Google: A PR Special Operation Underway
April 25, 2023
Note: This essay is the work of a real and still-alive dinobaby. No smart software involved, just a dumb humanoid.
US television on Sunday, April 16, 2023. Assorted blog posts and articles by Google friends like Inc. Magazine. Now the British Guardian newspaper hops on the bandwagon.
Navigate to “Google Chief Warns AI Could Be Harmful If Deployed Wrongly.” Let me highlight a couple of statements in the write up and then offer a handful of observations designed intentionally to cause some humanoids indigestion.
The article includes this statement:
Sundar Pichai also called for a global regulatory framework for AI similar to the treaties used to regulate nuclear arms use, as he warned that the competition to produce advances in the technology could lead to concerns about safety being pushed aside.
Also, this gem:
Pichai added that AI could cause harm through its ability to produce disinformation.
And one more:
Pichai admitted that Google did not fully understand how its AI technology produced certain responses.
Enough. I want to shift to the indigestion inducing portion of this short essay.
First, Google is in Code Red. Why? What were the search wizards under the guidance of Sundar and Prabhakar doing for the last year? Obviously not paying attention to the activity of OpenAI. Microsoft was and stole the show at the hoe down in Davos. Now Microsoft has made available a number of smart services designed to surf on its marketing tsunami and provide more reasons for enterprise customers to pay for smart Microsoft software. Neither the Guardian nor Sundar seem willing to talk about the reality of Google finding itself in the position of Alta Vista, Lycos, or WebCrawler in the late 1990s and early 2000s when Google search delivered relevant results. At least Google did until it was inspired by the Yahoo, GoTo, and Overture approach to making cash. Back to the question: Why ignore the fact that Google is in Code Red? Why not ask one half of the Sundar and Prabhakar Comedy Team how they got aced by a non-headliner act at the smart software vaudeville show?
Second, I loved the “could cause harm.” What about the Android malware issue? What about the ads which link to malware in Google search results? What about the monopolization of online advertising and pricing ads beyond the reach of many small businesses? What about the “interesting” videos on YouTube? Google has its eye on the “could” of smart software without paying much attention to the here-and-now downsides of its current business. And disinformation? What is Google doing to scrub that content from its search results. My team identified a distributor of pornography operating in Detroit. That operator’s content can be located with a single Google query. If Google cannot identify porn, how will it flag smart software’s “disinformation”?
Finally, Google for decades has made a big deal of hiring the smartest people in the world. There was a teen whiz kid in Moscow. There was a kid in San Jose with a car service to get him from high school to the Mountain View campus. There is deep mind with its “deep” team of wizards. Now this outfit with more than 100,000 (more or less full time geniuses) does not know how its software works. How will that type of software be managed by the estimable Google? The answer is, “It won’t.” Google’s ability to manage is evident with heart breaking stories about its human relations and personnel actions. There are smart Googlers who think the software is alive. Does this person have company-paid mental health care? There are small businesses like an online automobile site in ruins because a Googler downchecked the site years ago for an unknown reason. The Google is going to manage something well?
My hunch is that Google wants to make sure that it becomes the primary vendor of ready-to-roll training data and microwavable models. The fact that Amazon, Microsoft, and a group of Chinese outfits are on the same information superhighway illustrates one salient fact: The PR tsunami highlights Google’s lack of positive marketing action and the taffy-pull sluggishness of demos that sort of work.
What about the media which ask softball questions and present as substance recommendations that the world agree on AI rules? Perhaps Google should offer to take over the United Nations or form a World Court of AI Technology? Maybe Google should just be allowed to put other AI firms out of business and keep trying to build a monopoly based on software the company doesn’t appear to understand?
The good news is that Sundar did not reprise the Paris demonstration of Bard. That only cost the company a few billion when the smart software displayed its ignorance. That was comedic, and I think these PR special operations are fodder for the spring Sundar and Prabhakar tour of major cities.
