Does Google Stretch the Truth, You Know, Like Lie?
April 28, 2026
The Cool Down says that “Google AI Is Lying To Users At A Virtually Unprecedented Scale, Report Says. The Arnold IT team is horrified. Google? Outputting falsehoods? We were surprised at the assertion. The cited article suggests that Google’s automatic AI answers that appear at the top of all search results and everyone has to use because Mama Google knows exactly what everyone wants sort of like God, right. The cited sources says that Google is in fabrication land, a Disneyland type of world that looks real but is just a bunch of mechanical gears, hidden tunnels, and Mouseketeer wannabes.
The AI intelligence startup Oumi researched Google’s responses and found that they’re correct 91% of the time. That sounds good, but Google handles 5 trillion searches a year. I am not a mathy type, but this seems to be about one mistake out of 10 outputs. Hey, that is nothing. Look at it this way: Mama Google is right 90 percent of the time. So what if those parenting decisions produce a problem. Look at the upside.
Am I sad that a tool meant to increase human knowledge is delivering incorrect information. No, I am thrilled. Google is leading us to a future based on Silicon Valley philosophical ideas. Google is smart; therefore, its outputs are smart. If you don’t get it, you are a loser.
The write up says:
“Part of the issue lies in how AI systems work. Large language models, such as those behind Google’s summaries, are designed to respond with confidence, even when they’re wrong. Studies have suggested that many users don’t double-check these answers, a tendency known as “cognitive surrender,” wherein people trust authoritative-sounding information without verifying it.”
Then there’s the environmental impact. While new models of AI are more energy efficient and rely on renewables, the current models are already straining critical resources. Two things Google is doing: lying and straining the grid.
Let’s applaud the business approach of the winners at Google. (Can you determine if an AI output is accurate, invented, or an advertisement? Of course not. That’s the reason Google is the leader. You know. A digital god built on advertising, the Clever method, and putting one’s finger on the butcher’s scale.
Whitney Grace, April 28, 2026
The Cool Down Is Not Down with the Google
April 17, 2026
Another dinobaby post. No AI unless it is an image. This dinobaby is not Grandma Moses, just Grandpa Arnold.
My feed output a link from an outfit I know little about. It may be a smart robot or a wily humanoid. The write up did catch my attention. Its title? A grabber:
However, Google does offer a somewhat wonky “advanced search” function. Do you know how to locate it? See the answer at the foot of this blog post. Note that BearBlog in lovely South Africa thinks that my essays are written by AI systems. (Sorry Lemon Squeezy. You are lost in the Afrikaans semantic wilderness. Your words about censorship and your actions are like a person who thinks Google search intentionally misleads people.)
Many of the OSING crowd end up relying on Google or tools that suck information from the Google. Some venture into the murky water of Russian language indexes or the really slippery Chinese Web indexes. But for many professionals, the Google is the source. (One might ask, “What happens if Google does not index something indexes certain sites on a relaxed schedule? The answer could be, “That information does not exist for billions of users. Ponder that for information shaping opportunities, please.)
Now back to this assertion that “Google searches are intentionally unusable to increase AI usage.” The assumption many people make is that Google indexes the world’s information. Bad assumption. Furthermore, people assume that Google outputs are “objective.” Bad assumption. Others believe that Google is a computer and, therefore, is just right. Bad assumption.
The write up points out that a person named @bwags asserted that Google search outputs are not particularly helpful. Then the article does a flip and a lateral arabesque, stating:
Wagner’s viral post Saturday coincided with a high-profile collision between real life and digital life — a 20-year-old California woman sued Instagram’s parent company, Meta, along with Google’s YouTube, alleging that the platforms knew their products were harmful and habit-forming.
Yikes, is this a suggestion that useless search results are harmful in the same way YouTube rabbit holes about see-thru clothing and Facebook’s displaying posts about not eating in order to be buff?
The write then pivots to “fleece lined pants.” I know that you may not follow the logic, and I must admit I am not sure what the Cool Down article is communicating or trying to communicate. The fleece thing surfaces in this passage:
“It used to be you went online to search ‘fleece lined work pants 30×30’ and [Google] returned a handful of results that met your criteria,” it began. “Thanks to technological improvements, that is no longer possible.”
