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Google's True Moonshot

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Re: Google's True Moonshot

#61

Post by willvarfar »

hef19898 wrote: post #58
willvarfar wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

AI would be much better at code _review_ than code generation.

AI would be much better at auto-completing whole sentences and paragraphs and suggesting rephrasing etc in docs and presentations, than at answering questions about the world.

But the race seems to be to answer questions about the world based on a 2021 dump of the internet, so ... :)

Re: Google's True Moonshot

#63

Post by hef19898 »

willvarfar wrote: post #61
hef19898 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

AI would be much better at code _review_ than code generation. AI would be much better at auto-completing whole sentences and paragraphs and suggesting rephrasing etc in docs and presentations, than at answering questions about the world. But the race seems to be to answer questions about the world based on a 2021 dump of the internet, so ... :)

Oh, as a tool I see a ton of use: personally for image processing (sharpening, noise reduction) even if I can perfectly live without it, professionally I see a ton of potential use in optimizing planning (supply chain, production, scheduling, netwrok planning...) by proposing scenarios and supporting the people doing said planning. I don't need AI to search the internet for me, summarize a book (if it is worth or important enough for me, I just read it) or all the other stuff AI currently is doing.

Re: Google's True Moonshot

#64

Post by paganel »

ben_w wrote: post #56
qp11 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The only real competition seems to be Meta, which is another behemoth.

I agree, there are some minions whose valuations have skyrocketed because they happen to also try and compete in this very bubble-y market, but other than that I haven't heard any "those guys' LLM product is great!" comments related to anything other than whatever OpenAI or Meta have made public.

Re: Google's True Moonshot

#65

Post by paganel »

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…

There's also the very, very big (and very hidden) opportunity cost of always incurring the danger of having your Google account getting nuked by Google itself, with almost no possibility of recourse, for some small payment inconsistency related to any of their products, no matter how big or small.

That's why I personally would never pay Google other than for very basic and needed stuff like GMail, I wouldn't want my email account nuked and my life momentarily turned upside down because of some payment misunderstandings related to their streaming service, let's say.

Re: Google's True Moonshot

#66

Post by ekianjo »

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…

> This is why Microsoft is winning

Spoken like someone who has never used bing chat. Its so terrible its funny.

Re: Google's True Moonshot

#68

Post by simon_000666 »

In summary. At some point an ai assistant will replace 80% of the functionality/apps offered by iOS & android - it will finally become the new OS (as we all knew from watching her).

This is bad for Google as google’s main feature is search. Ai assistants will replace search and kill the main revenue stream which is ad clicks.

Google’s secret plan is to eventually canabilize it’s pixel phone with an ‘agent first’ device to try to beat Apple, MS & OpenAI with a horizontal offering that is significantly better than the fragmented world of ChatGPT &iOS & azure.

But it’s worth remembering and I think the article fails to point this out. Agents will still ‘recommend’ things, you ask them to book you a flight - they still have to recommend a couple of options out of many - the agents need to decide and ultimately that decision is the same as choosing who to place at the top of the search results page - whoever wins the agent wars will win a significant proportion of Google search revenue as referral fees AND a significant proportion of IOS App Store revenue.

It really is winner takes all.

Re: Google's True Moonshot

#69

Post by Rastonbury »

Instead of turning Pixels with Assistants into iPhone killers and becoming Apple, author should have looked straight at Microsoft Copilot and how a paradigm shifting LLM in G Workspace could kill Office. The Pixel is still only sold in 21 countries, scaling to Apple level would be brutal.

Also that idea Google will build such a magically superior AI to every else is a bold claim. Can it make a competitive one? Yes. Can it make one so good that it makes every other AI obselete and everyone trade their iPhone for Pixel? I think that's unlikely given the level of competition

Re: Google's True Moonshot

#70

Post by Rastonbury »

ekianjo wrote: post #66
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…

> This is why Microsoft is winning Spoken like someone who has never used bing chat. Its so terrible its funny.

MS is winning clearly, if the Azure $1bn revenue beat is mainly from AI/Copilot they are on track to recoup their OpenAI investment in 10 quarters, likely less.

Google has the ability to build something better than OpenAI but that's not even a certainty

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