China Smart, US Dumb: Twisting the LLM Daozi
May 12, 2025
No AI, just the dinobaby expressing his opinions to Zellenials.
That hard-hitting technology information service Venture Beat published an interesting article. Its title is “Alibaba ZeroSearch Lets AI Learn to Google Itself — Slashing Training Costs by 88 Percent.” The main point of the write up, in my opinion, is that Chinese engineers have done something really “smart.” The knife at the throat of US smart software companies is cost. The money fires will flame out unless more dollars are dumped into the innovation furnaces of smart software.
The Venture Beat story makes the point that “could dramatically reduce the cost and complexity of training AI systems to search for information, eliminating the need for expensive commercial search engine APIs altogether.”
Oh, oh.
This is smart. Buring cash in pursuit of a fractional improvement is dumb, well, actually, stupid, if the write up’s inforamtion is accurate.
The Venture Beat story says:
The technique, called “ZeroSearch,” allows large language models (LLMs) to develop advanced search capabilities through a simulation approach rather than interacting with real search engines during the training process. This innovation could save companies significant API expenses while offering better control over how AI systems learn to retrieve information.
Is this a Snorkel variant hot from Stanford AI lab?
The write up does not delve into the synthetic data short cut to smart software. After some mumbo jumbo, the write up points out the meat of the “innovation”:
The cost savings are substantial. According to the researchers’ analysis, training with approximately 64,000 search queries using Google Search via SerpAPI would cost about $586.70, while using a 14B-parameter simulation LLM on four A100 GPUs costs only $70.80 — an 88% reduction.
Imagine. A dollar in cost becomes $0.12. If accurate, what should a savvy investor do? Pump money into an outfit like OpenAI or the Xai- type entity, or think harder about the China-smart solution?
Venture Beat explains the implication of the alleged cost savings:
The impact could be substantial for the AI industry.
No kidding?
The Venture Beat analysts add this observation:
The irony is clear: in teaching AI to search without search engines, Alibaba may have created a technology that makes traditional search engines less necessary for AI development. As these systems become more self-sufficient, the technology landscape could look very different in just a few years.
Yep, irony. Free transformer technology. Free Snorkle technology. Free kinetic into the core of the LLM money furnace.
If true, the implications are easy to outline. If bogus, the China Smart, US Dumb trope still captured ink and will be embedded in some smart software’s increasingly frequent hallucinatory outputs. At which point, the China Smart, US Dumb information gains traction and becomes “fact” to some.
Stephen E Arnold, May 12, 2025
Another Duh! Moment: AI Cannot Read Social Situations
May 12, 2025
No AI. Just a dinobaby who gets revved up with buzzwords and baloney.
I promise I won’t write “Duh!” in this blog post again. I read Science Daily’s story “Awkward. Humans Are Still Better Than AI at Reading the Room.” The write up says without total awareness:
Humans, it turns out, are better than current AI models at describing and interpreting social interactions in a moving scene — a skill necessary for self-driving cars, assistive robots, and other technologies that rely on AI systems to navigate the real world.
Yeah, what about in smart weapons, deciding about health care for an elderly patient, or figuring out whether the obstacle is a painted barrier designed to demonstrate that full self driving is a work in progress. (I won’t position myself in front of a car with auto-sensing and automatic braking. You can have at it.)
The write up adds:
Video models were unable to accurately describe what people were doing in the videos. Even image models that were given a series of still frames to analyze could not reliably predict whether people were communicating. Language models were better at predicting human behavior, while video models were better at predicting neural activity in the brain.
Do these findings say to you, “Not ready for prime time?” It does to me.
One of the researchers who was in the weeds with the data points out:
“I think there’s something fundamental about the way humans are processing scenes that these models are missing.”
Okay, I prevaricated. Duh!” (Do marketers care? Duh!)
Stephen E Arnold, May 12, 2025
Google, Its AI Search, and Web Site Traffic
May 12, 2025
No AI. Just a dinobaby sharing an observation about younger managers and their innocence.
I read “Google’s AI Search Switch Leaves Indie Websites Unmoored.” I think this is a Gen Y way of saying, “No traffic for you, bozos.” Of course, as a dinobaby, I am probably wrong.
Let’s look at the write up. It says:
many publishers said they either need to shut down or revamp their distribution strategy. Experts this effort could ultimately reduce the quality of information Google can access for its search results and AI answers.
Okay, but this is just one way to look at Google’s delicious decision.
