More on the AI Betamax Versus VHS Dust Up
February 2, 2023
“24 Seriously Embarrassing Hours for AI” gathers four smart software stumbles. The examples are highly suggestive that some butchers have been putting their fingers on the scales. The examples include the stage set approach to Tesla’s self driving and OpenAI’s reliance on humans to beaver away out of sight to make outputs better. In general I agree with the points in the write up.
However, there is one statement which attracted my yellow high light pen like a sci-fi movie tractor beam. Here it is:
Sometimes the slower road is the better road.
It may be that the AI TGV has already left the station and is hurtling down the rails from Paris to Nimes. Microsoft announced that the lovable Teams video chat and Swiss Army knife of widgets will be helping users lickity split. Other infusions are almost certain to follow. Even airlines are thinking smart software. Airlines! These outfits lose luggage with bar codes. Perhaps AI will help, but I remain skeptical. How does one lose a bag with a bar code in our post 9/11 world?
The challenge for Google, Facebook (which wants to be a leader in AI), and the other organizations betting their investors’ money on AI going to take a “slower road”?
My TGV high speed train reference is not poetical; it is a reflection of the momentum of information. The OpenAI machine — with or without legerdemain — is rolling along. OpenAI has momentum. With foresight or dumb luck, Microsoft is riding along.
The “slower road” echoes Google’s conservative approach. Remember that Google sacrificed credibility in AI with the Dr. Timnit Gebru affair. Like a jockey with a high value horse, the beast is now carrying lead pads. Combine that with bureaucratic bloat and concern for ad revenues, I am not sure Google and some other outfits can become the high twitch muscled creature needed to cope with market momentum.
Betamax was better. Well, it did not dominate the market. VHS was pushed into the ditch, but that required time and technological innovation. The AI race is not over but the “slow” angle is late from the gate.
Stephen E Arnold, February 2, 2023
You Have Been Googled!
February 1, 2023
If the information in “Google Engineer Who Was Laid Off While on Mental Health Leave Says She Silently Mourned After Receiving Her Severance Email at 2 a.m.” a new meaning for Google may have surfaced. The main point of the write up is that Google has been trimming some of its unwanted trees and shrubs (Populus Quisquilias). These are plants which have been cultivated with Google ideas, beliefs, and nutrients. But now: Root them out of the Google greenhouse, the spaces between cubes, and the grounds near lovely Shoreline Drive.
The article states:
Neil said she had an inclination that layoffs were coming but assumed she would be safe because she was already on leave. According to Neil, she “bled for Google.” She said she met and exceeded performance expectations, while also enjoying her job. Google felt like a safe and stable environment, where the risk of being laid off was very low, Neil said. She described the layoff process as “un-Googley” and done without care. “Now I’m left here having to find a job for the first time in years after being on mental health leave in quite possibly one of the most difficult hiring situations and housing markets,” Neil said. Google won’t allow Neil to go back to her office to drop off her work laptop and other devices, she said. The company has told her to meet security somewhere near the office, or ship the items in a box, she added.
I want to suggest that the new term for this management approach be called “googled.” To illustrate: In order to cut expenses, the firm googled 3,000 employees. Thus, the shift in meaning from “look up” to “look for your future elsewhere” represents a fresh approach for a cost conscious company.
It may be a signal of honor to have been “googled.” For the individual referenced in the write up, the pain and mental stress may take some time to go away. Does Google management know that Populus Quisquilias has feelings?
Stephen E Arnold, February 1, 2023
Doom: An Interesting Prediction from a Xoogler
January 31, 2023
I spotted an interesting prediction about Google or what I call Googzilla. The comment appeared in “Gmail Creator Says ChatGPT Will Destroy Google’s Business in Two Years.”
Google may be only a year or two away from total disruption. AI will eliminate the Search Engine Result Page, which is where they make most of their money. Even if they catch up on AI, they can’t fully deploy it without destroying the most valuable part of their business!
The alleged Xoogler posting the provocative comment was Paul Buchheit. (Once I heard that it was he who turned the phrase, “Don’t be evil.) Mr. Buchheit is attributed with “inventing” Gmail.
