What Company Is the Leader in Search Powered by Artificial Intelligence? One Answer May Surprise You. It Did Me.
November 30, 2021
Give up? The answer is Lucidworks, “the leader in AI-powered search.” You can get the gull story from Unite.ai and the article “Will Hayes, CEO of Lucidworks – Interview Series.” What’s “AI”? I don’t know, and the answer is not provided from @IAmWillHayes’ comments. What’s “search”? I don’t know because no specific definition is provided. (Search is a blanket word, covering everything from the open source Lucene in policeware solutions to whiz-bang, patented real time methods for time series data from Trendalyze. And we must not forget the generous offerings of “search” for eDiscovery, product supplier data, chemical structures, streaming video files, code libraries, and mysterious content like the interesting information in encrypted Signal and Telegram interactions. Search at Lucidworks is different it seems.
I noted this statement:
Lucidworks takes mission-critical business problems and solves them with search.
I assume that Lucidworks is disconnected from Dassault Systèmes search based applications approach. There is a 2011 book titled “Search Based Applications: At the Confluence of Search and Database Technologies.” The author is Dr. Gregory Grefenstette with assistance from Laura Wilber. The Lucidworks’ assertion struck me as one more example of marketing hoo hah disconnected from what came before. At least, the Dassault technology was original, not a recycling of open source software.
Here’s another statement offered as an original insight:
Lucidworks offers products and applications for commerce, customer service, and the workplace that use AI and machine learning to solve search. Fusion, our flagship product, uses AI extensively through every stage of enriching data—during ingest and at query time, for understanding user intent, and personalizing results that match that intent.
I want to point out that the Paris-based firm Polyspot used almost the exact same language (both French and English) to describe the company’s approach to information access. Here’s what Bloomberg says about the now repositioned company:
PolySpot SAS develops and publishes enterprise software. The Company’s products offer search and information access solutions designed to improve business and ensure that companies can access the data they need, regardless of their structure, format or origin. PolySpot markets its products internationally.
Dis Yogi Berra or Yogi Bear say: “It’s déjà vu all over again.” I go with the cartoon bear. The aphorism applies to Lucidworks in my opinion.
Lucidworks also does chatbots, fits into the connected experience cloud (CXC), and compounds “value.” Okay. The company, according to @IAmWillHayes, is “leader in next-generation search solutions and we have an exciting roadmap of cloud products coming in the near future.”
I wonder what outfits like Algolia, Coveo, Sphinx Search, and even the heroic X1 think about this assertion. What will Google’s revolving door search experts make of Lucidworks’ bold assertion? What about the crafty laborers in AWS search vineyards who watch the competitors gun for the Bezos bulldozer? What about the innovators working on the somewhat frightening IBM search solution? Maybe Microsoft will just pull a “Fast Search” and buy Lucidworks to beef up its incredible array of finding systems?
My hunch is that Lucidworks has to deal with its backers who want their money back plus some upside. Mix in the harsh market realities of many options, some free or low cost, and others bundled with purpose built solutions like Voyager Labs’ software and what do you get?
I am not sure about your answer. My answer is, “Recycling marketing lingo, ideas, and assertions which are decades old?” Will AI, machine learning, and CXC pull a rabbit from the search magician’s hat?
Maybe. But the investors who have injected more than $200 million into the company may want more than a magic show. And what is “search” and “AI” anyway? Solr with a new outfit from Amazon?
Stephen E Arnold, November 30, 2021
Spamarama: Smart Software Outputs Gold
November 30, 2021
Email effectively destroyed handwritten and paper correspondence, but AI could make all email communication automated. The International Business Times explains that: “Vaibhav Namburi, Magician Scanning Over 1.5 Billion Pages Per Search That Outputs Personalized Cold Emails.”
Vaibhav Namburi invented the SmartWriter.ai. It was designed to create hyper-personalized cold emails. The AI considers over 126 different points per interaction, generates eight times more replies, the automated outreach process is forty times faster, and six times cheaper. The output quality has also closed deals ranging from $10,000 to $15,000. SmartWriter.ai is already deployed by many organizations and it offers many personalization points:
“? B2B output personalization using LinkedIn profiles
? Personalization for offline businesses using Google reviews? Deep personalization is where AI scours the internet to personalize based on a
prospect’s podcast, news articles, blogs, medium blogs, interviews, webinars,
and much more.