Okay, I navigated to Google.com and entered this query. Note that I was logged in as an actual Google user who pays for assorted services. I want to point out that a few of these are pretty much useless; for example, Gemini, the YouTube autoplay function, and hit-and-miss Mandiant/Wiz announcements about security at the same time DeepMind is working to create models specifically designed to find software issues and identify these to Mandiant/Wiz and some bad actors.
Here’s what Google produced on April 10, 2026, at 1005 am US Eastern time:
Yep, fleece lined pants. Good enough for a normcore Google user. A person to the right of the bell curve “center” would use a better query than “men fleece lined pants.” Less than two percent of humans on earth using Google would navigate to the advanced Google search page and specify exactly what is required to get information on fleece lined pants. These seem pretty much the same to me: Some type of allegedly “real” or “fake fur” lining, high prices, and weird colors that will get a person shot if wandering in the woods in deer hunting season. Remember, please, I live in rural Kentucky. If you live in Manhattan, Oakland, or Woodside in Chicago, you may want to opt for a different type of garment; for example, one that defines Yee Yee’s efforts. (To learn more about Yee Yee, click here for information.)
My view of this article is that Google does have its own agenda, and its often clueless users have another. Guess where the Cool Down falls?
Google Advanced Search nestles in sparkling wonkiness on this landing page.
PS. Do you think that any large language model writes how I do? If so, you qualify for a job working with Lemon Squeezy.
Stephen E Arnold, April 17, 2026
Google Designers Have a Picasso Complex
April 14, 2026
Another dinobaby post. No AI unless it is an image. This dinobaby is not Grandma Moses, just Grandpa Arnold.
Would you like to read a bunch of elitist, garbage hoopla about design? Look no further than Google’s latest article about, “Illustrating The Gemini App.” This is the most pretentious piece about design I’ve read in years. If you’ve been living underneath a rock for the past year, Gemini is Google’s AI chatbot. Google released an app for the chatbot and talked it up in this press release.
News flash: MidJourney is back to generating images of humans with three hands. After a few attempts, I was able to get a good enough illustration with a two handed humanoid. Close enough, MidJourney.
Here’s how this explanation of the digital Picasso method:
“How do you build trust in a tool that’s always evolving? Our AI assistant, Gemini, is constantly learning and adapting, which means traditional design methodologies (mostly linear, predictable, and rooted in control) have to be set aside. Our designers took on the challenge of charting a new digital landscape. How do you bridge conceptual gaps around AI, especially around how Gemini simplifies information and expands ideas? How do you invite users to explore, play, and search, so they can build confidence using an ever-shifting tool? These questions were guided by a core set of goals: to make Gemini feel intuitive, immersive, approachable, aspirational — and, above all, trustworthy.”
Yep, digital Picasso thinking.
Here’s another example:
“Navigating uncharted design territory isn’t new.”
Is Google’s design philosophy focused on shattering conventions? I think good design is essential regardless of the product, service, or application. Design is function and form needs to speak for itself without overhyped press releases or poster-type content pitching a lecture about modern art at a junior college.
Several observations:
- Gemini’s interface is black. Copy some output and paste it in Word and the text remains white. Helpful.
- No button or scroll bar allows a user to navigate up and down a content string. That’s a thoughtful omission because it is difficult to code. Therefore, forget it.
- References or urls are not presented in ascii. Therefore, one has to either click the tiny number and copy the url in order to paste it in a note app. I wonder who thought hiding sources was a great idea.
- There is plenty of room for ads displayed next to Gemini content. I can hardly wait.
- The popups asking for access to my entire swath of Google content are not just annoying; they tip the hand of the data sucking Gemini.
- Why is the image generation feature not explicit? Oh, well. Just figure that out.
- The persistent “upgrade” banner is an intrusive addition particularly when other interface elements are missing.
Net net: Googlers view themselves as geniuses. That’s okay. The design and interface team may want to take an objective look at what they have produced. Asking other Googlers for feedback is not a winning recipe. Selling ads using the Yahoo, Overture, and GoTo.com method is.
Stick to what you know works.