May I share some of my personal thoughts about what this traffic downshift means for those blue-chip consultant Googlers in charge:
First, in the good old days before the decline began in 2006, Google indexed bluebirds (sites that had to be checked for new content or “deltas” on an accelerated heart beat. Examples were whitehouse.gov (no, not the whitehouse.com porn site). Then there were sparrows. These plentiful Web sites could be checked on a relaxed schedule. I mean how often do you visit the US government’s National Railway Retirement Web site if it still is maintained and online? Yep, the correct answer is, “Never.” There there were canaries. These were sites which might signal a surge in popularity. They were checked on a heart beat that ensured the Google wouldn’t miss a trend and fail to sell advertising to those lucky ad buyers.
So, bluebirds, canaries, and sparrows.
This shift means that Google can reduce costs by focusing on bluebirds and canaries. The sparrows — the site operated by someone’s grandmother to sell home made quilts — won’t get traffic unless the site operator buys advertising. It’s pay to play. If a site is not in the Google index, it just may not exist. Sure there are alternative Web search systems, but none, as far as I know, are close to the scope of the “old” Google in 2006.
Second, by dropping sparrows or pinging them once in a blue moon will reduce the costs of crawling, indexing, and doing the behind-the-scenes work that consumes Google cash at an astonishing rate. Therefore, the myth of indexing the “Web” is going to persist, but the content of the index is not going to be “fresh.” This is the concept that some sites like whitehouse.gov have important information that must be in search results. Non-priority sites just disappear or fade. Eventually the users won’t know something is missing, which is assisted by the decline in education for some Google users. The top one percent knows bad or missing information. The other 99 percent? Well, good luck.
Third, the change means that publishers will have some options. [a] They can block Google’s spider and chase the options. How’s Yandex.ru sound? [b] They can buy advertising and move forward. I suggest these publishers ask a Google advertising representative what the minimum spend is to get traffic. [c] Publishers can join together and try to come up with a joint effort to resist the increasingly aggressive business actions of Google. Do you have a Google button on your remote? Well, you will. [d] Be innovative. Yeah, no comment.
Net net: This item about the impact of AI Overviews is important. Just consider what Google gains and the pickle publishers and other Web sites now find themselves enjoying.
Stephen E Arnold, May 12, 2025
US Cloud Dominance? China Finds a Gap and Cuts a Path to the Middle East
May 11, 2025
No AI, just the dinobaby expressing his opinions to Zellenials.
‘How China Is Gaining Ground in the Middle East Cloud Computing Race” provides a summary of what may be a destabilizing move in the cloud computing market. The article says:
Huawei and Alibaba are outpacing established U.S. providers by aligning with government priorities and addressing data sovereignty concerns.
The “U.S. providers” are Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Oracle. The Chinese companies making gains in the Middle East include Alibaba, Huawei, and TenCent. Others are likely to follow.
The article notes:
Alibaba Cloud expanded strategically by opening data centers in the UAE in 2022 and Saudi Arabia last year. It entered the Saudi market by setting up a venture with STC. The Saudi Cloud Computing Company will support the kingdom’s Vision 2030 goals, under which the government hopes to diversify the economy away from oil dependency.
What’s China’s marketing angle? The write up identifies alignment and more sensitivity to “data sovereignty” in key Middle Eastern countries. But the secret sauce is, according the the write up:
A key differentiator has been the Chinese providers’ approach to artificial intelligence. While U.S. companies have been slow to adopt AI solutions in the region, Chinese providers have aggressively embedded AI into their offerings at a time when Gulf nations are pursuing AI leadership. During the Huawei Global AI Summit last year, Huawei Cloud’s chief technology officer, Bruno Zhang, showed how its AI could cut Saudi hospital diagnostic times by 40% using localized Arabic language models — a tangible benefit that theoretical AI platforms from Western providers couldn’t match.
This statement may or may not be 100 percent correct. For this blog post, let’s assume that it is close enough for horse shoes. First, the US cloud providers are positioned as “slow”. What happened to the go fast angle. Wasn’t Microsoft a “leader” in AI, catching Google napping in its cubicle? Google declared some sort of an emergency and the AI carnival put up its midway.
Second, the Gulf “nations” wanted AI leadership, so Huawei presented a “tangible benefit” in the form of a diagnostic time reduction and localized Arabic language models. I know that US cloud providers provide translation services, but the pointy end of the stick shoved into the couch potato US cloud services was “localized language models.”