? Covers virtually all aspects of personalization research within seconds
? Backlink personalization to help improve a website’s ranking with Google
? Customers can then focus on closing deals instead of doing mundane lead
generation.”
Namburi started his own company and designed the SmartWriter.ai when he needed a better outbound system to find leads and create offers. The end result was SmartWriter.ai and it continues to grow as Namburi’s business.
This is excellent for Namburi, but rather than sound like a press release, how about a viable demonstration on why and how it works.
Whitney Grace, November 30, 2021
Counter Intuitive or Unaware of Costco?
November 30, 2021
I try to sidestep arguments with academics cranking out silly or addled reports that are supposed to be impactful. I read “Shopping Trolleys Save Shoppers Money As Pushing Reduces Spending, Finds New Study.” This research gem asserts:
Psychology research has proven that triceps activation is associated with rejecting things we don’t like – for example when we push or hold something away from us – while biceps activation is associated with things we do like – for example when we pull or hold something close to our body. When testing the newly designed trolley on consumers at a supermarket, report authors Professor Zachary Estes and Mathias Streicher found that those who used shopping trolleys with parallel handles bought more products and spent 25 per cent more money than those using the standard trolley.
A couple of thoughts:
- A shopping cart or trolley with square wheels would do the trick too, right?
- A shopping cart weighing more than 50 kilos would do the trick, particularly in small shops near retirement facilities?
- An ALDI style approach, just with a cart use fee of $100 might inhibit shopping?
But the real proof is a visit to Costco. Here’s a snap of what I see when my wife and I visit out local big box store in rural Kentucky:
If the person can’t push it, there are motor driven carts.
Stephen E Arnold, November 30, 2021
Google Wants to Win at an Epic Game
November 30, 2021
Google is not afraid of other search engines, but it is afraid that Epic Games could topple its already crumbling videogame empire. The Straits Times explores Google’s reaction in the article, “Google Formed ‘Fortnite Task Force’ In Response To Epic Game’s Moves.” Google created the team when Epic released an Android version of Fortnite to Samsung’s Galaxy Store and directly through Epic’s own Web site bypassing the Google Play store.
Epic wants to avoid paying app store commission fees, especially after Google and Apple removed Fortnite from its app stores last year. Epic sued, then Google countersued. Google stated in its counter suit that Epic sold an “unapproved” Fortnite version and it placed users at risk. Epic had their own evidence to share:
“On Monday, Epic responded with a forceful rebuttal of Google’s claims. That filing included details about Google’s “Fortnite Task Force”, which was meant to help cope with the game bypassing its app store. The group met daily in 2018, according to Epic, which cited internal Google documents. As part of its work, the task force latched onto a potential security problem for users installing Fortnite outside of Google’s app store, Epic said.”
Google shared with the media that Epic released an unsafe version. Epic claims that this was a scare tactic, so developers would not release apps outside of Google Play and thus Google would maintain a monopoly on Android apps.
Both Apple and Google have monopolies on their own markets. It sucks, but there is not much way around. Unofficial app releases can gain popularity, but they do run the risk of exposure. Is there any way around this?
Whitney Grace, November 30, 2021
DarkCyber for November 30, 2021: Sean Brizendine, SecureX
November 30, 2021
This DarkCyber program features an interview with Sean Brizendine. He is one of the founders of SecureX, where he serves as the director of Blockchain technology. The interview covers:
- SecureX’s secret sauce in the crypto currency and services market
- How open source software fits into the company’s technology portfolio
- How the products and services further the capabilities of Web 3.0, distributed computing, and enhanced online security.
Mr. Brizendine is a certified Certified IIB Council Blockchain Professional & EC Council Online University Lecturer covering Blockchain in their Cyber Talk Webinar Series.
You can view the 11 minute interview on YouTube at this link.
Kenny Toth, November 30, 2021
Palantir Technologies: On the Runway for a Trillion Dollar Take Off?
November 29, 2021
Palantir Technologies is an interesting company. Its technology is a combination of 2003 legacy innovations, some open source goodness, and 18 years of working hard to put a fence around policeware, intelware, financial fraud, and a handful of other markets. It sure seems to me that The Motley Fool, who is neither motley nor a fool, believes that this financial benchmark is a possibility; otherwise, why write the story? PR, stock churn, controversy, to catch the attention of observers and sideline sitters like myself? I don’t know, but with Apple putting the PR in PRivacy, who knows?
