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Google's True Moonshot

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Re: Google's True Moonshot

#51

Post by flappyeagle »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #21

The one part of this thesis that I pretty strongly disagree with is the idea that people would prefer to have long, meandering voice conversations with an AI, compared to text. Just look at anyone under the age of 25 (35 maybe?) They can easily have long, meandering conversations with actual humans using voice, yet I see them go for text 9 times out of ten. As someone on the backside of middle age, I often find it pr…

Young people text because it’s considered bad etiquette to call unannounced.

No such issue with robots.

Re: Google's True Moonshot

#52

Post by semi-extrinsic »

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…

I like your chocolate argument and will steal it for future use.

Re: Google's True Moonshot

#53

Post by throwaway290 »

spzb wrote: post #47
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #21

The one part of this thesis that I pretty strongly disagree with is the idea that people would prefer to have long, meandering voice conversations with an AI, compared to text. Just look at anyone under the age of 25 (35 maybe?) They can easily have long, meandering conversations with actual humans using voice, yet I see them go for text 9 times out of ten. As someone on the backside of middle age, I often find it pr…

Typing also has the advantage that several people doing it in the same room at the same time don’t interfere with each other. A train carriage full of people texting is considerably less annoying than the same carriage full of people chattering away with their voice assistants

> A train carriage full of people texting is considerably less annoying than the same carriage full of people chattering away with their voice assistants

Can't be worse than a bus full of people recording voice messages aloud and listening to them on loudspeaker which is daily life in say China. I would be lying if I said it's not maddening

Re: Google's True Moonshot

#54

Post by throwaway290 »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #21

The one part of this thesis that I pretty strongly disagree with is the idea that people would prefer to have long, meandering voice conversations with an AI, compared to text. Just look at anyone under the age of 25 (35 maybe?) They can easily have long, meandering conversations with actual humans using voice, yet I see them go for text 9 times out of ten. As someone on the backside of middle age, I often find it pr…

> Just look at anyone under the age of 25 (35 maybe?) They can easily have long, meandering conversations with actual humans using voice, yet I see them go for text 9 times out of ten.

Where do you live that they prefer texting?

My acquaintances in that age range love sending voice (and fucking video, yes yes) messages. And I mean not intimate chats with close friends or relatives where you want to hear the voice and see the face. No this is just how they convey info. Including some people from UK.

Re: Google's True Moonshot

#55

Post by jessekv »

roughly wrote: post #35

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 ea…

I was thinking something similar earlier.

I am huge fan of youtube and the incredible content and creators on the platform. If it was not owned by Google, I would probably happily pay 50 bucks a month for an ad-free and tracking-free experience.

But instead I've mostly left the platform. I don't want the company with eyes all over the internet to also know exactly what I watch and when. It's creepy to have a single company know exactly what you did/read/watched for most of your waking hours.

Re: Google's True Moonshot

#56

Post by ben_w »

qp11 wrote: post #48
terryf wrote: post #34

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…

Microsoft isn't any better. Competition in this space is dead. Who ever is capable of posing a threat to both these obese rentier parasites will be targeted and obliterated given the cash mountain ranges at their disposal. Quality is not possible when competition is an illusion.

The only way competition in this space can be described as "dead" with all the free-license models bouncing about is that there's only one model (or company with models) that's actually worth paying for.

That would be the one that MS invested in.

Well, for now at least. At some point one of those free models will best it.

Re: Google's True Moonshot

#57

Post by anileated »

poulsbohemian wrote: post #20
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…

>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.…

The impressive ML is ML that’s part of daily life. Even as I tap on this iPhone’s keyboard, button regions (tappable, not visible) slightly change in size depending on what it predicts the next letter would be. No one calls this “AI” yet it’s the same tech, and arguably more beneficial for the society as a whole than “AI” as a dedicated commercial service purpose-built to launder copyrighted creative works for profit (which is what AI is in the eyes of an ordinary person these days).

Re: Google's True Moonshot

#58

Post by hef19898 »

willvarfar wrote: post #43
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…

I'm expecting: * Microsoft to do it for business users * Google pixie does it first for personal use. Android phones might even momentarily be more desirable than iphone * Apple eventually get there, for their walled garden * Amazon etc fall totally behind * And, years later, users of google docs are still waiting for basic AI help writing docs whilst google completely doesn't try in that space

I know that I'm part of a minority, but I'll avoid touching an "AI" enabled smartphone as long as possible. All privacy issues and tech issues aside, so far I have simply not found a single use case in which AI-tools would make my life easier.

Re: Google's True Moonshot

#59

Post by ben_w »

poulsbohemian wrote: post #20
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…

>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.…

Conversely, I've recently had Apple software mess up in a whole bunch of different ways:

• Maps doesn't understand that I don't own a car, defaults to driving sometimes

• Autocorrupt rather than autocorrect

• Calendar suggestions only work for the simplest of dates, so it suggested an event for the wrong month

• One case where it seemed to think the only timezone in the world was California

(It's not all negatives: for me, Apple has the least wrong voice transcription AI, and I do like their computational photography and definitely the ability to select text in images and Safari's website translation — but even then I don't think they're way ahead of the rest with these things, and website translation was definitely behind).

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