Google Pulls Off a Unique Monopoly Play: Redefining Disciplines and Winning Awards
October 10, 2024
The only smart software involved in producing this short FOGINT post was Microsoft Copilot’s estimable art generation tool. Why? It is offered at no cost.
The monopolists of the past are a storied group of hard-workers. The luminaries blazing a path to glory have included John D. Rockefeller (the 1911 guy), J.P. Morgan and James J. Hill (railroads and genetic material contributor to JP Morgan and MorganStanley circa 2024, James B. Duke (nope, smoking is good for you), Andrew Carnegie (hey, he built “free” public libraries which are on the radar of today’s publishers I think), and Edward T. Bedford (starch seem unexciting until you own the business). None of these players were able to redefine Nobel Prizes.
A member of Google leadership explains to his daughter (who is not allowed to use smart software for her private school homework or her tutor’s assignments) that the Google is a bit like JP Morgan but better in so many other ways. Thanks, MSFT Copilot. How are the Windows 11 updates and the security fixes today?
The Google pulled it off. One Xoogler (that is the jargon for a former Google professional) and one honest-to-goodness chess whiz Googler won Nobel Prizes. Fortune Magazine reported that Geoffrey Hinton (the Xoogler) won a Nobel Prize for … wait for it … physics. Yep, the discipline associated with chasing dark matter and making thermonuclear bombs into everyday words really means smart software or the undefinable phrase “artificial intelligence.” Some physicists are wondering how one moves from calculating the mass of a proton to helping college students cheat. Dr. Sabine Hossenfelder asks, “Hello, Stockholm, where is our Nobel?” The answer is, “Politics, money, and publicity, Dr. Hossenfelder.” These are the three ingredients of achievement.
But wait! Google also won a Nobel Prize for … wait for it … chemistry. Yep, you remember high school chemistry class. Jars, experiments which don’t match the textbook, and wafts of foul smelling gas getting sucked into the lab’s super crappy air venting system. The Verge reported on how important computation chemistry is to the future of money-spinning confections like the 2020 virus of the year. The poohbahs (journalist-consultant-experts) at that publication with nary a comment about smart software which made the “chemistry” of Google do in “minutes” what ordinary computational chemistry solutions take hours longer to accomplish.
The Google and Xoogle winners are very smart people. Google, however, has done what the schlubs like J.P. Morgan could never accomplish: Redefine basic scientific disciplines. Physics means neural networks. Chemistry means repurposing a system to win chess games.
I suppose with AI eliminating the need for future students to learn. “University Professor ‘Terrified’ By The Sharp Decline In Student Performance — ’The Worst I’ve Ever Encountered’” quoted a college professor as saying:
The professor said her students ‘don’t read,’ write terrible essays, and ‘don’t even try’ in her class. The professor went on to say that when she recently assigned an exam focused on a reading selection, she "had numerous students inquire if it’s open book." That is, of course, preposterous — the entire point of a reading exam is to test your comprehension of the reading you were supposed to do! But that’s just it — she said her students simply "don’t read."
That makes sense. Physics is smart software; chemistry is smart software. Uninformed student won’t know the difference. What’s the big deal? That’s a super special insight into the zing in teaching and learning.
What’s the impact of these awards? In my opinion:
- The reorganization of DeepMind where the Googler is the Top Dog has been scrubbed of management hoo-hah by the award.
- The Xoogler will have an ample opportunity to explain that smart software will destroy mankind. That’s possible because the intellectual rot has already spread to students.
- The Google itself can now explain that it is not a monopoly. How is this possible? Simple. Physics is not about the goings on at Los Alamos National Laboratory. Chemistry is not dumping diluted hydrochloric acid into a beaker filled calcium carbide. It makes perfect sense to explain that Google is NOT a monopoly.
But the real payoff to the two awards is that Google’s management team can say:
Those losers like John D. Rockefeller, JP Morgan, the cigarette person, the corn starch king, and the tight fisted fellow from someplace with sheep are not smart like the Google. And, the Google leadership is indeed correct. That’s why life is so much better with search engine optimization, irrelevant search results, non-stop invasive advertising, a disable skip this ad button, and the remarkable Google speak which accompanies another allegation of illegal business conduct from a growing number of the 195 countries in the world.
That’s a win that old-timey monopolists could not put in their account books.
Stephen E Arnold, October 10, 2024
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