The T shirts will not feature a dinosaur (Googzilla, I believe) freezing in a heavy snow storm. The art can be produced using Microsoft Bing’s functions too. And that will be quite convenient if Samsung ditches Google search for Bing and its integrated smart software. To add a bit of spice to Googzilla’s catered lunch is the rumor that Apple may just go Bing. Bye, bye billions, baby, bye bye.
If that happens, Google loses: [a] a pickup truck filled with cash, [b] even more technical credibility, and [c] maybe Googzilla’s left paw and a fang. Can Sundar and Prabhakar get applause when doing one-liners with one or two performers wearing casts and sporting a tooth gap?
Stephen E Arnold, April 25, 2023
AI That Sort of, Kind of Did Not Work: Useful Reminders
April 24, 2023
Note: This essay is the work of a real and still-alive dinobaby. No smart software involved, just a dumb humanoid.
I read “Epic AI Fails. A List of Failed Machine Learning Projects.” My hunch is that a write up suggesting that smart software may disappoint in some cases is not going to be a popular topics. I can hear the pooh-poohs now: “The examples used older technology.” And “Our system has been engineered to avoid that problem.” And “Our Large Language Model uses synthetic data which improves performance and the value of system outputs.” And “We have developed a meta-layer of AI which integrates multiple systems in order to produce a more useful response.”
Did I omit any promises other than “The check is in the mail” or “Our customer support team will respond to your call immediately, 24×7, and with an engineer, not a smart chatbot because. Humans, you know.”
The main point of the article from Analytics India, an online publication, provides some color on interesting flops; specifically:
- Amazon’s recruitment system. Think discrimination against females. Amazon’s Rekognition system and its identification of elected officials as criminals. Wait. Maybe those IDs were accurate?
- Covid 19 models. Moving on.
- Google and the diabetic retinopathy detection system. The marketing sounded fine. Candy for breakfast? Sure, why not?
- OpenAI’s Samantha. Not as crazy as Microsoft Tay but in the ballpark.
- Microsoft Tay. Yeah, famous self instruction in near real time.
- Sentient Investment AI Hedge Fund. Your retirement savings? There are jobs at Wal-Mart I think.
- Watson. Wow. Cognitive computing and Jeopardy.
The author takes a less light-hearted approach than I. Useful list with helpful reminders that it is easier to write tweets and marketing collateral than deliver smart software that delivers on sales confections.
Stephen E Arnold, April 24, 2023
Google Panic: Just Three Reasons?
April 20, 2023
Note: This essay is the work of a real and still-alive dinobaby. No smart software involved, just a dumb humanoid.
I read tweets, heard from colleagues, and received articles emailed to me about Googlers’ Bard disgruntlement? In my opinion, Laptop Magazine’s summary captures the gist of the alleged wizard annoyance. “Bard: 3 Reasons Why the Google Staff Hates the New ChatGPT Rival.”
I want to sidestep the word “hate”. With 100,000 or so employees a hefty chunk of those living in Google Land will love Bard. Other Google staff won’t care because optimizing a cache function for servers in Brazil is a world apart. The result is a squeaky cart with more squeaky wheels than a steam engine built in 1840.
The three trigger points are, according to the write up:
- Google Bard outputs that are incorrect. The example provided is that Bard explains how to crash a plane when the Bard user wants to land the aircraft safely. So stupid.
- Google (not any employees mind you) is “indifferent to ethical concerns.” The example given references Dr. Timnit Gebru, my favorite Xoogler. I want to point out that Dr. Jeff Dean does not have her on this weekend’s dinner party guest list. So unethical.
- Bard is flawed because Google wizards had to work fast. This is the outcome of the sort of bad judgment which has been the hallmark of Google management for some time. Imagine. Work. Fast. Google. So haste makes waste.
I want to point out that there is one big factor influencing Googzilla’s mindless stumbling and snorting. The headline of the Laptop Magazine article presents the primum mobile. Note the buzzword/sign “ChatGPT.”
Google is used to being — well, Googzilla — and now an outfit which uses some Google goodness is in the headline. Furthermore, the headline calls attention to Google falling behind ChatGPT.
