Silicon Valley and Its Busy, Busy Beavers
July 21, 2023
![Vea4_thumb_thumb_thumb_thumb_thumb_t[1]](http://arnoldit.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Vea4_thumb_thumb_thumb_thumb_thumb_t1-43.gif "Vea4_thumb_thumb_thumb_thumb_thumb_t[1]")
Note: This essay is the work of a real and still-alive dinobaby. No smart software involved, just a dumb humanoid.
Several stories caught my attention. These are:
- The story “Google Pitches AI to Newsrooms As Tool to Help Reporters Write News Stories.” The main idea is that the “test” will allow newspaper publishers to become more efficient.
- The story “YouTube Premium Price Increase 2023: Users Calls for Lawsuit” explains that to improve the experience, Google will raise its price for YouTube Premium.” Was that service positioned as fixed price?
- The story “Google Gives a Peek at What a Quantum Computer Can Do” resurfaces the quantum supremacy assertion. Like high school hot rodders, Google suggests that its hardware is the most powerful, fastest, and slickest one in the Quantum School for Mavens.
- The story “Meta, Google, and OpenAI Promise the White House They’ll Develop AI Responsibly” reports that Google and other big tech outfits cross their hearts and hope to die that they will not act in an untoward manner.
Google’s busy beavers have been active: AI, pricing tactics, quantum goodness, and team building. Thanks, MidJourney but you left out the computing devices which no high value beaver goes without.
Google has allowed its beavers to gnaw on some organic material to build some dams. Specifically, the newspapers which have been affected by Google’s online advertising (no I am not forgetting Craigslist.com. I am just focusing on the Google at the moment) can avail themselves of AI. The idea is… cost cutting. Could there be some learnings for the Google? What I mean is that such a series of tests or trials provides the Google with telemetry. Such telemetry allows the Google to refine its news writing capabilities. The trajectory of such knowledge may allow the Google to embark on its own newspaper experiment. Where will that lead? I don’t know, but it does not bode well for real journalists or some other entities.
The YouTube price increase is positioned as a better experience. Could the sharp increase in ads before, during, and after a YouTube video be part of a strategy? What I am hypothesizing is that more ads will force users to pay to be able to watch a YouTube video without being driven crazy by ads for cheap mobile, health products, and gun belts? Deteriorating the experience allows a customer to buy a better experience. Could that be semi-accurate?
The quantum supremacy thing strikes me as 100 percent PR with a dash of high school braggadocio. The write up speaks to me this way: “I got a higher score on the SAT.” Snort snort snort. The snorts are a sound track to putting down those whose machines just don’t have the right stuff. I wonder if this is how others perceive the article.
And the busy beavers turned up at the White House. The beavers say, “We will be responsible with this AI stuff. We AI promise.” Okay, I believe this because I don’t know what these creatures mean when the word “responsible” is used. I can guess, however.
Net net: The ethicist from Harvard and the soon-to-be-former president of Stanford are available to provide advisory services. Silicon Valley is a metaphor for many good things, especially for the companies and their senior executives. Life will get better and better with certain high technology outfits running the show, pulling the strings, and controlling information, won’t it?
Stephen E Arnold, July 21, 2023
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