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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

#61

Post by surfingdino »

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…

> Cool that your service now has new AI features that tells me things, but why would I believe any of it?

Remember smart chatbots? That's where AI is headed, straight into the blackhole of bad ideas in IT.

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

#62

Post by ethbr1 »

the_snooze wrote: post #54
beezlebroxxxxxx wrote: post #24

It's not so bad to get caught flat-footed by something like ChatGPT (of course, it's not like Google didn't have AI stuff in development, for example that thing they showed once and then never brought up again when you could let Google Now talk to call reps), after all it seems like everyone was genuinely caught off guard by that first release of GPT and it's capabilities as a product . The bigger issue for Google, a…

My totally uninformed outsider view is that Google lacks leadership that can set a direction and follow through with it. They're no longer capable or interested in shaking up the environment like they did with Gmail. I understand that Google is a large mature company now, but they also seem to be uninterested in steady-handed long-term maintenance of a lot of their products either. I don't see any vision in Google's…

As has been said, a company's products end up mirroring its internal org/cooperation structure.

By that metric, measured against Google's recent product releases, Google's org/cooperation structure is broken.

It's tired to reiterate the 'launch and abandon product for promotion' incentives, but it also seems to go higher up.

Individual teams at Google are amazing, and build amazing features, but the company as a whole whole seems incapable of knitting those features together into a coherent product.

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

#63

Post by fmobus »

xnx wrote: post #51
dylan604 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

maybe for Googs, but I think it was a net positive for society in general

Disagree. I'd trust a large social network from Google much more than one from Facebook or Twitter.

If you squint, YouTube is a social network. Can we trust it? Only a smidge more than Facebook and today's Twitter.

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

#64

Post by alecco »

I disagree with the article. I think Google is right to freak out. And I don't see how they are going to deal with it with their sick culture and hierarchy.

I think Meta is doing much better. They are not freaking out, instead they are hyper-focusing on winning the race and then see how can they use that to improve. They have a lot less nonsense. I have no idea how they are going to monetize this huge expense, but I would bet they are going to be fine. (who would've thought only a couple of years ago)

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

#65

Post by shrimp_emoji »

xxs wrote: post #29
mbreese wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

“AI winter”... is long overdue.

We're still in it, IMO.

No big breakthroughs; what we're seeing now is spare GPU power and memory (since those the only things still advancing significantly from year to year) brute forcing black box neural nets that nobody understands or can get to work right. If that's "AI", then me using ChatGPT to write my essay is "doing my English homework".

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

#66

Post by mmh0000 »

I'm not convinced A.I. will disappear anytime soon, either. It's way too useful, even if it's wrong sometimes.

Just in my personal life:

GitHub Co-Pilot: I love this tool and really don't like working without it. Is it perfect? No. Does it make mistakes? Yes. But I think of it as having a full-time junior developer working under me. They can take care of a LOT of the boilerplate crap while I focus on the more difficult parts of programming.

GPT4: Has replaced most of my internet searches. It's so easy to ask it focused questions and get a reasonable answer, or, a starting point for more in-depth research.

Kagi's Summarizer: I like being informed on world events, but, every news org likes to write 9000 page articles for the most mundane things. With Summarizer, I can, get a nice bullet-pointed list of facts without all the fluff. In turn, I can get through much more news quickly.

Apple Photos: I use A.I. recognition of various objects and the ability to search for them almost daily.

Grammarly: It prevents me from sounding like the absolute idiot I am in online conversations.

I'm very eager for A.I. stuff to be integrated into more tools, such as my file manager. How amazing it would be if I could just point an A.I. system at a directory and say something along the lines of "Please organize this using Johnny.Decimal." or "Please find all documents related to my financials."

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

#67

Post by tommiegannert »

alecco wrote: post #64

I disagree with the article. I think Google is right to freak out. And I don't see how they are going to deal with it with their sick culture and hierarchy. I think Meta is doing much better. They are not freaking out, instead they are hyper-focusing on winning the race and then see how can they use that to improve. They have a lot less nonsense. I have no idea how they are going to monetize this huge expense, but I…

It could have been a nice opportunity to set a very tangible common goal, and work towards it. But firing people, reshuffling everyone and then forcing AI onto everying doesn't sound like something that would unite employees.

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

#68

Post by aYsY4dDQ2NrcNzA »

StableAlkyne wrote: post #10

> Google's goal, according to Jenson, is to create a Jarvis-like assistant that keeps users locked into Google's ecosystem. The company is driven by the fear that someone else might get there first... > ...Apple is pursuing a similar AI lock-in strategy with Siri, Jenson believes. I remember when Microsoft got sued for including a web browser in Windows. Oh how anti-trust has fallen.

I remember when Microsoft got sued for including a web browser in Windows. Oh how anti-trust has fallen.

Microsoft Windows enjoyed a staggeringly huge market share at the time.

They even managed to charge PC manufacturers a tax on computers with Linux preinstalled instead of Windows.

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

#69

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

shrimp_emoji wrote: post #65
xxs wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“AI winter”... is long overdue.

We're still in it, IMO. No big breakthroughs; what we're seeing now is spare GPU power and memory (since those the only things still advancing significantly from year to year) brute forcing black box neural nets that nobody understands or can get to work right. If that's "AI", then me using ChatGPT to write my essay is "doing my English homework".

This type of unbridled pessimism baffles me. If you think what had happened over the past, say, 24 months is "AI Winter", I can't imagine what your bar for AI Summer is.

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

#70

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

scialex wrote: post #18

> Some of you may remember Google's much-hyped AI voice "Duplex," which was supposed to automate all those annoying phone calls and call centers. That was in 2018, six years ago. Since then, we've seen how it's turned out Reasonably successfully? Call screen is easily one of the best features of my phone. Call hold navigation is also really useful. It calling restaurants and the like is not something I commonly use b…

Yeah, I'm not sure if people have become so reactionary when it comes to unsupported tech-land hype, but on the flip side I find this unwarranted pessimism almost as annoying.

The call features on my Pixel are amazing IMO, and new ones (like the one that warns you if you are being scammed) could be great for large swaths of people.

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