Whitney Grace, April 14, 2026
Google and Meta Need to Block the End Around Play… and Quickly
April 8, 2026
Another dinobaby post. No AI unless it is an image. This dinobaby is not Grandma Moses, just Grandpa Arnold.
CNBC published an item I found interesting. “Meta, Google Under Attack As Court Cases Bypass 30-Year-Old Legal Shield.” The news item reports:
For the last three decades, internet giants have been able to avoid legal exposure for content on their platforms, thanks to a law that differentiates the companies from online publishers. But those safeguards appear to be weakening.
I immediately thought about one of those high school football games. One large, high school fields a team of big, brawny, and mean players. The other team comes from a small high school. The players are overmatched in human resources and fan support. Somehow after the first half, the team from the larger school is losing.
Everyone is stunned. How can this be? How can a group of puny players get the better of a high school with a larger school band than the small school. What’s going on?
The write up says:
a jury in New Mexico found Meta liable in a case involving child safety, while jurors in Los Angeles held the Facebook parent and Google’s YouTube negligent in a personal injury trial. Days after those verdicts were revealed, victims of the notorious sex offender Jeffrey Epstein filed a class action lawsuit against Google and the Trump administration over allegations related to the wrongful disclosure of personal information. In that complaint, the plaintiffs argue that Google’s AI Mode, which serves up AI-powered summaries and links, is “not a neutral search index,” a clear effort to make the case that Google isn’t just a platform sitting between users and the information they seek.
The penalties are trivial within the scope of the losers’ finances. But if the champions cannot knock off the wimps, there might be more hassles in conference games. One of these outfits wants to be the champion, and defeats by minnows do not make the big sharks look as fierce. The CNBC story points out:
… the cases establish a troubling precedent for tech giants that are betting their future on AI.
The operative words are “precedent” and “future.”
The report adds some color to the plight of the social media studs:
The verdict … against Meta and YouTube was the first time a jury found social media platforms liable for what plaintiff attorneys alleged was intentionally engineering addiction in minors with their products. The case went after how the platforms were designed, not just what content they carried. Plaintiffs argued that the combination of features like autoplay, recommendation algorithms, notifications and certain filters acted like “digital casinos,” leading to serious mental health problems for a young girl who claimed she couldn’t stop using the apps. The class action suit against Google, filed last week by a plaintiff with the pseudonym Jane Doe, alleged that the company’s AI Mode created its own summaries and links, exposing Epstein victims’ personal identifying information (PII), including names, phone numbers and email addresses.
The studs are not going to accept the outcome of the losses. The alums, the players, and the fans may complain to the objective, impartial, and fair athletic board. The article puts the protest this way:
Legal experts said appeals in the latest cases could find their way to the Supreme Court, which could determine whether the companies should be protected by law against the claims.
Did the wimps just get lucky or did the coaches come up with a new play? Answer: Who knows? But a win is a win. And there is another game coming and the season is not over.
Stephen E Arnold, April 8, 2026
Does Google Believe That Addiction Is Good?
April 2, 2026
![green-dino_thumb_thumb[3]_thumb](https://www.arnoldit.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/green-dino_thumb_thumb3_thumb-1.gif "green-dino_thumb_thumb[3]_thumb")
Another dinobaby post. No AI unless it is an image. This dinobaby is not Grandma Moses, just Grandpa Arnold.
I believe everything I read on the Internet. You may be different in your views. I noted this story in the New York Post: “YouTube Staffers Deliberately Aimed for Viewer Addiction, Killed Safety Tools for Kids: Court Docs.” As you may now, my team and I absolutely love the Google. Over the years, I have had a few trivial interactions with Googlers. When Google had just morphed from Backrub into the enhanced version of Clever and basic Web indexing, Larry Page and I disagreed about the importance of truncation, both forward and back. (Note: This was an issue important in a major US government procurement in Year 2000 to 2001.) I then chased down a senior Googler to tell that estimable individual that I was using the neologism “Googzilla” in my second monograph about Google’s strategy and technology. That person was delighted. Since that interaction, I happily talk about Googzilla. I even used some art that resembled a semi-happy Japanese movie monster as cover art. Over the years, Googlers and I have have interacted with the estimable firm communicating the fact that I was not ready to marry Googzilla and my keeping my affection in check.