Googzilla is used to winning (whether in patent litigation or in front of incredibly brilliant Congressional questioners). Now even Laptop Magazine explains that Google is not getting the blue ribbon in this particular, over-hyped but widely followed race.
That’s the Code Red. That is why the Paris presentation was a hoot. That is why the Sundar and Prabhakar Comedy Tour generates chuckles when jokes include “will,” “working on,” “coming soon” as part of the routine.
Once again, I am posting this from the 2023 National Cyber Crime Conference. Not one of the examples we present are from Google, its systems, or its assorted innovation / acquisition units.
Googzilla for some is not in the race. And if the company is in the ChatGPT race, Googzilla has yet to cross the finish line.
That’s the Code Red. No PR, no Microsoft marketing tsunami, and no love for what may be a creature caught in a heavy winter storm. Cold, dark, and sluggish.
Stephen E Arnold, April 26, 2023
Sequoia on AI: Is The Essay an Example of What Informed Analysis Will Be in the Future?
April 10, 2023
Note: This essay is the work of a real and still-alive dinobaby. No smart software involved, just a dumb humanoid.
I read an essay produced by the famed investment outfit Sequoia. Its title: “Generative AI: A Creative New World.” The write up contains buzzwords, charts, a modern version of a list, and this fascinating statement:
This piece was co-written with GPT-3. GPT-3 did not spit out the entire article, but it was responsible for combating writer’s block, generating entire sentences and paragraphs of text, and brainstorming different use cases for generative AI. Writing this piece with GPT-3 was a nice taste of the human-computer co-creation interactions that may form the new normal. We also generated illustrations for this post with Midjourney, which was SO MUCH FUN!
I loved the capital letters and the exclamation mark. Does smart software do that in its outputs?
I noted one other passage which caught my attention; to wit:
The best Generative AI companies can generate a sustainable competitive advantage by executing relentlessly on the flywheel between user engagement/data and model performance.
I understand “relentlessly.” To be honest, I don’t know about a “sustainable competitive advantage” or user engagement/data model performance. I do understand the Amazon flywheel, but my understand that it is slowing and maybe wobbling a bit.
My take on the passage in purple as in purple prose is that “best” AI depends not on accuracy, lack of bias, or transparency. Success comes from users and how well the system performs. “Perform” is ambiguous. My hunch is that the Sequoia smart software (only version 3) and the super smart Sequoia humanoids were struggling to express why a venture firm is having “fun” with a bit of B-school teaming — money.
The word “money” does not appear in the write up. The phrase “economic value” appears twice in the introduction to the essay. No reference to “payoff.” No reference to “exit strategy.” No use of the word “financial.”
Interesting. Exactly how does a money-centric firm write about smart software without focusing on the financial upside in a quite interesting economic environment.
I know why smart software misses the boat. It’s good with deterministic answers for which enough information is available to train the model to produce what seems like coherent answers. Maybe the smart software used by Sequoia was not clued in to the reports about Sequoia’s explanations of its winners and losers? Maybe the version of the smart software is not up the tough subject to which the Sequoia MBAs sought guidance?
On the other hand, maybe Sequoia did not think through what should be included in a write up by a financial firm interested in generating big payoffs for itself and its partners.
Either way. The essay seems like a class project which is “good enough.” The creative new world lacks the force that through the green fuse drives the cash.
Stephen E Arnold, April 10, 2023
Thomson Reuters, Where Is Your Large Language Model?
April 3, 2023
Note: This essay is the work of a real and still-alive dinobaby. No smart software involved, just a dumb humanoid.
I have to give the lovable Bloomberg a pat on the back. Not only did the company explain its large language model for finance, the end notes to the research paper are fascinating. One cited document has 124 authors. Why am I mentioning the end notes? The essay is 65 pages in length, and the notes consume 25 pages. Even more interesting is that the “research” apparently involved nVidia and everyone’s favorite online bookstore, Amazon and its Web services. No Google. No Microsoft. No Facebook. Just Bloomberg and the tenure-track researcher’s best friend: The end notes.
