at every level of the stack is a tremendous advantage. OpenAI can't do this because they don't control the OS, and will always need to go through an app. Apple can play since they control OS and hardware, but at the moment they appea…

OpenAI has close ties to Microsoft and we've already seen them integrate AI into Bing; MS may not be a player in phones but they make a major OS and some of the best hardware money can buy. I'm really not convinced vertical integration matters all that much, but if it does, they can do it.
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