Google Places a Big Bet, and It May Not Pay Off
June 10, 2025
Just a dinobaby and no AI: How horrible an approach?
Each day brings more AI news. I have playing in the background a video called “The AI Math That Left Number Theorists Speechless.” That word “speechless” does not apply because the interlocutor and the math whiz are chatty Cathies. The video runs a little less that two hours. Speechless? No, when it comes to smart software some people become verbose and excited. I like to be verbose. I don’t like to get excited about artificial intelligence. I am a dinobaby, remember?
I clicked on the first item in my trusty Overflight service and this write up greeted me: “Google Is Burying the Web Alive.” How does one “bury” a digital service? I assumed or inferred that the idea is that the alleged multi-monopoly Google was going to create another monopoly for itself anchored in AI.
The write up says:
[AI Overviews are] Google’s “most powerful AI search, with more advanced reasoning and multimodality, and the ability to go deeper through follow-up questions and helpful links to the web,” the company says, “breaking down your question into subtopics and issuing a multitude of queries simultaneously on your behalf.” It’s available to everyone. It’s a lot like using AI-first chatbots that have search functions, like those from OpenAI, Anthropic, and Perplexity, and Google says it’s destined for greater things than a small tab. “As we get feedback, we’ll graduate many features and capabilities from AI Mode right into the core Search experience,” the company says.
Let’s slow down the buggy. A completely new product or service has some baggage on board. Like “New Coke”, quite a few people liked “old Coke.” The company figured it out and innovated and finally just started buying beverage outfits that were pulling new customers. Then there is the old chestnut by the buggy stand which says, “Most start ups fail.” Finally, there is the shadow of impatient stakeholders. Fail to keep those numbers up, and consequences manifest themselves.
The write up gallops forward:
From the very first use, however, AI Mode crystallized something about Google’s priorities and in particular its relationship to the web from which the company has drawn, and returned, many hundreds of billions of dollars of value. AI Overviews demoted links, quite literally pushing content from the web down on the page, and summarizing its contents for digestion without clicking…
Those clicks make Google’s money flow. It does not matter if the user clicks to view a YouTube short or a click to view a Web page about a vacation rental. Clicks equal revenue. Fewer clicks may translate to less revenue. If this is true, then what happens?
The write up suggests an answer: The good old Web is marginalized. Kaput. Dead as a door nail:
of course, Google is already working on ads for both Overviews and AI Mode). In its drive to embrace AI, Google is further concealing the raw material that fuels it, demoting links as it continues to ingest them for abstraction. Google may still retain plenty of attention to monetize and perhaps keep even more of it for itself, now that it doesn’t need to send people elsewhere; in the process, however, it really is starving the web that supplies it with data on which to train and from which to draw up-to-date details. (Or, one might say, putting it out of its misery.)
As a dinobaby, I quite like the old Web. Again we have a giant company doing something “new” and “different.” How will those bold innovations work out? That’s the $64 question (a rigged game show my mother told me).
The article concludes:
In any case, the signals from Google — despite its unconvincing suggestions to the contrary — are clear: It’ll do anything to win the AI race. If that means burying the web, then so be it.
Whoa, Nellie!
Let’s think about what the Google is allegedly doing. First, the Google is spending money to index the “Web.” My team tells me that Google is indexing less thoroughly than it was 10 years ago. Google indexes where the traffic is, and quite a bit of that traffic is to Google itself. The losers have been grousing about a lack of traffic for years. I have worked with a consumer Web site since 1993, and the traffic cratered about seven years ago. Why? Google selected sites to boost because of the link between advertiser appetite and clicks. The owner of this consumer Web site cooked up a bit of jargon for what Google was doing; he called it “steering.” The idea is that Google shaped its crawls and “relevance” in order to maximize revenue from known big ad spenders.
Google is not burying anything. The company is selecting to maximize financial benefits. My experience suggests that when Google strays too far from what stakeholders want, the company will be whipped until it gets the horses under control. Second, the AI revolution poses a significant challenge for a number of reasons. Among these is the users’ desire for the information equivalent of a “dumb” mobile phone. The cacophony of digital information is too much and creates a “why bother” need. Google wants to respond in the hope that it can come up with a product or service that produces as much money as the old Yahoo Overture GoTo model. Hope, however, is not reality.
As a dinobaby, I think Google has a reasonably good chance of stratifying its “users”. Some will pay. Some will consume the sponsored by ads AI output. Some will find a way to get the restaurant address surrounded by advertisements.