The article with a big end … note that is presents this title: “BloombergGPT: A Large Language Model for Finance.” I would have titled the document with its chunky equations “A Big Headache for Thomson Reuters,” but I know most people are not “into” the terminal rivalry, the analytics rivalry and the Thomson Reuters’ Fancy Dancing with Palantir Technologies, nor the “friendly” competition in which the two firms have engaged for decades.
Smart software score appears to be: Bloomberg 1, Thomson Reuters, zippo. (Am I incorrect? Of course, but this beefy effort, the mind boggling end notes, and the presence of Johns Hopkins make it clear that Thomson Reuters has some marketing to do. What Microsoft Bing has done to the Google may be exactly what Bloomberg wants to do to Thomson Reuters: Make money on the next big thing and marginalize a competitor. Bloomberg obviously wants more than the ageing terminal business and the fame achieved on free TV’s Bloomberg TV channels.
What is the Bloomberg LLM or large language model? Here’s what the paper asserts. Please, keep in mind that essays stuffed with mathy stuff and researchy data are often non-reproducible. Heck, even the president of Stanford University took short cuts. Plus more than half of the research results my team has tried to reproduce ends up in Nowheresville, which is not far from my home in rural Kentucky:
we present BloombergGPT, a 50 billion parameter language model that is trained on a wide range of financial data. We construct a 363 billion token dataset based on Bloomberg’s extensive data sources, perhaps the largest domain-specific dataset yet, augmented with 345 billion tokens from general purpose datasets. We validate BloombergGPT on standard LLM benchmarks, open financial benchmarks, and a suite of internal benchmarks that most accurately reflect our intended usage. Our mixed dataset training leads to a model that outperforms existing models on financial tasks by significant margins without sacrificing performance on general LLM benchmarks.
My interpretations of this quotation is:
- Lots of data
- Big model
- Informed financial decisions.
“Informed financial decisions” means to me that a crazed broker will give this Bloomberg thing a whirl in the hope of getting a huge bonus, a corner office which is never visited, and fame at the New York Athletic Club.
Will this happen? Who knows.
What I do know is that Thomson Reuters’ executives in London, New York, and Toronto are doing some humanoid-centric deep thinking about Bloomberg. And that may be what Bloomberg really wants because Bloomberg may be ahead. Imagine that Bloomberg ahead of the “trust” outfit.
Stephen E Arnold, April 3, 2023
A Xoogler Predicts Solving Death
March 30, 2023
Note: This essay is the work of a real and still-alive dinobaby. No smart software involved, just a dumb humanoid.
I thought Google was going to solve death. Sigh. Just like saying, We deliver relevant results,” words at the world’s largest online advertising outfit often have special meanings.
I read “Humans Will Achieve Immortality in Eight Years, Says Former Google Engineer Who Has Predicted the Future with 86% Accuracy.” I — obviously — believe everything I read on the Internet. I assume that the “engineer who has predicted the future with 86% accuracy” has cashed in on NFL bets, the Kentucky Derby, and the stock market hundreds of times. I worked for a finance wizard who fired people who were wrong 49 percent of the time. Why didn’t this financial genius hire a Xoogler who hit 86 percent accuracy. Oh, well.
The write up in the estimable Daily Mail asserts:
He said that machines are already making us more intelligent and connecting them to our neocortex will help people think more smartly. Contrary to the fears of some, he believes that implanting computers in our brains will improve us. ‘We’re going to get more neocortex, we’re going to be funnier, we’re going to be better at music. We’re going to be sexier’, he said.
Imagine that. A sexier 78-year-old! A sexier Xoogler! Amazing!
But here’s the topper in the write up:
Now the former Google engineer believes technology is set to become so powerful it will help humans live forever, in what is known as the singularity.
How did this wizard fail his former colleagues by missing the ChatGPT thing?
Well, 86 percent accuracy is not 100 percent, is it? I hope that part about a sexier 78-year-old is on the money though.
