Journalists Unhappy with the Capitalism Thing
December 9, 2021
I read “Google, Facebook Being Sued by Over 200 Newspapers for Hogging Ad Revenue.” I want to point out that I worked for Barry Bingham Jr, who owned the Courier Journal, a printing outfit which cranked out the New York Times Sunday magazine, a mail order ham outfit, a door knob advertising company, the number one AM station in Louisville, the number one TV station in Louisville, and a bunch of other businesses like one of the leading online information companies in the world. I liked working there. I loved being part of a newspaper monopoly which was permitted to operate through some legal wizardry crafted by Barry Junior’s predecessors. Being an ambassador to England was a good deal I concluded.
Now 200 newspapers who would love to be like the now late and much lamented Courier Journal want lawyers help fix up some of the broken gears in capitalism. The write up states:
e newspaper companies are accusing the Big Tech players of “unfairly manipulating the advertising market,” which has caused direct damage to their publications as a whole. Thirty different companies are involved in the suit, which is being handled by a group of lawyers and law firms.
The issue it seems is that monopolies are okay as long as it is the traditional publishers who can have one. Yep, I miss the Courier Journal, but business has evolved into technology centric monopolies. I am not sure legal eagles, even those noted for their prowess with Microsoft Word, can do much about the present state of affairs.
And capitalism? Wow, it seems like a downer for some.
Stephen E Arnold, December 9, 2021
Google into Healing
December 9, 2021
How does one explain healing? For the Google the answer is with a Year in Search video. “Google Is All about Healing in its Year In Search Video for 2021” reports:
According to Google Trends, searches on climate change have hit a record high number in 2021. Google’s Year In Search video has captured that with the search of ‘how to help our planet.’ Other positive search examples like ‘ways to help your community’ and ‘how to be yourself’ have also captured the attention of Google and are included in the video with appropriate examples.
Okay, climate change. And Covid. Google even shares some of its user data, according to the write up:
The Year In Search video is accompanied by an interactive site where you can see all of the top global Google searches month-by-month in nine different categories. Of course, you can also check out Google Trends where you can see data for a specific country or region.
What about repairing that relationship with Dr. Timnit Gebru and others who raised questions about Google’s AI methods and motives?
Oh, that’s an unfair question. No healing there. Plus only the really important information is worthy of the Year in Search video.
Stephen E Arnold, December 9, 2021
The Coveo IPO: Making Some Headway
December 9, 2021
A number of Canadian tech companies have recently gone public on the Toronto Stock Exchange only to be met with muted responses. One was enterprise search firm Coveo, which went public in November in order to position itself globally, attract talent, and fund future acquisitions. CEO Louis Têtu appears unconcerned about the apparent indifference to his and other companies’ fledgling stock, The Globe and Mail reports in its piece, “Coveo CEO Dismisses Soft Trading Start on TSX as Quebec Software Company Closes $215-Million IPO.” Writer Sean Silcoff tells us:
“Coveo received more than $1-billion in orders for its IPO… . The stock hit $18 on its first day of trading last Thursday, but has since retreated, briefly trading below the issue price Tuesday. That makes it the fourth new tech issue this autumn – following D2L Corp., Q4 Inc. and E Automotive Inc. – to trade below its issue price. Coveo stock closed Wednesday at $15.30, up 1.7 per cent. Mr. Têtu dismissed Coveo’s ho-hum start as a public company, noting the share price of New York Stock Exchange-listed rival Elastic NV had dropped by 15 per cent over the previous four sessions. ‘There is a set of market dynamics we don’t control; the tide raises and lowers all boats,’ he said. ‘I think the jury is going to be out until the first earnings call [as a public company] and the subsequent earnings call. I think anybody who understands the stock market and IPOs … wouldn’t draw conclusions’ from the stock’s early performance. Coveo became the 20th Canadian tech IPO on the TSX to raise $50-million or more since July, 2020. By contrast, there were 12 such IPOs in the 11 years ended December, 2019.”
I suppose that is a good point—progress is progress, even if it is not at light speed. The write-up [paywalled] includes a few more details about Coveo’s growth and profits. Since its founding in 2005, the company has acquired two AI-powered e-commerce firms: Tooso in 2019 and Qubit in 2021. It sounds like Coveo may have some more companies already in its sights.
