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Ex-Googler says company's AI panic is like Google+ fiasco all over again

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Re: Ex-Googler says company's AI panic is like Google+ fiasco all over again

#41

Post by cajunboi34213 »

I question how useful "jarvis" would be for most people (including me).

I was in the fortunate position to have a supremely talented admin/chief of staff a couple years ago when I was in charge of a 100+ people org. They were amazing. Spoke 5 languages, took detailed notes for me, created decks and ran status update meetings on my behalf, scheduled my time based on my priorities. Ultimately, it was nice to have, because when they left, I never ended up replacing them.

The only thing I really missed was scheduling meetings. But now a calendly link works just as well.

Re: Ex-Googler says company's AI panic is like Google+ fiasco all over again

#43

Post by skeeter2020 »

packetlost wrote: post #22
CoastalCoder wrote: post #11

As a software developer, I'm anxious about the AI gold rush being a bubble that's about to pop. I've been unemployed ever since the Great 15% Layoffs, about 14 months ago. I finally landed a job (well, once the paperwork is done) related to bringing up a new processor. But it's a DL accelerator. I really hope there's not another employment bloodbath if/when the AI bubble bursts, since my savings are pretty much deple…

I'm not unemployed, but I too am worried about this. Practically everything besides big tech has been in a recessionary state for awhile now but the S&P looks great because nvidia's stock went to the moon and a few other tech companies are doing very well... for now. I'm not sure how much longer this can be sustained.

S&P must mean something different where you're from, because when I looked as recently as this morning this is not true. I'm worried for the exact opposite reason: everything is up, across sectors most not technology and definitely not AI. Everyone's waiting for inflation to decrease and trigger corresponding interest rate declines so they can resume the consumption frenzy. We learned nothing; that's what I think is scary.

Re: Ex-Googler says company's AI panic is like Google+ fiasco all over again

#44

Post by ttcbj »

I don't think I blame Google for panic here. I find myself going to claude.ai much more, and Google somewhat less. Claude feels much more efficient to me than filtering through search results for many queries. The conversational aspect can be really helpful also.

Re: Ex-Googler says company's AI panic is like Google+ fiasco all over again

#45

Post by candiodari »

mbreese wrote: post #25
CoastalCoder wrote: post #11

As a software developer, I'm anxious about the AI gold rush being a bubble that's about to pop. I've been unemployed ever since the Great 15% Layoffs, about 14 months ago. I finally landed a job (well, once the paperwork is done) related to bringing up a new processor. But it's a DL accelerator. I really hope there's not another employment bloodbath if/when the AI bubble bursts, since my savings are pretty much deple…

If you’re worried about the bursting of the AI bubble, then whatever you do, don’t look up “AI winter”. This has all happened before and will happen again.

Do you know when the robot apocalypse is scheduled?

Re: Ex-Googler says company's AI panic is like Google+ fiasco all over again

#46

Post by ethbr1 »

mbreese wrote: post #25
CoastalCoder wrote: post #11

As a software developer, I'm anxious about the AI gold rush being a bubble that's about to pop. I've been unemployed ever since the Great 15% Layoffs, about 14 months ago. I finally landed a job (well, once the paperwork is done) related to bringing up a new processor. But it's a DL accelerator. I really hope there's not another employment bloodbath if/when the AI bubble bursts, since my savings are pretty much deple…

If you’re worried about the bursting of the AI bubble, then whatever you do, don’t look up “AI winter”. This has all happened before and will happen again.

That said, companies that deliver measurable value (literally, revenue/cost-impacting) to customers and have healthy free cash flow are going to weather winters.

Re: Ex-Googler says company's AI panic is like Google+ fiasco all over again

#47

Post by aceazzameen »

louwrentius wrote: post #9

Many companies are trying to find new growth to satisfy their shareholders. We all understand that growing growth is unsustainable, but that doesn't matter, they just 'have to'. VR and Crypto/Blockchain didn't pan out, so now the new hotness is AI. There is an opportunity to make something useful out of AI that people want to pay for, in order to keep shareholders happy. AI is especially interesting for shareholders…

I expect things will be cyclical, and one day someone will have a product that touts "without any AI!" Suddenly, they'll be a threat to the Googles and Apples that only know how to do AI at that point.

Re: Ex-Googler says company's AI panic is like Google+ fiasco all over again

#48

Post by surfingdino »

mbreese wrote: post #25
CoastalCoder wrote: post #11

As a software developer, I'm anxious about the AI gold rush being a bubble that's about to pop. I've been unemployed ever since the Great 15% Layoffs, about 14 months ago. I finally landed a job (well, once the paperwork is done) related to bringing up a new processor. But it's a DL accelerator. I really hope there's not another employment bloodbath if/when the AI bubble bursts, since my savings are pretty much deple…

If you’re worried about the bursting of the AI bubble, then whatever you do, don’t look up “AI winter”. This has all happened before and will happen again.

VR winter and AI winter are two regular seasons in IT. Waste of money, nothing to show for it and a lot of devs surprised it did not work out this time.

Re: Ex-Googler says company's AI panic is like Google+ fiasco all over again

#49

Post by ethbr1 »

andsoitis wrote: post #37

Scott Jenson is the ex-Googler in the article. He posted this on LinkedIn: “ I just left Google last month. The "AI Projects" I was working on were poorly motivated and driven by this panic that as long as it had "AI" in it, it would be great. This myopia is NOT something driven by a user need. It is a stone cold panic that they are getting left behind. The vision is that there will be a Tony Stark like Jarvis assist…

On the other hand, access to enterprise and personal context is key.

From that perspective, Google (Android, Maps, Drive/Calendar/Photos/Gmail), Apple (iOS, Maps, iCloud/Calendar/Photos/Mail), and Microsoft (Office, AAD/Windows, GitHub, XBox) all look solid.

Even if they screw up initial efforts.

Those data streams aren't something you can create out of thin air, without first creating products and attracting users.

AI assistants are only as smart/dumb as their context.

Re: Ex-Googler says company's AI panic is like Google+ fiasco all over again

#50

Post by xnx »

mrbgty wrote: post #35

What is the moat for AI? Right now, it's enormously expensive to produce an LLM but doesn't AI produce results which, in the long run, will make it easier and easier for any company to produce the same?

For Google? Efficient datacenters, TPUs/GPUs, institutional knowledge, robust crawling infrastructure, gargantuan proprietary data sets, existing partnerships, large catalog of products that can absorb the functionality of competitors products as a feature, etc.
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