The article stated:
The company has built its business largely around its most successful product; the search engine could soon face a crisis… Google charges advertisers a fee for displaying their products and services right next to the search results, increasing the likelihood of the provider being found. In 2021, the company raked in over $250 billion in revenue, its best-ever income in its nearly 25-year-old existence.
Let’s think about ways Google could recover this predicted loss. Here are a few ideas:
- Stop paying vendors like Apple to feature Google search results. (A billion here and a billion there could add up.)
- Create new services and charge users for them. (I know Google tried to cook up a way to sell Loon balloons and a nifty early stab at the metaverse, but maybe the company will find a way to innovate without me toos.)
- Raise prices for consumer services. (That might cause a problem because companies with diversified revenue may lower the already low, low prices for video chat, online word processing, and email. One trick ponies by definition may have difficulty learning another trick or three.)
Will ChatGPT kill the Google? My thought is that even Xooglers feel that the Googzilla is getting arthritic and showing off its middle age spread. Nevertheless, Google’s Sundar and Raghavan management act will have to demonstrate some Fancy Dancing. The ChatGPT may output content that seems okay but tucks errors in its nouns and verbs. But there is the historical precedent of the Sony Betamax to keep in mind. ChatGPT may be flawed but people bought Pintos, and some of these could explode when rear ended. Ouch!
Why are former Google employees pointing out issues? That’s interesting apart from ChatGPT Code Red silliness.
Stephen E Arnold, January 31, 2023
Does Google Need a Better Snorkel and a Deeper Mind?
January 31, 2023
Recession, Sillycon Valley meltdown, and a disaffected workforce? Gloomy, right? Consider this paragraph from “ChatGPT Pro Is Coming. Here’s How You Can Join the Waitlist”:
ChatGPT has probably the fastest-growing user base ever, with a staggering million-plus users signing up a week after its release. That’s four times faster than Dall-E2, which took a month to reach a million users. Microsoft is already mulling an investment of $10 billion, bringing the total valuation of OpenAI, the startup behind ChatGPT, to $29 billion.
A more telling example of the PR coup Microsoft and OpenAI have achieved is the existence of this write up in Sportskeeda. Imagine Sportskeeda publishing “How Google’s AI Tool Sparrow Is Looking to Kill ChatGPT.” Google’s marketing has lured Sportskeeda to help make Google’s case. Impressive.
More blue sky reality, the next big thing has arrived, and the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow is visible. High school and college students have embraced ChatGPT. Lawyers find it unlawyerlike. Google finds it a bit of a problem.
How do I know?
Navigate to the Wall Street Journal, owned by Rupert Murdoch and sufficiently technologically challenged to use humans to write stories. Consider this one: “Google’s AI Now Plays Catch-Up to Newbies.” Imagine the joy of the remaining Google marketing types when news of a big story circulated. Now consider the disappointment when the Googlers read:
… Google employees began asking whether the company had missed a chance to attract users. During a company-wide meeting in December [2022], Mr. Dean [a Google senior wizard] Google had to move slower than startups because people place a high degree o trust in the company’s products, and current chatbots had issues with accuracy, said people who heard the remarks.
Okay, in that month what happened to ChatGPT? It became big and dominated the regular news and the high-tech news streams. What has Google accomplished:
- Promises that more than 20 products and services are coming? Is that a forward looking statement or vaporware?
- Google rolls over to the EU as it gets ready for the US probe of its modest advertising business
- New applications of Dall-E, ChatGPT, and variants clog the trendy online service Product Hunt.
Net net: Jeff Dean, the champion of recipes and Chubby (a Google technology known to few in my experience) is explaining what I call “to be” innovations. Due to Google’s size and customer base, these to-be smart software powered solutions may overwhelm the ChatGPT thing. Google’s snorkels will deliver life giving oxygen to the the beastie. The DeepMind crew will welcome their colleagues from Mountain View and roll out something that does not require a PhD in genetics to understand.
Yep, to be or not to be. That is a question for the Google.
Stephen E Arnold, January 31, 2023
Does Google Have the Sony Betamax of Smart Software?
January 30, 2023
Does Google have the Sony Betamax of smart software? If you cannot answer this question as well as ChatGPT, you can take a look at “VHS or Beta? A Look Back at Betamax, and How Sony Lost the VCR Format War to VHS Recorders.” Boiling down the problem Sony faced, let me suggest better did not win. Maybe adult content outfits tipped the scales? Maybe not? The best technology does not automatically dominate the market.