Furthermore, the Chinese providers provide cloud services and support on premises plus cloud functions. The “hybrid” angle matches the needs of some Middle Eastern information systems professionals’ ideas. The write up says:
The hybrid approach plays directly to the strengths of Chinese providers, who recognized this market preference early and built their regional strategy around it.
The Chinese vendors provide an approach that matches what prospects want. Seems simple and obvious. However, the article includes a quote that hints at another positive for the Chinese cloud players; to wit:
“The Chinese companies are showing that success in the Middle East depends as much on trust and cooperation as it does on computing power,” Luis Bravo, senior research analyst at Texas-based data center Hawk…
For me the differentiator may not be price, hybrid willingness, or localization. The killer word is trust. If the Gulf States do not trust the US vendors, China is likely to displace yesterday’s “only game in town” crowd.
Yep, trust. A killer benefit in some deals.
Stephen E Arnold, May 11, 2025
Microsoft AI: Little Numbers and Mucho Marketing
May 10, 2025
No AI. Just a dinobaby who gets revved up with buzzwords and baloney.
I am confused. The big AI outfits have spent and are spending big bucks on [a] marketing, [b] data centers, [c] marketing, [d] chips, [e] reorganizations, and [f] marketing. I think I have the main cost centers, but I may have missed one. Yeah, I did. Marketing.
Has the AI super machine run into some problems? Thanks, MidJourney, you were online today unlike OpenAI.
What is AI doing? It is definitely selling consulting services. Some wizards are using it to summarize documents because that takes a human time to do. You know: Reading, taking notes, then capturing the juicy bits. Let AI do that. And customer support? Yes, much cheaper some say than paying humans to talk to a mere customer.
Imagine my surprise when I read “Microsoft’s Big AI Hire Can’t Match OpenAI.” Microsoft’s AI leader among AI leaders, according to the write up, “hasn’t delivered the turnaround he was hired to bring.” Microsoft caught the Google by surprise a couple of years ago, caused a Googley Code Red or Yellow or whatever, and helped launch the “AI is the next big thing innovators have been waiting for.”
The write up asserts:
At Microsoft’s annual executive huddle last month, the company’s chief financial officer, Amy Hood, put up a slide that charted the number of users for its Copilot consumer AI tool over the past year. It was essentially a flat line, showing around 20 million weekly users. On the same slide was another line showing ChatGPT’s growth over the same period, arching ever upward toward 400 million weekly users. OpenAI’s iconic chatbot was soaring, while Microsoft’s best hope for a mass-adoption AI tool was idling.
Keep in mind that Google suggested it had 1.5 billion users of its Gemini service, and (I think) Google implied that its AI is the quantumly supreme smart software. I may have that wrong and Google’s approach just wins chess, creates new drugs, and suggests that one can glue cheese on pizza. I may have these achievements confused, but I am an 80 year old dinobaby and easily confused these days.
The write up also contains some information I found a bit troubling; to wit:
And at this point, Microsoft is just not in the running to build a model that can compete with the best from OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, and even xAI. The projects that people have mentioned to me feel incremental, as opposed to leapfrogging the competition.
One can argue that Microsoft does not have to be in the big leagues. The company usually takes three or more releases to get a feature working. (How about those printers that don’t work?) The number of Softie software users is big. Put the new functionality in a release and — bingo! — market leadership. That SharePoint is a wonderful content management system. Just ask some of the security team in the Israeli military struggling with a “squadron” fumble.
Several observations:
- Microsoft’s dialing back some data center action may be a response to the under performance of its AI is the future push. If not, then maybe Microsoft has just pulled a Bob or a Clippy?
- I am not sure that the payoffs for other AI leaders’ investments are going to grab the brass ring or produce a winning lottery ticket. So many people desperately want AI to deliver dump trucks of gold dust to their cubicles that the neediness is palpable. AI is — it must be — the next big thing.
- Users are finding that for some use cases, AI is definitely a winner. College students use it to make more free time for hanging out and using TikTok-type services. Law firms find that AI is good enough to track down obscure cases that can be used in court as long as a human who knows the legal landscape checks the references before handing them over to a judge who can use an ATM machine and a mobile phone for voice calls. For many applications, the hallucination issue looms large.
- China’s free smart software models work reasonably well and have ignited such diverse applications as automated pig butchering and proving that cheaper CPUs and GPUs work in a “good enough” way just for less money.
I don’t want to pick on Microsoft, but I want to ask a question, “Is this the first of the big technology companies hungry and thirsty for the next big thing starting to find out that AI may not deliver?”