Stephen E Arnold, March 30, 2023
Tweeting in Capital Letters: Surfing on the SVB Anomaly
March 16, 2023
Like a couple of other people, I noted the Silicon Valley Bank anomaly. I have a hunch that more banking excitement is coming. In fact, one intrepid social media person asked, “Know a bank I can buy.” One of the more interesting articles about the anomaly (I use this word because no other banks are in a similar financial pickle. Okay, maybe one or two or 30 are, but that’s no biggie.)
“VC Podcast Duo Faces (sic) Criticism for Frantic Response to Silicon Valley Bank Collapse” reports:
The pair [Jason Calcanis (a super famous real journalist who is now a super wealthy advisor to start ups) and David Sacks (a super famous PayPal chief operating officer and a general partner in Craft Ventures)] were widely mocked outside of their circle of followers after the government stepped in and swiftly stabilized SVB. Note: Italics present a little information about the “duo.”
The story quotes other luminaries who are less well known in rural Kentucky via the standard mode of documentation today, a Tweet screenshot. Here it is:
The tweet suggests that Messrs. Calcanis and Sacks were “panicked” and tried to spread that IBM sauce of fear, uncertainty, and doubt.
To add a dollop of charm to the duo, it appears that Mr. Calcanis communicated in capital letters. Yes, ALL CAPS.
The article includes this alternative point of view:
Nevertheless, supporters of the pair continued to lavish praise and credit them with helping to avert further financial chaos. “Plot twist: @Jason and @DavidSacks saw the impeding doom and rushed to a public platform to voice concerns and make sure our gov’t officials saw the 2nd and 3rd order effects,” another Twitter user wrote. “They and other VC’s might’ve saved us all.”
I find the idea that venture capitalists “saved us all.” The only phrase missing is “existential threat.”
When Messrs. Calcanis and Sacks make their next public appearance, will these astute individuals be wearing super hero garb? The promotional push might squeeze more coverage about saving us all. (All. Quite comprehensive when used in a real news story.)
Stephen E Arnold, March 16, 2023
Bing Begins, Dear Sundar and Prabhakar
March 9, 2023
Note: Note written by an artificial intelligence wonder system. The essay is the work of a certified dinobaby, a near80-year-old fossil. The Purple Prose parts are made up comments by me, the dinobaby, to help improve the meaning behind the words.
I think the World War 2 Dear John letter has been updated. Today’s version begins:
Dear Sundar and Prabhakar…
“The New Bing and Edge – Progress from Our First Month” by Yusuf Mehdi explains that Bing has fallen in love with marketing. The old “we are so like one another, Sundar and Prabhakar” is now
“The magnetic Ms. OpenAI introduced me to her young son, ChatGPT. I am now going steady with that large language model. What a block of data! And I hope, Sundar and Prabhakar, we can still be friends. We can still chat, maybe at the high school reunion? Everyone will be there. Everyone. Timnit Gebru, Jerome Pesenti, Yan Lecun, Emily Bender, and you two, of course.”
The write up does not explicitly say these words. Here’s the actual verbiage from the marketing outfit also engaged in unpatchable security issues:
It’s hard to believe it’s been just over a month since we released the new AI-powered Bing and Edge to the world as your copilot for the web. In that time, we have heard your feedback, learned a lot, and shipped a number of improvements. We are delighted by the virtuous cycle of feedback and iteration that is driving strong Bing improvements and usage.
A couple of questions? Is the word virtuous related to the word virgin? Pure, chaste, unsullied, and not corrupted by … advertising? Has it been a mere 30 days since Sundar and Prabhakar entered the world of Code Red? Were they surprised that their Paris comedy act drove attendees to Le Bar Bing? Is the copilot for the Web ready to strafe the digital world with Bing blasts?
Let’s look at what the love letter reports:
- A million new users. What’s the Google pulled in with their change in the curse word policy for YouTube?
- More searches on Le Bing than before the tryst with ChatGPT. Will Google address relevance ranking of bogus ads for a Thai restaurant favored by a certain humanoid influencer?
- A mobile app. Sundar and Prabhakar, what’s happening with your mobile push? Hasn’t revenue from the Play store declined in the last year? Declined? Yep. As in down, down, down.
Is Bing a wonder working relevance engine? No way.