Flash forward from the anguish of Sony in the 1970s and the even more excruciating early 1980s to today. Facebook dismisses ChatGPT as not too sophisticated. I heard one of the big wizards at the Zuckbook say this to a Sillycon Alley journalist on a podcast called Big Technology. The name says it all. Big technology, just not great technology. That’s what the Zuckbooker suggested everyone’s favorite social media company has.
The Google has emitted a number of marketing statements about more than a dozen amazing smart software apps. These, please, note, will be forthcoming. The most recent application of the Google’s advanced, protein folding, Go winning system is explained in words—presumably output by a real journalist—in “Google AI Can Create Music in Any Genre from a Text Description.” One can visualize the three exclamation points that a human wanted to insert in this headline. Amazing, right. That too is forthcoming. The article quickly asserts something that could have been crafted by one of Googzilla’s non-terminated executives believes:
MusicLM is surprisingly talented.
The GOOG has talent for sure.
What the Google does not have is the momentum of consumer craziness. Whether it the buzz among some high school and college students that ChatGPT can write or help write term papers or the in-touch outfit Buzzfeed which will use ChatGPT to create listicles — the indomitable Alphabet is not in the information flow.
But the Google technology is better. That sounds like a statement I heard from a former wizard at RCA who was interviewing for a job at the blue chip consulting firm for which I worked when I was a wee lad. That fellow invented some type of disc storage system, maybe a laser-centric system. I don’t know. His statement still resonates with me today:
The Sony technology was better.
The flaw is that the better technology can win. The inventors of the better technology or the cobblers who glue together other innovations to create a “better” technology never give up their convictions. How can a low resolution, cheaper recording solution win? The champions of Sony’s technology complained about fairness a superior resolution for the recorded information.
I jotted down this morning (January28, 2023), why Googzilla may be facing, like the Zuckbook, a Sony Betamax moment:
- The demonstrations of the excellence of the Google smart capabilities are esoteric and mean essentially zero outside of the Ivory Tower worlds of specialists. Yes, I am including the fans of Go and whatever other game DeepMind can win. Fan frenzy is not broad consumer uptake and excitement.
- Applications which ordinary Google search users can examine are essentially vaporware. The Dall-E and ChatGPT apps are coming fast and furious. I saw a database of AI apps based on these here-and-now systems, and I had no idea so many clever people were embracing the meh-approach of OpenAI. “Meh,” obviously may not square with what consumers perceive or experience. Remember those baffled professors or the Luddite lawyers who find smart software a bit of a threat.
- OpenAI has hit a marketing home run. Forget the Sillycon Alley journalists. Think about the buzz among the artists about their potential customers typing into a search box and getting an okay image. Take a look at Googzilla trying to comprehend the Betamax device.
Toss in the fact that Google’s ad business is going to have some opportunities to explain why owning the bar, the stuff on the shelves, the real estate, and the payment system is a net gain for humanity. Yeah, that will be a slam dunk, won’t it?
Perhaps more significantly, in the post-Covid crazy world in which those who use computers reside, the ChatGPT and OpenAI have caught a big wave. That wave can swamp some very sophisticated, cutting edge boats in a short time.
Here’s a question for you (the last one in this essay I promise): Can the Google swim?
Stephen E Arnold, January 30, 2023
Have You Ever Seen a Killer Dinosaur on a Leash?
January 27, 2023
I have never seen a Tyrannosaurus Rex allow a European regulators to put a leash on its neck and lead the beastie around like a tamed circus animal?
Another illustration generated by the smart software outfit Craiyon.com. The copyright is up in the air just like the outcome of Google’s battles with regulators, OpenAI, and assorted employees.
I think something similar just happened. I read “Consumer Protection: Google Commits to Give Consumers Clearer and More Accurate Information to Comply with EU Rules.” The statement said:
Google has committed to limit its capacity to make unilateral changes related to orders when it comes to price or cancellations, and to create an email address whose use is reserved to consumer protection authorities, so that they can report and request the quick removal of illegal content. Moreover, Google agreed to introduce a series of changes to its practices…
The details appear in the this EU table of Google changes.