A meeting in which the methods for creating habitual viewing of videos is discussed. The member of leadership goes directly to the point. That outstanding business thinker wants reassurance that addiction will come about. Let the rest of the group argue about other topics. Thanks, Venice.ai. Once again I did not bump into your guard rails. Aren’t I the good little LLM user?
This story in the New York Post, therefore, strikes me as having a couple of kernels of truth in it. Let’s see what is offered by the cited story, shall we?
I noted this passage:
YouTube employees admitted that their goal was “viewer addiction” and killed proposed safety tools for kids because they wouldn’t provide a sufficient “ROI” — financial lingo for “return on investment,” according to bombshell court documents reviewed by The Post.
I don’t think the word “bombshell” is necessary. The court stenographers and the folks who slap on Bates’ numbers just process that which flows to them. But “bombshell” is colorful. The key point, from my point of view, is that Googlers took specific action to create “viewer addiction.” From my admittedly limited information about the Google, I think the reason the addiction path looked appealing boils down to the incentive plans and the value of generating revenue. Google is definitely more into money than worrying about delivering on point, relevant, and timely search results my own experience has suggested.
The write up includes this snappy statement:
…The “goal is not viewership, it’s viewer addiction.”
I am not surprised. YouTube is social with the follower thing and the comments. The recommendations, as flawed as they are for me, seem to attract the attention of those who manifest quite specific interests in topics against which advertisers messages can display. I get recommendations for French instrumental music, the history of mayonnaise, and a 10th grade mathematics examination. Definitely relevant to someone, just not this dinobaby. Let’s see. I was in the 10th grade in 1958 and 1959. That works out to about 70 years ago. News flash: When confronted with the weird math my great uncle who worked with Kolmogorov, I plug the problem into ChatGPT. Works for me!
Here’s another statement from the article:
During the state trial last month, YouTube executive Cristos Goodrow testified that the app was “not designed to maximize time” and the company doesn’t “want anybody to be addicted.” This summer’s federal case in Oakland, however, includes an internal YouTube presentation from April 2018 recounting study findings that “excessive video watching is related to addiction” and that it results in a “’quick fix’ of dopamine.’”
Could this be a prevarication or a fundamental lack of knowledge about the whiz kid Googlers were doing when not playing Foosball? It would not surprise me if a member of Google leadership did not know what was happening. Management processes seems to be idiosyncratic and inconsistent. Once the estimable firm could not pay me because no one in accounting knew how to output a check. How’s that for rock solid business process fundamentals? I was impressed. Not even the failing start ups for whom I did work were able to issue checks until the VCs pulled the plug.
The highlight of the article is an Google slide. It sure looks like the Google slides I saw from the period between 2004 and later. Here’s the one from the write up. Obviously it is the work product of a person named Howard (name means nothin to me) and Gunamtillake (nope, I am drawing a blank for this person too). The image is the property of the Google and probably now the courts and the New York Post.
The headline for this slide is “Excessive video watching is related to addiction.” Who knew? Obviously, the Google.
I urge you to read the full article. It contains some nifty phrases like “big tobacco moment” and Google’s surveillance business” and “kids as pawns.” But this is, in my opinion, the juiciest passage in the cited article:
Multiple federal judges have ripped Google for destroying chat logs that should have been preserved, including US District Judge James Donato, who furiously condemned the practice during a 2023 antitrust case as “a frontal assault on the fair administration of justice” that “undercuts due process.”
A curious person might ask, “Now what?” Answer: Nothing.
Google has a vision. Googzilla is very focused.
Net net: Without meaningful regulation and substantial penalties for the individuals who cause the laws, rules, and regulations to be ignored, BAIT (big AI tech) companies will just keep moving on down the road to the pot of gold at the end of their digital rainbows. Can the damaged be remediated? Answer: Not easily. Will BAIT outfits operate in a different way? Answer: As I write this, it is April Fool’s Day. Surely you are joking.
PS. Act fast to access the information available from CourtListener.com. Some content, like my Telegram essays, have a habit of going to the digital graveyard without warning and quickly. Here’s the full link. Yep, my team and I absolutely think Googzilla is the cutest company on the planet.
