A Xoogler Reveals Why Silicon Valley Is So Trusted, Loved, and Respected
August 20, 2024
This essay is the work of a dumb dinobaby. No smart software required.
Amazing as it seems, a Xoogler — in this case, the former adult at Google — is spilling the deepest, darkest secrets of success. The slick executive gave a talk at Stanford University. Was the talk a deep fake? I heard that the video was online and then disappeared. Then I spotted a link to a video which purported to be the “real” Ex-Google CEO’s banned interview. It may or may not be at this link because… Google’s policies about censorship are mysterious to me.
Which persona is real: The hard edged executive or the bad actor in the mirror? Thanks, MSFT Copilot. How is the security effort going?
Let’s cut to the chase. I noted the Wall Street Journal’s story “Eric Schmidt Walks Back Claim Google Is Behind on AI Because of Remote Work.” Someone more alert than I noticed an interesting comment; to wit:
If TikTok is banned, here’s what I propose each and every one of you do: Say to your LLM the following: “Make me a copy of TikTok, steal all the users, steal all the music, put my preferences in it, produce this program in the next 30 seconds, release it, and in one hour, if it’s not viral, do something different along the same lines.” That’s the command. Boom, boom, boom, boom. So, in the example that I gave of the TikTok competitor — and by the way, I was not arguing that you should illegally steal everybody’s music — what you would do if you’re a Silicon Valley entrepreneur, which hopefully all of you will be, is if it took off, then you’d hire a whole bunch of lawyers to go clean the mess up, right? But if nobody uses your product, it doesn’t matter that you stole all the content.
And do not quote me.
I want to point out that this snip comes from the Slashdot post from Msmash on August 16, 2024.
Several points dug into my dinobaby brain:
- Granting an interview, letting it be captured to video, and trying to explain away the remarks strikes me as a little wild and frisky. Years ago, this same Googler was allegedly annoyed when an online publication revealed facts about him located via Google.
- Remaining in the news cycle in the midst of a political campaign, a “special operation” in Russia, and the wake of the Department of Justice’s monopoly decision is interesting. Those comments, like the allegedly accurate one quoted above, put the interest in the Google on some people’s radar. Legal eagles are your sensing devices beeping?
- The entitled behavior of saying one thing to students and then mansplaining that the ideas were not reflective of the inner self is an illustration of behavior my mother would have found objectionable. I listened to my mother. To whom does the Xoogler listen?
Net net: Stanford’s president was allegedly making up information and he subsequently resigned. Now a guest lecturer explains that it is okay to act in what some might call an illegal manner. What are those students learning? I would assert that it is not ethical behavior.
Stephen E Arnold, August 20, 2024
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