Several observations:
- A kind and more docile Google may be on parade for some EU regulators. But as the circus act of Roy and Siegfried learned, one must not assume a circus animal will not fight back
- More problematic may be Google’s internal management methods. I have used the phrase “high school science club management methods.” Now that wizards were and are being terminated like insects in a sophomore biology class, getting that old team spirit back may be increasingly difficult. Happy wizards do not create problems for their employer or former employer as the case may be. Unhappy folks can be clever, quite clever.
- The hyper-problem in my opinion is how the tide of online user sentiment has shifted from “just Google it” to ladies in my wife’s bridge club asking me, “How can I use ChatGPT to find a good hotel in Paris?” Yep, really old ladies in a bridge club in rural Kentucky. Imagine how the buzz is ripping through high school and college students looking for a way to knock out an essay about the Louisiana Purchase for that stupid required American history class? ChatGPT has not needed too much search engine optimization, has it.
Net net: The friendly Google faces a multi-bladed meat grinder behind Door One, Door Two, and Door Three. As Monte Hall, game show host of “Let’s Make a Deal” said:
“It’s time for the Big Deal of the Day!”
Stephen E Arnold, January 27, 2023
How Do You Know You Have Been Fired? 700 Hundred Words about People Skills
January 26, 2023
I read “Some Google Employees Didn’t Realize They Were Laid Off Until Their Badges Wouldn’t Let Them into the Office.” The write up reports in the manner of an person learning something quite surprising:
One laid-off Google employee, a software engineer who requested anonymity to speak freely, told Insider that he witnessed one of his co-workers repeatedly try to scan his employee badge to get into Google’s Chelsea, New York office, only for the card reader to turn red and deny him entry.
Yep. Code Red. Badge denied light Red. Google management Red Faced? Nah. Just marketing and a few others. No big deal.
How is Googzilla supposed to fire people? Get one of the crack People People to talk face-to-face with a Google wizard? Ain’t happening, kiddo. Perhaps a chill video call to which the newly unemployed super brains can connect and watch a video explaining that your are now officially non-essential. The good news, of course, is that one can say, “I am a Xoogler. I will start a venture fund. Or, I will invent the next great app powered by ChatGPT. Or, Mom I will be moving in next week. I’ve been fired.
Let’s go back in time. How about the mid 1970s when the US government urged buildings housing work deemed sensitive to implement better security systems. At the time, many buildings used a person sitting behind a big desk with a bunch of paper. One would state one’s name and the person one wanted to visit face-to-face. I told you we were going back in time. The person at the desk would use a telephone handset connected to a big console and call the extension of the person whom one wanted to meet. Then that person would send someone down to escort the outsider to a suitable meeting room. (Don’t ask about the measures in place in the meeting room, please.)
An employee would show an official badge, typically connected to an item of clothing or hanging from a lanyard. The person behind the desk would smile in recognition, push a button, and a gate would open. The person with the badge would walk to the elevators and ride to the appropriate floor. There are variations, of course.
But the main idea is that this electronic smart security was not in place. When a person was to be fired, that person would typically be in a cube or a manager’s office. The blow was delivered in person, sometimes with a bloodhound’s sad look or a bit of a smile that suggested the manager delivering the death blow was having fun.
Then the revolution. The building in which I worked toward the end of the 1970s got the electric key card thing. The day after that system was installed, my boss who ran the standalone unit of a blue chip consulting firm decided to fire people by disabling the person’s key card. Believe it or not, the Big Boss, the head of what was then called Human Resources, and I drove from the underground parking garage to the No Parking zone in front of the building and watched as people found their key card had been disabled.
My recollection is that because the firm had RIFed a couple of hundred people earlier in the week, we could observe the former blue chippers reaction. It was interesting. The most amazing thing is that the head of Human Resources put in place a procedure to terminate people via a phone call, allow them to return to the building and enter with a security escort to retrieve pictures of the wives, girl friends, animals, boats, or swimming trophy. Then the person could put the personal effects in a banker’s box and the escort would get the person out of the building. The escort then collected the dead key card.
That’s humane. What’s interesting is that Google’s management team ignored the insight out Human Resources’ person had: Find a way to minimize the craziness outside of the building. Avoid creating a news event on a busy street in Washington, DC. Figure out a procedure that eliminates, “Can you send me the picture of my dog Freddy?” to a person still working at the blue chip outfit.