The premise is interesting. I noted this passage in the Motley and Fool write up called “Will Palantir Be a Trillion Dollar Stock by 2042“:
Palantir is valued at $41.3 billion, or 27 times this year’s sales.
Good but with unicorns being birthed with Malthusian energy, there may be some boundaries on Palantir’s ambitions. (I will mention a couple of them at the close of this blog post.)
The write up also states:
The company expects that growth to be driven by its new and expanded contracts with government agencies, as well as the growth of its Foundry platform for large commercial customers. The accelerating growth of its commercial business over the past year, which notably outpaced the growth of its government business last quarter, supports that thesis.
I noted this statement, which I find somewhat amusing:
The company has gained a firm foothold with the U.S. government, but it still faces competition from internally developed systems. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), for example, has been developing its own platform to replace Palantir’s Falcon. If other agencies follow ICE’s lead, the company’s dream of becoming the “default operating system for data across the U.S. government” could abruptly end.
I assume that Messrs. Motley and Fool know something about government procurement, why US and EU agencies license multiple systems, and stimulate internal innovation. Yep, I am thinking about DoD incubation centers and 18f. To Motley’s and Fool’s analysis, I tip my fake fur hat to the mention of Amazon as a competitor. Many don’t understand the scope of Amazon’s government services, and probably if told, still wouldn’t grasp the online bookstore as provider of streaming business data and slick AWS blockchain tools.
Let me share some of the hurdles that the galloping stallion has to clear after 18 years on the track:
- The NSO Group dust up has changed the table stakes for policeware and intelware outfits which seek to expand into commercial markets. The impact of NSO Group has been biting Israeli firms, but who knows what will happen tomorrow. The past is not a reliable predictor in today’s flash mob environment.
- The newer methods developed since Palantir opened for “business” are impressive. Many are more capable than Palantir because many tasks with which a trained Palantir forward deployed engineer must engage are point-and-click. Check out Datawalk, Sphinx 12, or a few of the Tel Aviv based outfits’ methods. (A ton of Voyager insider information has been dumped online courtesy of FOIA and the LAPD.)
- Crime is rising, but cyber crime in its multiferous manisfestations is sky rocketing. That means that the vendors pitching solutions could face buyer remorse. What will some of those who find that nifty smart software is not too much of a barrier to novel exploits engendered by the good enough software approaches of Google-Android type coding or Microsoft cloud-type engineering? Maybe some big time litigation?
Net net: From my perspective Palantir Technologies is an intelware and policeware outfit which has to deal with upstart competitors, tough to predict regulation and trade controls, and the looming shadow of buyer remorse which will fall across the cyber intelligence sector and hit vendors indiscriminately.
A trillion dollar outfit? Is there an NFT for Seeing Stones yet?
Stephen E Arnold, November 29, 2021
Blue Chip McKinsey Stomped, Criticized, and Misunderstood by Silicon Valley Experts
November 29, 2021
I remember the good, old days. Books like “Other People’s Business: A Primer on Management Consultants” and the interesting newsletter “Consultants News.” The big dogs were McKinsey, Bain, BCG, Booz, Allen & Hamilton, and maybe SRI and Kearney. The world was ordered, secretive, elite, and lucrative. What has happened since the 1970s?
Well, discount consulting has boomed. The sector has many manifestations from the Colemans to the GLG Group, from online dog psychologists to 24×7 psycho-business experts. Because there are no government agencies paying attention to consultants, the sector remains wonderfully unregulated. Anyone can become a consultant. LinkedIn promotions are either free or low cost. Search systems like Google make it possible for anyone to know anything with a single search. Don’t believe me? Just think about how much you know as long as you have a smartphone and an Internet connection.
Enter the new breed of real news. What’s this sort of news like? The easiest way to answer the question is to check out “McKinsey Taught Big Pharma How to Price Gouge.” The “key words” in the article’s url provide some insight into the mindset of this approach to information. Forget the history when the blue chip consultants were untouchable. Forget the overt words in the title. Here’s the lingo of the url:
strikesgiving/#cool-story-pharma-bro
The agenda is a bit more clear because Big Pharma may be a “pharma bro”, or Big Pharma could be McKinsey consultants.