Stephen E Arnold, May 13, 2025
IBM AI Study: Would The Research Report Get an A in Statistics 202?
May 9, 2025
No AI, just the dinobaby expressing his opinions to Zellenials.
IBM, reinvigorated with its easy-to-use, backwards-compatible, AI-capable mainframe released a research report about AI. Will these findings cause the new IBM AI-capable mainframe to sell like Jeopardy / Watson “I won” T shirts?
Perhaps.
The report is “Five Mindshifts to Supercharge Business Growth.” It runs a mere 40 pages and requires no more time than configuring your new LinuxONE Emperor 5 mainframe. Well, the report can be absorbed in less time, but the Emperor 5 is a piece of cake as IBM mainframes go.
Here are a few of the findings revealed by IBM in its IBM research report;
AI can improve customer “experience”. I think this means that customer service becomes better with AI in it. Study says, “72 percent of those in the sample agree.”
Turbulence becomes opportunity. 100 percent of the IBM marketers assembling the report agree. I am not sure how many CEOs are into this concept; for example, Hollywood motion picture firms or Georgia Pacific which closed a factory and told workers not to come in tomorrow.
Here’s a graphic from the IBM study. Do you know what’s missing? I will give you five seconds as Arvin Haddad, the LA real estate influencer says in his entertaining YouTube videos:
The answer is, “Increasing revenues, boosting revenues, and keeping stakeholders thrilled with their payoffs.” The items listed by IBM really don’t count, do they?
“Embrace AI-fueled creative destruction.” Yep, another 100 percenter from the IBM team. No supporting data, no verification, and not even a hint of proof that AI-fueled creative destruction is doing much more than making lots of venture outfits and some of the US AI leaders is improving their lives. That cash burn could set the forest on fire, couldn’t it? Answer: Of course not.
I must admit I was baffled by this table of data:
Accelerate growth and efficiency goes down with generative AI. (Is Dr. Gary Marcus right?). Enhanced decision making goes up with generative AI. Are the decisions based on verifiable facts or hallucinated outputs? Maybe busy executives in the sample choose to believe what AI outputs because a computer like the Emperor 5 was involved. Maybe “easy” is better than old-fashioned problem solving which is expensive, slow, and contentious. “Just let AI tell me” is a more modern, streamlined approach to decision making in a time of uncertainty. And the dotted lines? Hmmm.
On page 40 of the report, I spotted this factoid. It is tiny and hard to read.
The text says, “50 percent say their organization has disconnected technology due to the pace of recent investments.” I am not exactly sure what this means. Operative words are “disconnected” and “pace of … investments.” I would hazard an interpretation: “Hey, this AI costs too much and the payoff is just not obvious.”
I wish to offer some observations:
- IBM spent some serious money designing this report
- The pagination is in terms of double page spreads, so the “study” plus rah rah consumes about 80 pages if one were to print it out. On my laser printer the pages are illegible for a human, but for the designers, the approach showcases the weird ice cubes, the dotted lines, and allows important factoids to be overlooked
- The combination of data (which strike me as less of a home run for the AI fan and more of a report about AI friction) and flat out marketing razzle dazzle is intriguing. I would have enjoyed sitting in the meetings which locked into this approach. My hunch is that when someone thought about the allegedly valid results and said, “You know these data are sort of anti-AI,” then the others in the meeting said, “We have to convert the study into marketing diamonds.” The result? The double truck, design-infused, data tinged report.
Good work, IBM. The study will definitely sell truckloads of those Emperor 5 mainframes.
Stephen E Arnold, May 9, 2025
Google: Making Users Cross Their Eyes in Confusion
May 9, 2025
No AI, just a dinobaby watching the world respond to the tech bros.
I read “Don’t Make It Like Google.” The article points out that Google’s “control” extends globally. The company’s approach to software and design are ubiquitous. People just make software like Google because it seems “right.”
The author of the essay says:
Developers frequently aim to make things “like Google” because it feels familiar and, seemingly, the right way to do things. In the past, this was an implicit influence, but now it’s direct: Google became the platform for web applications (Chrome) and mobile applications (Android). It also created a framework for human-machine interaction: Material Design. Now, “doing it like Google” isn’t just desirable; it’s necessary.
Regulators in the European Union have not figured out how to respond to this type of alleged “monopoly.”
The author points out:
Most tech products now look indistinguishable, just a blobby primordial mess of colors.