But Google. Nope. Now it’s headline time and public exposure of the firm’s management excellence.
Stephen E Arnold, January 26, 2023
Googzilla Squeezed: Will the Beastie Wriggle Free? Can Parents Help Google Wiggle Out?
January 25, 2023
How easy was it for our prehistoric predecessors to capture a maturing reptile. I am thinking of Googzilla. (That’s my way of conceptualizing the Alphabet Google DeepMind outfit.)
This capturing the dangerous dinosaur shows one regulator and one ChatGPT dev in the style of Normal Rockwell (who may be spinning in his grave). The art was output by the smart software in use at Craiyon.com. I love those wonky spellings and the weird video ads and the image obscuring Next and Stay buttons. Is this the type of software the Google fears? I believe so.
On one side of the creature is the pesky ChatGPT PR tsunami. Google’s management team had to call Google’s parents to come to the garage. The whiz kids find themselves in a marketing battle. Imagine, a technology that Facebook dismisses as not a big deal, needs help. So the parents come back home from their vacations and social life to help out Sundar and Prabhakar. I wonder if the parents are asking, “What now?” and “Do you think these whiz kids want us to move in with them.” Forbes, the capitalist tool with annoying pop ups, tells one side of the story in “How ChatGPT Suddenly Became Google’s Code Red, Prompting Return of Page and Brin.”
On the other side of Googzilla is a weak looking government regulator. The Wall Street Journal (January 25, 2023) published “US Sues to Split Google’s Ad Empire.” (Paywall alert!) The main idea is that after a couple of decades of Google is free, great, and gives away nice tchotchkes US Federal and state officials want the Google to morph into a tame lizard.
Several observations:
- I find it amusing that Google had to call its parents for help. There’s nothing like a really tough, decisive set of whiz kids
- The Google has some inner strengths, including lawyers, lobbyists, and friends who really like Google mouse pads, LED pins, and T shirts
- Users of ChatGPT may find that as poor as Google’s search results are, the burden of figuring out an “answer” falls on the user. If the user cooks up an incorrect answer, the Google is just presenting links or it used to. When the user accepts a ChatGPT output as ready to use, some unforeseen consequences may ensue; for example, getting called out for presenting incorrect or stupid information, getting sued for copyright violations, or assuming everyone is using ChatGPT so go with the flow
Net net: Capturing and getting the vet to neuter the beastie may be difficult. Even more interesting is the impact of ChatGPT on allegedly calm, mature, and seasoned managers. Yep, Code Red. “Hey, sorry to bother you. But we need your help. Right now.”
Stephen E Arnold, January 25, 2023
Responding to the PR Buzz about ChatGPT: A Tale of Two Techies
January 24, 2023
One has to be impressed with the PR hype about ChatGPT. One can find tip sheets for queries (yes, queries matter… a lot), ideas for new start ups, and Sillycon Valley pundits yammering on podcasts. At an Information Industry Association meting in Boston, Massachusetts, a person whom I think was called Marvin or Martin Wein-something made an impassioned statement about the importance of artificial intelligence. I recall his saying, “It is happening. Now.”
Marvin or Martin made that statement which still sticks in my mind in 1982 or so. That works out to 40 years ago.
What strikes me this morning is the difference between the response of Facebook and Google. This is a Tale of Two Techies.
In the case of Google, it is Red Alert time. The fear is palpable among the senior managers. How do I know? I read “Google Founders Return As ChatGPT Threatens Search Business.” I could trot out some parallels between Google management’s fear and the royals threatened by riff raff. Make no mistake. The Googlers have quantum supremacy and the DeepMind protein and game playing machine. I recall reading or being told that Google has more than 20 applications that will be available… soon. (Wasn’t that type of announcement once called vaporware?) The key point is that the Googlers are frightened, and like Disney, have had to call the team of Brin and Page to revivify the thinking about the threat to the search business. I want to remind you that the search business was inspired by Yahoo’s Overture approach. Google settled some litigation and the rest is history. Google became an alleged monopoly and Yahoo devolved into a spammy email service.