Stephen E Arnold, April 2, 2026
Google Does AI PR. This Time It Is a Memory Innovation
April 2, 2026
Another dinobaby post. No AI unless it is an image. This dinobaby is not Grandma Moses, just Grandpa Arnold.
I find it difficult to identify substantive differences in the big AI tech systems based on Google’s Tensor innovation. Because of this sameness and the emergence of differentiation via “novel” apps, the big AI tech outfits or BAIT shops are into marketing.
A recent example is the hoo-hah surrounding “TurboQuant: Redefining AI Efficiency with Extreme Compression.” The tip off that marketing and timing of the “memory” breakthrough coincides with fears about silicon shortages. The word “turbo” is paired with “quant.” Very zippy. Then there is the MBA favorite: “Efficiency.” And, finally, we have “extreme compression.” A 1950s marketer would have gone with “new” and “improved.” Google is with current marketing lingo. Thus, we have “turboquant,” “efficiency,” and “extreme compression.” I like that “extreme compress” as if a normal compression sock was not good enough for Grandpa Google’s paws.
Thanks, Venice.ai. I am glad my request for a female chef did not violate your decency guardrails. You are really intelligent, or at least you think you are. Good enough.
The write up makes clear that Google has figured out how to to the really complex types of content representations in a way that other BAIT firms have not. Never mind that some of the mathy stuff in the Google paper have kicked around MOMA, Peter Norvig’s Artificial Intelligence, and unpublished internal Google research notes for a while. The whole point is horn tooting.
The novelty, in my opinion, seems to be in the adaptation of known ideas from several mathematical technique pools; for instance, vector quantization, preconditioning, and the Johnson–Lindenstrauss (JL) method. Google makes it sort of clear that the procedure spins input vectors, adds some scalar quantizers, and adds a 1-bit Quantized Johnson–Lindenstrauss (QJL) step to remove the bitterness of inner-product bias. The result? Efficient and maybe a little better in terms of memory demand. (Like traffic, memory demand expands to consume available memory. That’s why traffic jams give highway and system engineers headaches.)
The Google method is clever. Innovation is usually a way to make existing theory line up with hardware constraints, memory overhead, and model quality.
But the timing? Quite good. We have several chefs making cakes. Betty Crocker whose nickname is Chef Gooey did not invent new flour, sugar, and eggs; she combined known ingredients in a mathematically disciplined way and packaged them for a high-value use case.
From my point of view, the paper looks like an opportunely packaged consolidation of an internal research line, released when the market is primed to reward any claim of memory-efficiency progress.
Is the cake any good? Well, there is the tiny issue of hallucinations, outputting incorrect stuff, and figuring out how to generate compensatory revenue since the old revenue line from synthetic DingDongs-type of products has been blasted by the new line of AI confections.
Stephen E Arnold, April 2, 2026
Google and Water: Hey, It Is Unlimited, Right?
March 16, 2026
How many times have I iterated that Google promises to do no harm yet it continues to think of the bottom line over the good of humanity. The Columbus Free Press reports, “Google’s Columbus Data Center Secrets Exposed.” Ohio power brokers foresaw that big businesses would come to the region seeking to use the vast supplies of water. The water is distributed through an aquifer that is now being monopolized by Google to cool its data center. Here’s how much water Google is using:
“According to Google, the Far South Side data center used 177 million gallons in 2024 when it was just coming online. Its data center in Lancaster took 207 million gallons that year and in New Albany, 405 million. Of Ohio’s 200-plus data centers, roughly 130 are in Central Ohio.”
Also an immense steam cloud is hanging out above Google’s Fart South Side data center. It’s not far from residential neighborhoods and a casino. And what about the steam cloud? Does it contain something like forever chemicals or pollutants that last as long as Google’s cookies on my computer? Google responded with assurances about caring about the Columbus neighborhood and climate change.
Is Columbus’ concerns an outlier? Will Google care? Sure. It will care enough to let loose a flight of legal eagles and some PR hawks to help residents of Columbus understand the “truth” about water.
Whitney Grace, March 16, 2026
The Google Is Very Unhappy: People Are Copying Its Work. Illegal! Unfair! Terrible!
February 18, 2026
Another dinobaby post. No AI unless it is an image. This dinobaby is not Grandma Moses, just Grandpa Arnold.