Why? The author provides an answer:
Google’s actual UI & UX design is terrible. Whether mass-market or enterprise, web or mobile, its interfaces are chaotic and confusing. Every time I use Google Drive or the G Suite admin console, I feel lost. Neither experience nor intuition helps—I feel like an old man seeing a computer for the first time.
I quite like the reference to the author’s feeling like an “old man seeing a computer for the first time.” As a dinobaby, I find Google’s approach to making functions available — note, I am going to use a dinobaby term — stupid. Simple functions to me are sorting emails by sender and a keyword. I have not figured out how to do this in Gmail. I have given up on Google Maps. I have zero clue how to access the “old” street view with a basic map on a mobile device. Hey, am I the only person in an unfamiliar town trying to locate a San Jose-type office building in a tan office park? I assume I am.
The author points out:
Instead of prioritizing objectively good user experiences, the more profitable choice is often to mimic Google’s design. Not because developers are bad or lazy. Not because users enjoy clunky interfaces. But because it “makes sense” from the perspective of development costs and marketing. It’s tricky to praise Apple while criticizing Google because where Google has clumsy interfaces, Apple has bugs and arbitrary restrictions. But if we focus purely on interface design, Apple demonstrates how influence over users and developers can foster generations of well-designed products. On average, an app in Apple’s ecosystem is more polished and user-friendly than one in Google’s.
I am not sure that Apple is that much better than Google, but for me, the essay makes clear that giant US technology companies shape the user’s reality. The way information is presented and what expert users learn may not be appropriate for most people. I understand that these companies have to have a design motif or template. I understand that big companies have “experts” who determine what users do and want.
The author of the essay says:
We’ve become accustomed to the unintuitive interfaces of washing machines and microwaves. A new washing machine may be quieter, more efficient, and more aesthetically pleasing, yet its dials and icons still feel alien; or your washing machine now requires an app. Manufacturers have no incentive to improve this aspect—they just do it “like the Google of their industry.” And the “Google” of any industry inevitably gets worse over time.
I disagree. I think that making interfaces impossible is a great thing. Now here’s my reasoning: Who wants to expend energy figuring out a “better way.” The name of the game is to get eyeballs. Looking like Google or any of the big technology companies means that one just rolls over and takes what these firms offer as a default. Mind control and behavior conditioning is much easier and ultimately more profitable than approaching a problem from the user’s point of view. Why not define what a user gets, make it difficult or impossible to achieve a particular outcome, and force the individual to take what is presented as the one true way.
That makes business sense.
Stephen E Arnold, May 9, 2025
Waymo Self Driving Cars: Way Safer, Waymo Says
May 9, 2025
This dinobaby believes everything he reads online. I know that statistically valid studies conducted by companies about their own products are the gold standard in data collection and analysis. If you doubt this fact of business life in 2025, you are not in the mainstream.
I read “Waymo Says Its Robotaxis Are Up to 25x Safer for Pedestrians and Cyclists.” I was thrilled. Imagine. I could stand in front of a Waymo robotaxi holding my new grandchild and know that the vehicle would not strike us. I wonder if my son and his wife would allow me to demonstrate my faith in the Google.
The write up explains that a Waymo study proved beyond a shadow of doubt that Waymo robotaxis are way, way, way safer than any other robotaxi. Here’s a sampling of the proof:
92 percent fewer crashes with injuries to pedestrians
82 percent fewer crashes with injuries to kids and adults on bicycles
82 percent fewer crashes with senior citizens on scooters and adults on motorcycles.
Google has made available a big, fat research paper which provides more knock out data about the safety of the firm’s smart robot driven vehicles. If you want to dig into the document with inputs from six really smart people, click this link.
The study is a first, and it is, in my opinion, a quantumly supreme example of research. I do not believe that Google’s smart software was used to create any synthetic data. I know that if a Waymo vehicle and another firm’s robot-driven car speed at an 80 year old like myself 100 times each, the Waymo vehicles will only crash into me 18 times. I have no idea how many times I would be killed or injured if another firm’s smart vehicle smashed into me. Those are good odds, right?
The paper has a number of compelling presentations of data. Here’s an example:
This particular chart uses the categories of striking and struck, but only a trivial amount of these kinetic interactions raise eyebrows. No big deal. That’s why the actual report consumed only 58 pages of text and hard facts. Obvious superiority.
Would you stand in front of a Waymo driving at you as the sun sets?
I am a dinobaby, and I don’t think an automobile would do too much damage if it did hit me. Would my son’s wife allow me to hold my grandchild in my arms as I demonstrated my absolute confidence in the Alphabet Google YouTube Waymo technology? Answer: Nope.