And what about Facebook? I noted this article: “ChatGPT Is Not Particularly Innovative and Nothing Revolutionary, Says Meta’s Chief AI Scientist.” The write up explains that Meta’s stance with regard to the vibe machine ChatGPT is “meh.” I think Meta or the Zuckbook does care, but Meta has a number of other issues to which the proud firm must respond. Smart software that seems to be a Swiss Army knife of solutions is “nothing revolutionary.” Okay.
Let’s imagine we are in college in one of those miserable required courses in literature. Our assignment is to analyze the confection called the Tale of Two Techies. What’s the metaphorical pivot for this soap opera?
Here’s my take:
- Meta is either too embarrassed, too confused, or too overwhelmed with on-going legal hassles to worry too much about ChatGPT. Putting on the “meh” is good enough. The company seems to be saying, “We don’t care too much… at least in public.”
- Google is running around with its hair on fire. The senior management team’s calling on the dynamic duo to save the day is indicative of the mental short circuits the company exhibits.
Net net: Good, bad, or indifferent ChatGPT makes clear the lack of what one might call big time management thinking. Is this new? Sadly, no.
Stephen E Arnold, January 24, 2023
Google Search: A Hellscape? Nah, the Greasy Mess Is Much Bigger
January 23, 2023
I read “Google vs. ChatGPT Told by Aglio e Olio.”
The write up makes it clear that the author is definitely not Googley. Let’s look at a handful of statements and then consider them in the context of the greasy stuff and, of course, the crackling hellscape analogy. Imagine a hellscape on Shoreline Drive. I never noticed pools of flame, Beelzebug hanging in the parking lot, or people in chains being walked by one of Satan’s pals. Maybe I was not sufficiently alert?
How about this statement:
A single American company operating as a bottleneck behind the world’s information is a dangerous, and inefficient proposition and a big theme of the Margins is that monopolies are bad so it’s also on brand.
After 25 years, the light bulb clicked on and the modern Archimedes has discovered the secret to Googzilla. I recall the thrill of the Yahoo settlement and the green light for the initial public offering. I recall the sad statements of Foundem, which “found” itself going nowhere fast in search results. I recall a meeting in Paris in which comments about the difficulty of finding French tax form links in Google.fr search results. I remember the owner of a major Web site shouting at lunch about his traffic dropping from two million per month to 200,000. Ah, memories. But the reason these anecdotes come to my mind is a will group of people who found free and convenient more valuable than old-fashioned research. You remember. Lycos, libraries, conversations, and those impedimenta to actual knowledge work.
Also, how about this statement?
I am assuming the costs and the risk I’ve mentioned above has been what’s been making Google keep its cards closer to its chest.
Ah, ha. Google is risk averse. As organization become older and larger, what does one expect. I think of Google like Tom Brady or Christiano Ronaldo. Google is not able to accept the fact that it is older, has a bum knee, and has lost some of its fangs. Remember the skeleton of the dinosaur in front of one of Google’s buildings. It was, as I recall, a Tyrannosaurus Rex. But it was missing a fang or two. Then the weather changed, and the actual dino died. Google is not keeping cards closer to its chest; Google does not know what to do. Regulators are no longer afraid to fine the big reptile again and again. Googlers become Xooglers and suggest that the company is losing the zip in its step. Some choose to compete and create a for fee search system. Good luck with that! Looking at the skeleton, those cards could fall through the bones and fall, scattered on the concrete.
And what about this statement?
the real reason Google is at risk that thanks to their monopoly position, the folks over at Mountain View have left their once-incredible search experience degenerate into a spam-ridden, SEO-fueled hellscape.
Catchy. Search engine optimization, based on my observations of the Google’s antics, was a sure-fire way to get marketers into dancing the Google hand jive. Then when SEO failed (as it usually would), those SEO experts became sales professionals for Google advertising and instructors in the way to create Web sites and content shaped to follow the Google jazz band.
Net net: The Google is big, and it is not going anywhere quickly. But the past of Google is forgotten by many but it includes a Google Glass attempted suicide, making babies in the legal department, and a heroin overdose on a yacht. Ah, bad search. What about a deeper look? Nah, just focus on ChatGPT, the first of many who will now probe the soft underbelly of Googzilla. Oh, sorry, Googzilla is a skeleton. The real beast is gone.
Stephen E Arnold, January 23, 2023
-
- Subscribe to Beyond Search
Feature archive
News archive
-