Up front I want to point out that I don’t know if the story is spot on. I am assuming that it contains a kernel of truth, maybe a whole stalk of veracity. But I find it quite interesting.
As a preface, some authors (creators) have accused AI companies of using their content to train AI models. One can pump the name “Esther Mahlangu,” into Google’s art making machine Namo Alabama or whatever and get outputs that look like Ms. Mahlangu’s art. How did Google’s smart software see Ms. Mahlangu’s geometric figures? I think Google must have ingested them, added metadata, decomposed them into Gemini building blocks, and happily and without much worry output facsimiles or what looked like Ms. Mahlangu’s designs.
A senior manager at a big tech company with a tight grip on a number of markets is having a hissy fit. The person in the playpen believes that a corrupt, criminal element is taking his toys. The senior executive’s assistant finds the scene as laughable as I do. Thanks, Venice.ai. Good enough. Not a cartoon. No toys in the air. But I don’t expect much from AI.
The operative work is “copy.” Maybe it should be called “harvesting” or “spidering”? From my point of view, Google has copied the intellectual spark and motif of her original and imaginative work. I am not sure Google is in the original business unless it comes to claims about its quantum supremacy. I grant that seems like a creative bit of wordsmithing. But I keep coming back to taking, using, and outputting of zeros and ones that are most just copies.
Now, what about this write up: “Google: Hackers Are Trying to ‘Clone’ Gemini for Cyberattacks”? The article states:
As the tech industry races to develop new AI models, Google alleges that “private sector” entities have been trying to reverse-engineer its Gemini chatbot by bombarding it with prompts intended to leak its secrets… But the company says it “observed and mitigated frequent model extraction attacks from private sector entities all over the world and researchers seeking to clone proprietary logic.” Model extraction isn’t your typical hacker-led “break-in.” Instead of exploiting a software glitch or infiltrating a corporate network, these attacks leverage legitimate access via Gemini’s API, which Google sells to software developers who want to build their apps around the chatbot.
The write up includes a diagram of how Google was “compromised”. (Didn’t Google buy Mandiant to deal with simple black box copying? Doesn’t Google use its own AI to defend its AI?) The write up states:
“This activity effectively represents a form of intellectual property (IP) theft,” Google alleges.
Google does not want its AI wizardry copied. I would remind people about these three examples related to Google’s unauthorized use of published information:
- Authors Guild v. Google, Inc. (Google Books)
- Perfect 10, Inc. v. Google, Inc.
- Oracle America, Inc. v. Google LLC
Google won each case because its taking was fair use. I am no lawyer. It looks to me that Google’s money, legal resources, and its ability to suggest that a nifty Google mouse pad might appear from a Googler’s briefcase helped it prevail. I just find it amusing that Google is miffed at people who are copying its stuff.
The legal eagles will take flight. Destination: Court rooms. Argument: You cannot do what we do.
Stephen E Arnold, February 18, 2026
Google: Another Great Idea… for Google
February 18, 2026
Another dinobaby post. No AI unless it is an image. This dinobaby is not Grandma Moses, just Grandpa Arnold.
I love Google lawyer logic. Last week I mentioned that Google insisted that a duck was a cow; that is, YouTube is Netflix-like, not social media. Another example hit my stream today (February 14, 2026). The good old orange newspaper published “Google Warns EU Against Erecting Walls in Tech Sovereignty Push.” (This is a paywalled story because “real” news costs money.)
The write up explains that Google lawyers are sharing some free advice with the European Union. And what is Google saying that is absolutely, 100 percent Googley? The write up reports:
Kent Walker, president of global affairs and chief legal officer at Google, told the FT that the EU faces a “competitive paradox” as it seeks to spur growth while “restricting the use of the technologies it needs to get there”. “We deliver a lot of value to Europe,” he said. “Erecting walls that make it harder to use some of the best technology in the world, especially as it’s advancing so quickly, would actually be counter-productive.”
The Google logic is bulletproof is you are Googley; that is, just standardize on Google. A failure to embrace Google means you clueless officials and your pathetic nation states will fail. But, listen up, going Google will allow you to succeed.
Thanks, Venice.ai. Close enough. The ducks are goats instruction baffled you. That’s okay. You are AI.