I think there are four points which the article and the alleged actions of McKinsey illustrate:
- The idea that firms and individuals conduct themselves in an ethical and appropriate manner when discussing business methods has evolved. Now it is anything goes. Blue chip, overpaid blue chip consultant? Now we have you? Journalistic methods which are more than links? Hey, this recycled information is gold, and it’s solid information gold, right? Both “sides” are guilty.
- Blue chip consultants do work for hire. That means that if a client pays and agrees to a proposal, the bright employees will figure out angles. Clever is not confined to the virtual cubes and imaginary Foosball games of Big Tech employees. Clever is king today. In the 1970s, as I recall my experiences at the Boozer, societal norms, common sense, and decorum were important. Today, maybe not so much.
- Certain types of information — like confidential client reports and internal memoranda — were tough to get. Today one can download several hundred hot new open source intelligence links and have a go at finding sensitive information. Finding factual dirt is wonderfully easy today. Ease facilitates clever and greases the skids for what I call Silicon Valley journalism or “real” journalism as I term it.
- There is a great deal of glee. Now the glee is public and broadcast, pushed, and discovered quickly and possibly globally if one knows where to look. The glee, however, is not the wry observations of a William Penn Adair Rogers; it’s the jokes of a high school science club member who knows how to get a laugh from the people who count in a comparatively small, hermetically sealed room.
Did McKinsey do a bad thing? I don’t know. Smart people do “smart.” Less smart people, who do not understand the context of work in a blue chip consulting firm, may not understand why projects evolve a certain way. That’s what happens when universities foul up in cultivating ethical and socially appropriate behavior. Who believes a professor at MIT who talks about ethics when the institution itself was Jeffrey Epstein’s best bud for years?
Did the “real” journalist do a bad thing? I am not sure. Recycling links and suggesting via a misleading title and a skewed url that there is an agenda at work lights up my suspicion radar. Can “real” Silicon Valley reporting take down McKinsey? I doubt it. But, who knows, maybe some day.
To sum up, it is a very, very short step from McKinsey to another high paying job. And it is almost stupid easy for a “real” Silicon Valley journalist to proclaim oneself an expert, hang out a shingle, and collect money solving problems.
What’s different is that we have one nickel and it has two sides. Both are on display in this write up about Big Pharma, bros, agendas, and incentives.
Stephen E Arnold, November 29, 2021
The Most Potent American Export: The Social Media Violence System
November 29, 2021
The United States is not the country affected by social media. The Interpreter shares how religious minorities in Bangladesh are harmed when misinformation spreads via social media: “Minorities Under Attack In Bangladesh.” Bangladesh’s major religion is Islam with various minorities, including Buddhism and Hindu. The country is described as religiously tolerant compared to its neighbors.
Unfortunately rumors spread over Facebook that the Quran was desecrated during the Hindu Durga Puja festival. Buddhist and Hindu temples and holy sites were attacked, while seven people were killed. Bangladesh authorities arrested a man who claimed to have left a copy of the Quran at the festival. This is not the first time violence prompted by social media occurred:
“However, almost every year since 2012 religious minorities have been attacked somewhere in Bangladesh after online posts promulgating false allegations. The pattern runs like this: rumors begin within a local community that people from a minority background have defamed Islam, and such orchestrated “fake news” quickly spreads online to incite violence against minorities.”
Violence in Bangladesh stems from three factors: growing fear in the Islamic majority of atheism and blasphemy, growing supranational Muslin and Hindu identities, religious minority attacks are actually attempts to stem Hindu land.
Social media in Bangladesh is used as a propaganda tool to fuel prejudice and fear amongst its people. It is unfortunate that all religions in Bangladesh are victims of social media misinformation. Mob mentally runs rampant on social media and it is not any different from other violence that stems from newspapers, TVs, or radios. Social media just spreads it faster.
Whitney Grace, November 29, 2021
Gartner Revs Its Prediction Engine: The Global AI Market
November 29, 2021
My hunch is that smart software is going to be pervasive: Financial outfits, wonderful health care institutions, and exemplary high technology outfits engaged in an American favorite activity nudging.
You can read about this prediction in “Global AI Software Market to Hit $62 Billion in 2022.” My first reaction was, “Just $62 billion.” Oh, well, I don’t work at a mid tier consulting firm eager to populate its conferences with true believers. (This write up may be disappeared. If you can’t locate it, give the mid tier folks a jingle. My hunch is that you can buy a report right from the distributed organization itself.)