Stephen E Arnold, May 9, 2025
Stanford University Students and Their Entrepreneurial Drive
May 9, 2025
Signal is useful for more than spreading state secrets. One enterprising resident of the San Francisco Bay Area used the encrypted messaging service for a different shady endeavor. SFGate reports, “Stanford Grad Sentenced for ‘DoorDash-Style’ Drug Trafficking Service.” 31-year old Natalie Marie Gonzalez was sentenced to over four years in federal prison for leading the operation. She and three co-conspirators were first indicted in 2023 after a raid turned up almost a kilogram of fentanyl, about seven kilograms of cocaine, some ketamine, methamphetamine masquerading as Adderall, and other illegal drugs. That is quite the selection. The service included creative measures designed to hide the fact that meetups were actually drug deals. Reporter Madilynne Medina describes the operation:
“The drug trafficking service operated from April to September, 2023. According to the attorney’s office, customers would place orders from ‘a menu of drugs for sale’ through the encrypted messaging system Signal. Orders required a $300 order minimum for the delivery, and Gonzalez paid her co-conspirators to work as drivers. Per the criminal complaint, an undercover agent first used the service to order cocaine and 2,000 fake Adderall pills that contained meth. Gonzalez instructed the agent to ‘hop in’ the car for a short ‘‘‘Uber” ride around the block’ to cover up the drug transaction when the driver arrived with the delivery on March 29, 2023. The agent then made multiple other purchases. During one of the sales in July 2023, the agent was even given the option to play with a dog to cover up the drug deal, the complaint shows. According to the agent, Gonzalez said her customers were ‘a lot of students and young professionals.’”
Ah, modern technology. Four years in prison is no fun but, as Medina reports, the maximum penalty Gonzalaz faced was 20 years and a $1 million fine. Let us hope she finds more above-board uses for her innovation once released. Stanford University is an interesting institution: Synthetic data and synthetic contraband. Will the individual get to rub shoulders with the former Stanford president who resigned due to research irregularities. Pacesetters indeed.
Cynthia Murrell, May 9, 2025
Apple and Google Relationship: Starting to Fray?
May 8, 2025
No AI, just the dinobaby expressing his opinions to Zellenials.
I spotted a reference to an Apple manager going out on a limb of the old, Granny Smith tree. At the end of the limb, the Apple guru allegedly suggested that the Google search ain’t what it used to be. Whether true or not, Apple pays the Google lots of money to be the really but formerly wonderful Web search system for the iPhone and Safari “experience.”
That assertion of decline touched a nerve at the Google. I noted this statement in the Google blog. I am not sure which one because Google has many pages of smarmy talk. I am a dinobaby and easily confused. Here’s that what Google document with the SEO friendly title “Here’s Our Statement on This Morning’s Press Reports about Search Traffic” says:
We continue to see overall query growth in Search. That includes an increase in total queries coming from Apple’s devices and platforms. More generally, as we enhance Search with new features, people are seeing that Google Search is more useful for more of their queries — and they’re accessing it for new things and in new ways, whether from browsers or the Google app, using their voice or Google Lens. We’re excited to continue this innovation and look forward to sharing more at Google I/O.
Several observations:
- I love the royal “we”. I think that the Googlers who are nervous about search include the cast of the Sundar & Prabhakar Comedy Act. Search means ads. Ads mean money. Money means Wall Street. Therefore, a decline in search makes the Wall Street types jumpy, twitchy, and grumpy. Do not suggest traffic declines when controlling the costs of the search plumbing are becoming quite interesting for the Googley bean counters.
- Apple device users are searching Google a lot. I believe it. Monopolies like to have captives who don’t know that there are now alternatives to the somewhat uninspiring version of Jon Kleinberg’s CLEVER inventions spiced with some Fancy Dan weighting. These “weights” are really useful for boosting I believe.
- The leap to user satisfaction with Google search is unsupported by audited data. Those happy faces don’t convey why millions of people are using ChatGPT or why people complain that Google search results are mostly advertising. Oh, well, when one is a monopoly controlling what’s presented to users within the content of big spending advertisers, reality is what the company chooses to present.
- The Google is excited about its convention. Will it be similar to the old network marketing conventions or more like the cheerleading at Telegram’s Gateway Conference? It doesn’t matter. Google is excited.
Net net: The alleged Apple remark goosed the Google to make “our statement.” Outstanding defensive tone and posture. Will the pair seek counseling?
Stephen E Arnold, May 8, 2025
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