The good news is that the stock on December 8, 2021, was trending up. Search and retrieval is a tough business. Just ask the former CEOs of Autonomy and Fast Search & Transfer or take a look at the dust up between Amazon and Elastic. Worth monitoring. Maybe take a stake?
Cynthia Murrell December 10, 2021
Amazon: Engendering Excitement and Questions about Failover and Reliability
December 8, 2021
Amazon’s big-bang conference is mostly a memory. I don’t think the conference announcements or the praise sung by the choir of Amazon faithful can top this story: “Amazon Packages Pile Up after AWS Outage Spawns Delivery Havoc.” The agility of the two-pizza method and the super duper automatic redundancy, failover ingenuity did not work. What’s affected? Just the foundation business of the online bookstore.
The write up states:
Three delivery service partners said an Amazon.com Inc. app used to communicate with delivery drivers is down. Vans that were supposed to be on the road delivering packages are sitting idle with no communication from the company, the person said. Amazon Flex drivers, independent delivery people who carry parcels in their own cars, can’t log into Amazon’s app to get assignments, said another person. The problems come amid Amazon’s critical holiday shopping season when the e-commerce giant can ill afford delays that could potentially create lasting log-jams.
Personally I don’t care too much about my deliver of household cleaner. I do worry that Amazon’s assurances for the existing GovCloud and the newly minted GovCloud West may suffer a similar meltdown. A failure to provide me with three bottles of Krud Kutter are tiny compared with fouling up top secret messaging and secured processes.
Concentration of online in the capable hands of a few technology behemoths makes sense to some MBAs. Efficiency, scale, better service, yada yada. The reality is reported in the start Detroit News’ story: Havoc. Marketing and conference talks are just easier and more exciting than maintaining a hugely complex system which is getting more difficult for some to believe in good, old Saint Bezos.
Seasons Greetings and Happy New Year!
Stephen E Arnold, December 8, 2021
New Management Method: High School Science Club Wants to Run the School District
December 8, 2021
I love those confident, ever youthful, and oh-so enthusiastic high school science club members. Many of these individuals maintain their youthful insights into adulthood. In the after life, maybe these imbibers of the fountain of youth-type thinking are in charge. Milton, bless his poetic soul, learned that blind poets are best left to menial duties. Are there Augean stables in heaven? Nope, just techno-wizards.
I read “CTO to CEO: The Case for Putting the Tech Expert in Charge.” After an incident of Dorseying, Twitter has a new captain at the helm. The article is interesting because the author uses the Twitter appointment of Parag Agrawal as the start of a new management trend.
Here’s an example:
CTOs are increasingly being groomed by corporate boards as part of their CEO succession planning, according to Ash Athawale, senior managing director for Robert Half’s executive search division. Athawale told Protocol that he’s witnessed an increase in attention towards technology leaders as potential future chief executives. The reason? Tech is now central to core business functions across all industries…
Logical, no? A technology centric CEO at Twitter is just the ticket.
And what have technology capable adults with a history in their secondary schools’ science clubs wrought?
Here are a handful of examples:
- Twitter and its unique ability to provide left and right coasters with a platform to direct their thoughts at those who kick back and enjoy a filter bubble equipped with a one click response mechanism.
- Facebook and its remarkable impact on social constructs, including vulnerable people who have their self worth inflated or crushed in a mouse click
- The wonderful world of online advertising which introduced the concept of zero privacy to the world
- Amazon and its race with Walmart to reduce small businesses to delivery drop off points
There are other examples of what happens when tech-savvy folks run giant companies with money generating feedback mechanisms.
My hunch is that the ideal manager is not likely to be as well received as individuals with a slightly different profile.
Stephen E Arnold, December 8, 2021
Who Says Teachers Do Not Understand Social Media? Not TikTok
December 8, 2021
It can be difficult to keep up with what the kids are doing on video-sharing app TikTok, and much of it is just playful fun. However, here is an unnerving shift in direction—weaponized short videos being deployed against teachers and staff at schools in the UK. BBC News tells us about “TikTok School abuse: Teachers Quitting Over Pedophile Slurs.” Reporter Nicola Bryan writes:
“Some teachers are leaving the profession after being labeled pedophiles on TikTok, a union says. A craze on the social media app has seen children share videos of staff with inappropriate hashtags and comments and, sometimes, superimposing their faces onto pornography.”