The write up says:
Global artificial intelligence (AI) software revenue is forecast to reach $62.5 billion in 2022, an increase of 21.3 per cent from 2021, according to Gartner. The top five use cases for AI software spending in 2022 will be knowledge management, virtual assistants, autonomous vehicles, digital workplace and crowdsourced data.
I am not sure what a digital workplace is and I am puzzled by crowdsourced data. Maybe Gartner is talking about smart surveillance of mobile device users? I don’t know.
Nevertheless, pretty modest growth and just $62 billion.
Stephen E Arnold, November 29, 2021
Frisky Israeli Cyber Innovators Locked Down and Confined to Quarters
November 26, 2021
Before the NSO Group demonstrated remarkable PR powers, cyber centric companies in Israel were able to market to a large number of prospects. Conference organizers could count on NSO Group to provide speakers, purchase trade show space, and maybe sponsor a tchotchke for attendees. Governments and even some commercial enterprises knew about NSO Group’s technological capabilities and the firm’s ability to provide a network which eliminated quite a bit of the muss and fuss associated with mobile device surveillance, data analysis, and related activities.
How did that work out?
The PR sparked “real journalists” to use their powers of collecting information, analyzing those items, and making warranted conclusions about NSO Group’s enabling activities. Sure, pesky Canadian researchers were writing about NSO Group, but there wasn’t a “real news” story. Then… bingo. A certain individual associated with a “real news” organization was terminated and the arrows of data and supposition pointed to NSO Group’s capabilities and what one of the firm’s alleged customers was able to do with the system.
The journalistic horses raced out of the gate, and the NSO Group became a “thing.”
Vendors of specialized software are not accustomed to the spotlight. Making sales, collecting fees, and enjoying pats on the backs from colleagues who try hard to keep a low, low profile are more typical activities. But, oh, those spotlights.
The consequences have been ones to which cyber innovators like to avoid. Former superiors send email asking, “What are you doing?” Then government committees, consisting of people who don’t know much about next generation technologies, have to be briefed. And those explanations are painful because the nuances of cyber centric firms are different from explaining how to plug in a Tesla in Tel Aviv. Oh, painful.
Now, if the information in the Calcalist’s article “The Ministry of Defense Has Cut by Two-Thirds the Number of Countries That Cyber Companies Can Sell To” is accurate, the Israeli government has put a shock collar on NSO Group’s ankle and clamped the devices on other firm’s well-formed, powerful legs as well. The message is clear: Stay in bounds or you will be zapped. (I leave it to you to figure out what “zap” connotes.)
The publication’s story says:
The [Israeli] Ministry of Defense has cut by two-thirds the number of countries that cyber companies can sell to The previous list included 102 countries to which cyber exports are allowed, and now it includes only 37 countries. The latest list from the beginning of November does not include countries such as Morocco, Mexico, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
Who’s at fault? The Calcalist offers this statement:
It is implied that Israel used in a very permissive manner the special certificates that it may grant and was in any case aware of where the Israeli society is known. It is important to note that the new list includes companies to which cyber can now be exported and it is possible that in the past lists there were other countries to which systems could be exported without fear.
My knowledge of Hebrew is lousy and Google translate is not helping me much. The main idea is that up and down the chain of command, the “chain” was not managed well. Hence, the PR gaffes, the alleged terminations, and the large number of high intensity lights directed at companies which once thrived in the shadows.
Some observations:
- Countries unable to acquire the technology associated with NSO Group are likely to buy from non-Israeli firms. Gee, I wonder if China and Russia have specialized software vendors who will recognize a sales opportunity and not do the PR thing in which NSO Group specialized?
- The publicity directed at NSO Group has been a more successful college class than the dump of information from the Hacking Team. A better class may translate to more capable coders who can duplicate and possibly go beyond the Israeli firms’ capabilities. This is a new state of affairs in my opinion.
- Cyber technologies are the lubricant for modern warfare. Israel had a lead in this software sector. It is now highly likely that the slick system of government specialists moving into the private sector with “support” from certain entities may be changed. Bummer for some entrepreneurs? Yep.
Net net: The NSO Group’s PR excesses — combined with its marketing know how — has affected a large number of companies. Keeping secrets is known to be a wise practice for some activities. Blending secrecy with market dynamics is less wise in my experience. This NSO Group case is more impactful than the Theranos Silicon Valley matter.
Stephen E Arnold, November 25, 2021
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