Yep, the duck is a goat logic. Google to be fair is not alone with this type of reasoning. David Sachs, a US semi-official official, pointed out that it was really not so good for each state to regulate important stuff like AI and crypto.
I call this “monopoly thinking.” Does it work? Sure, if you emerge as the top outfit in a particular business. Monopolies are great. That’s why I believe this Googler’s statement of sentiment:
Google is focused on providing its services to the bloc and is “deeply committed” to Europe. He also stressed the popularity of Google services in Europe, whether it comes to its search engine, email, translation services or maps, which European consumers often use on a daily basis. Walker warned that Europe’s “regulatory friction” risks holding back innovation and denies European consumers and businesses access to “the best digital tools”.
My translation: Hey, you regulation crazy fools, get with out program. We are the “best.” Our tools are the “best.” Our mission is the “best.”
Several observations:
- Google wants to make clear that it will do what is best
- The EU will be a non starter unless it and the member countries wear Google T shirts
- You can fine us, and we will just do what we do because we are Googley.
Yep, the duck is a goat. Life is easier when there is one ruler who is in charge.
How will this approach fly in Brussels? It won’t.
Stephen E Arnold, February 18, 2026
Google and Its Great Chain of Being Rattled and Shaken
February 16, 2026
Another dinobaby post. No AI unless it is an image. This dinobaby is not Grandma Moses, just Grandpa Arnold.
Big time management consultants love information like that on “Googlers Demand: Worker Safety & Ice Contract Transparency.” The title alone tells an individual on the prowl for some juicy engagement opportunities pay attention. First, employees are making demands on the “leadership” of the Google. This is heresy in Carpetland. Employees are paid to do work. Employees are, generally speaking, lower on the totem pole, caste system, pay scale, whatever. Second, the employees want transparency. Yeah, good luck with that. Some contracts require confidentiality and maybe a clearance. Lawyer involved in explaining that a duck is a cow have rules to follow. In some companies, even the CEO may not understand exactly what is going on in a project funded by a government’s intelligence agency. Third, the title tells me that the “Googlers” don’t know these basic “leadership” principles.
Thanks, Venice.ai. Good enough.
Nevertheless, the Web page says:
Google is powering this campaign of surveillance, violence, and repression. Cloud is helping to stitch together CBP surveillance systems along the border and nationwide, while also powering Palantir’s ImmigrationOS system that ICE uses to track immigrants. Google generative AI is being used by DHS and CBP for “workforce enablement” and “improving operational efficiency”. The Play Store has blocked the most effective ICE tracking apps for keeping our communities safe. YouTube has been running ICE recruitment and “self-deport” ads. As the workers who provide the foundational labor in building this technology, we are horrified.
The Web page then sets forth some demands. I don’t think these are as compelling as Martin Luther’s posting his Ninety-Five Theses in Wittenberg. (In case you don’t recall what happened after he did this unthinkable act, Mr. Luther was tossed out of the Catholic church. He lived with a pal in Wartburg Castle and filled his idle time vibe coding the New Testament into German.) Will a similar fate await those who are involved in this set of four demands to the Google?
Our engagement hungry management consultant sees two opportunities to package in a nifty proposal filled with MBAisms plus a couple of references to bottom line and AI. One must embrace AI.
- The first proposal is to work with leadership to devise a strategy with tactical options to neutralize these non-leadership grousers, covert them to the one true faith, and then allow these individuals to find their future elsewhere.
- The second proposal is to do a deep dive into the hiring process and find why problems are hired in the first place. As part of the engagement, psychological profiling by Gemini AI and then AI-conducted interviews with people who worked with and taught potential employees. The Gemini system would process the data, feed it into NotebookLM, and the sonsulting team would post process the output. This is the “nipping problems in the bud” approach.
Several observations:
- Google has another management challenge. Will it spill outside the buildings and disrupt traffic with Waymo self driving cars?
- Google needs to sell 100 year bonds to raise cash to win the AI war. Standing in front of war machines is generally a bad idea, isn’t it?
- Google leadership will probably read proposals from McKinsey or McKinsey alumni. Why drag a Martin Luther type into Carpetland?
Stephen E Arnold, February 16, 2026
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