See the write-up for a few examples. The situation is difficult because, while the children may be too young to fully understand the consequences of their actions, it is naturally causing staff and their families considerable angst. Neither of the schools have suspended any students—maybe because the content was posted anonymously. They are focusing instead on educating the children and, perhaps especially, their parents. But what is TikTok doing about the trend? A union representative states the company has been all talk and no action, and one school’s staff member reports it took a long time for videos to be taken down. However, another school’s head teacher says TikTok responded promptly to her school’s complaint. That is an odd inconsistency. The write-up quotes the company’s spokesperson:
“‘We are crystal clear that hateful behavior, bullying and harassment have no place on TikTok. We regret the distress caused to some teachers as a result of abusive content posted to our platform.’ She said the company had deployed additional technical measures and guidance and continued to ‘proactively detect and remove violative content and accounts’. She said the partner had partnered with the Professional Online Safety Helpline (POSH) to provide teachers with an additional way to report content and written to every school in the UK to ensure all staff had access to the resources they need.”
The Welsh government, for one, is not convinced TikTok is doing enough. Recognizing the seriousness of the issue, it demands TikTok remove this content immediately as it is reported. Will the company comply?
Cynthia Murrell December 8, 2021
US Government Procurement: Diagram the Workflow: How Many Arrows Point Fingers?
December 8, 2021
I want to keep this short. For a number of years, I have pointed out that current Federal procurement procedures and the policies the steps are supposed to implement create some issues. I like to mention procurement time for advanced software. By the time the procurement goes through the RFQ, the RFP, the proposal evaluation, the selection, the little meeting at which losers express their concerns, and the award — the advanced technology is often old technology. Another issue is the importance of marketing hoo hah which often leads the Federal government to purchase products and services which are different from that which was described in the PowerPoint presentations and the proposals. There are other interesting characteristics of the process; for example, coffee chats with senators, nice lunches with important people who may pop up on a cable TV talking head program, or good old friendship from a college social group. Ah, yes. Procurement.
“US Government Agencies Bought Chinese Surveillance Tech Despite Federal Ban” is a collection of some procurement anecdotes. Interesting? Not particularly. Why? There are no consequences for buying products and services from vendors who should not be eligible for US government contracts. The article focuses on Chinese related missteps. The explanations are crafted to avoid getting anyone in legal hot water.
Net net: I worked in DC starting in the early 1970s. How much has changed in the last 50 years. Not much. China is nemesis but China was a bit of a nemesis 50 years ago. The FARs have been updated. Nevertheless, some interesting purchases have been made over the years. Where’s the Golden Fleece Award now? Are there some unwanted and unloved tanks parked somewhere? What about certain air superiority systems which experience more downtime than a second hand taxi purchased from a shady character in Mexico City. Yes, procurement and some proud moments. Why not fire up that TikTok and ignore the useful data hosed back to certain servers?
Stephen E Arnold, December 8, 2021
Smart Software and Cartels: Another View of the Question To Google or Not to Google?
December 7, 2021
I read “A Cartel of Influential Datasets Is Dominating Machine Learning Research New Study Suggests.” The “team” beavering away is an impressive one to the AI big wigs: The University of California at Los Angeles and Google. The findings are interesting. Developers of smart software have relied on widely available datasets. And those datasets can and may have posed a problem. The datasets are not ones that the average computer user will know about or understand what’s in them. But they are available and less expensive than building a collection of data, making sure it is sort of unbiased, benchmarking the dataset, and then deploying it in such a manner than errors or statistical eddies, currents, and drifts are noted and addressed. Wow, that’s a lot of work, and it is expensive. It is just more efficient to use what’s available and trust the “law of big numbers” or the magic of statistical procedures to fill in the potholes.
The problem is that the expensive alternative is a non starter in today’s go go, let’s make money now world. This means that my interpretation of this allegedly objective, peer reviewed, credential bedecked study is different.
Here’s what I think is afoot. The research discredits what most of the companies building machine learning centric solutions is doing. The fix, in my opinion, is Google’s embrace of the principles and practices of the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory or SAIL. The idea is manifested in Dr. Christopher Ré’s research, the DeepDyve system, and the Snorkel open source software and commercial variants.