Is Bing going to dominate my world of search of retrieval? For the answer, just call 1 800 YOU WISH, please.
Is Bing winning the marketing battle for smarter search? Oh, yeah.
Well, Sundar and Prabhakar, don’t let that Code Red flashing light disturb your sleep. Love and kisses, Yusuf Mehdi. PS: The high school reunion is coming up. Maybe we can ChatGPT?
Stephen E Arnold, March 9, 2023
SEO Fuels Smart Software
March 6, 2023
I read “Must Read: The 100 Most Cited Papers in 2022.” The principal finding is that Google-linked entities wrote most of the “important” papers. If one thinks back to Gene Garfield’s citation analysis work, a frequently cited paper is either really good, or it is an intellectual punching bag. Getting published is often not enough to prove that an academic is smart. Getting cited is the path to glory, tenure, and possibly an advantage when chasing grants.,
Here’s a passage which explains the fact that Google is “important”:
Google is consistently the strongest player followed by Meta, Microsoft, UC Berkeley, DeepMind and Stanford.
Keep in mind that Google and DeepMind are components of Alphabet.
Why’s this important?
- There is big, big money in selling/licensing models and data sets down the road
- Integrating technology into other people’s applications is a step toward vendor lock in and surveillance of one sort or another
- Analyzing information about the users of a technology provides a useful source of signals about [a] what to buy or invest in, [b] copy, or [c] acquire
If the data in this “100 Most Cited” article are accurate or at least close enough for horseshoes Google and OpenAI may be playing a clever game not unlike what the Cambridge Analytica crowd did.
Implications? Absolutely. I will talk about a few in my National Cyber Crime Conference lecture about OSINT Blindspots. (Yep, my old term has new life in the smart software memesphere.
Stephen E Aronld, March 6, 2023
Google: Code Redder Because … Microsoft Markets AI Gooder
March 6, 2023
Don’t misunderstand. I think the Chat GPT search wars are more marketing than useful functionality for my work. You may have a different viewpoint. That’s great. Just keep in mind that Google’s marvelous Code Red alarm was a response to Microsoft marketing. Yep, if you want to see the Sundar and Prabhakar Duo do some fancy dancing, just get your Microsoft rep to mash the Goose Google button.
Someone took this advice and added “AI” to the truly wonderful Windows 11 software. I read “Microsoft Adds “AI” to Taskbar Search Field” and learned that either ChatGPT or a human said:
In the last three weeks, we also launched the new AI-powered Bing into preview for more than 1 million people in 169 countries, and expanded the new Bing to the Bing and Edge mobile apps as well as introduced it into Skype. It is a new era in Search, Chat and Creation and with the new Bing and Edge you now have your own copilot for the web. Today, we take the next major step forward adding to the incredible breadth and ease of use of the Windows PC by implementing a typable Windows search box and the amazing capability of the new AI-powered Bing directly into the taskbar. Putting all your search needs for Windows in one easy to find location.
Exciting because lousy search will become milk, honey, sunshine, roses, and French bulldog puppies. Nope. Search is still the Bing with a smaller index than the Google sports. But that “AI” in the search box evokes good thoughts for some users.
For Google, the AI in the search box mashes the Code Red button. I think that if that button gets pressed five times in quick succession, the Google goes from Code Red to Code Super Red with LED sparkles.
Remember this AI search is marketing at this time in my frame of reference.
Microsoft is showing that Google is not too good at marketing. I am now mashing the Code Red button five times. Mash. Mash. Mash. Mash. Mash. Now I can watch Googzilla twitch and hop. Perhaps the creature will be the opening act in the Sundar and Prabhakar Emergency Output Emission Explanation Tour. Did you hear the joke about Microsoft walks into a vegan restaurant and says, “Did you hear the joke about Google marketing?” The server says, “No.” The Softie replies, “Google searched for marketing in its search engine and couldn’t get a relevant answer.”
Ho, ho
Stephen E Arnold, March 6, 2023
-
- Subscribe to Beyond Search
Feature archive
News archive
-