The solution is to skip as much of the human involvement in training as possible. Let the downstream system work out the details and fix the pavement in the information superhighway. The Snorkel approach is going to be better in every possible way than using the widely available datasets and a whole lot cheaper than creating training data by hand and then paying quite a few subject matter experts to tune the system.
Net net: My hunch is that Google is lobbying for its approach and the opportunity to put in place a Googley solution. And what if those outputs are biased. Well, that’s just not possible, is it? One should ask Dr. Timnit Gebru and others who took umbrage at how the estimable Google responded to a bright person’s questions about the broader Google play.
PS. Check out the original research paper, the Snorkel method, and the push back from Xoogler Dr. Gebru. This is an important moment for smart software: To Google or not to Google? That is the question.
Stephen E Arnold, December 7, 2021
If One Thinks One Is Caesar, Is That Person Caesar? Thumbs Up or Thumbs Down
December 7, 2021
I read a story which may or may not be spot on. Nevertheless, I found it amusing, and if true, not so funny. The story is “Facebook Refuses to Recognize Biden’s FTC As Legitimate.” I am not sure if the original version of JP Morgan would have made this statement. Maybe he did?
Here’s a statement from the article which I circled in Facebook blue:
The FTC didn’t “plausibly establish” that the company “maintained a monopoly through unlawful, anticompetitive conduct.” It asked the court to dismiss the complaint with prejudice. In the court filing, Facebook also once again argued that Khan should recuse herself, saying that her not doing so will “taint all of the agency’s litigation choices in the event the case proceeds.”
I think Julius Caesar, before he had a bad day, allegedly said:
If you must break the law, do it to seize power: in all other cases observe it.
My thought is, “Enough of this pretending to be powerful.” Let’s make the US a real 21st century banana republic. Is there a T shirt which says, “Tech Rules” on the back and “I am Julius” on the front? There may be a market for one or two.
Stephen E Arnold, December 7, 2021
Smart Software Is Innovative: Two Marketing Examples, You Doltish Humanoids
December 7, 2021
I zipped through the news releases, headlines, and emails which accumulate in my system. I spotted two stories. Each made the case that smart software — created by humans — is discerning information humans had not previously known or had revealed. This assertion has some interesting implications. There are issues associated with Kurt Gödel-type thinking and the Star Trek think which has launched billions of smart phones.
Here’s the first article. It’s called “AI Is Discovering Patterns in Pure Mathematics That Have Never Been Seen Before.” That’s a clickable title. The write up asserts:
In a newly published study, a research team used artificial intelligence systems developed by DeepMind, the same company that has been deploying AI to solve tricky biology problems and improve the accuracy of weather forecasts, to unknot some long-standing math problems.
DeepMind is pretty much Google. Google is a fan of Snorkel methods. These procedures use minimal training and then let math learn. The outputs are — well — Googley. You know solving the big problems of life like online advertising, reducing the costs of alternative methods of training smart software, and dealing with the legal hassles associated with the alleged “AI cabal” and Timnit Gebru.
The second article is “AI Generates Hypotheses Human Scientists Have Not Thought Of.” The write up says:
One of the benefits of machine learning systems is the way that they can look for patterns and scenarios that programmers didn’t specifically code them to look out for – they take their training data and apply the same principles to new situations. The research shows that this sort of high-speed, ultra-reliable, large-scale data processing can act as an extra tool working with mathematicians’ natural intuition. When you’re dealing with complex, lengthy equations, that can make a significant difference.
What’s interesting is that the write up does not link the researchers with DeepMind. But it appears that the mathematician András Juhász has worked with Googley DeepMind. See “DeepMind AI Collaborates with Humans on Two Mathematical Breakthroughs.”
The first item cited in this blog post appeared on December 4, 2021. The second appeared in October 2021.
My thought is that the Google is injecting rah rah messages about its Snorkel-type approach into highly regarded publications. My hope is that Dr. Timnit Gebru’s and her work gets equal coverage.
Why? The Google wants to be the big dog in certain smart software dog sled pulling. But inbreeding has its downsides; including, bias. PR firms and rah rah marketers are not sensitive to such mathematical oddities as “drift” in my experience. From peer reviewed articles to the open market for “great ideas”, information marches forward on the wheels of propaganda and factual reformation it does, it does.
Stephen E Arnold, December 6, 2021
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