What about AI?
I am not sure that anyone knows. Both Google and Microsoft have to find a way to produce significant and sustainable revenue from the large language model method which has come to be synonymous with smart software. The costs are massive. The use cases usually focus on firing people for cost savings until the AI doesn’t work. Then the AI supporters just hire people again. That’s the Klarna call to think clearly again.
Net net: The Google is making a big bet that it can increase its revenues with smart software. How probable is it that the “new” Google will turn out like the “New Coke”? How much of the AI hype is just l’entreprise parle dans le vide? The hype may be the inverse of reality. Something will be buried, and it may not be the “Web.”
Stephen E Arnold, June 10, 2025
Is Google Headed for the Big Computer Room in the Sky? Actually Yes It Is
June 9, 2025
Just a dinobaby and no AI: How horrible an approach?
As freshman in college in 1962, I had seen computers like the clunky IBMs at Keystone Steel & Wire Co., where my father worked as some sort of numbers guy, a bean counter, I guessed. “Look but don’t touch,” he said, not even glancing up from his desk with two adding machines, pencils, and ledgers. I looked.
Once I convinced a professor of poetry to hire me to help him index Latin sermons, I was hooked. Next up were Digital Equipment machines. At Halliburton Nuclear a fellow named Bill Montano listened to my chatter about searching text. Then I bopped into a big blue chip consulting firms and there were computing machines in the different offices I visited. When I ended up at the database company in the early 1980s, I had my own Wang in my closet. There you go. A file cabinet sized gizmo, weird hums, and connections to terminals in my little space and to other people who could “touch” their overheated hearts. Then the Internet moved from the research world into the mainstream. Zoom. Things were changing.
Computer companies arrived, surged, and faded. Then personal computer companies arrived, surged, and faded. The cadence of the computer industry was easy to dance to. As Carmen Giménez used to say on American Bandstand in 1959, “I like the beat and it is easy to dance to.” I have been tapping along and doing a little jig in the computer (online) sector for many years, around 60 I think.
I read “Google As You Know It Is Slowly Dying.” Okay, another tech outfit moving through its life cycle. Break out your copy of Elisabeth Kübler-Ross’s On Death and Dying. Jump to Acceptance section, read it, and move on. But, no. It is time for one more “real news” write up to explain that Googzilla is heading toward its elder care facility. This is not news. If it is, fire up your Burroughs B5500 and do your inventory update.
The essay presents the obvious as “new.” The Vox write up says:
Google is dominant enough that two federal judges recently ruled that it’s operating as an illegal monopoly, and the company is currently waiting to see if it will be broken up.
From my point of view, this is an important development. Furthermore, it has nothing to do with the smart software approach to search. After two decades of doing exactly what it wanted, Google — like Apple and Meta — are in the spotlight. Those spotlights are solar powered and likely to remain on for the foreseeable future. That’s news.
In this spotlight are companies providing a “new” way to search. Since search is required to do most things online, the Google has to figure out how to respond in an intelligent way to two — count ‘em — big problems: Government actions and upstarts using Google’s own Transformer innovation.
The intersection of regulatory action and the appearance of an alternative to “search as you know it” is the same old story, just jazzed up with smart software, efficiency, the next big thing, Sky Net, and more. The write up says:
The government might not be the biggest threat to Google dominance, however. AI has been chipping away at the foundation of the web in the past couple of years, as people have increasingly turned to tools like ChatGPT and Perplexity to find information online.
My view is that it is the intersection, not the things themselves that have created the end-of-the-line sign for the Google bullet train. Google will try to do what it has done since Backrub: Appropriate ideas like Yahoo, Overture, and GoTo advertising methods, create a bar in which patrons pay to go in and out (advertisers and users), and treat the world as a bunch of dorks by whiz kids who just know so much more about the digital world. No more.
Google’s legacy is the road map for other companies lucky or skilled enough to replicate the approach. Consequently, the Google is in Code Red, announcing so many “new” products and services I certainly can’t keep them straight, and serving up a combination of hallucinatory output and irrelevant search results. The combination is problematic as the regulators close in.
The write up concludes with this statement:
In the chaotic, early days of the web, Google got popular by simplifying the intimidating task of finding things online, as the Washington Post’s Geoffrey A. Fowler points out. Its supremacy in this new AI-powered future is far less certain. Maybe another startup will come along and simplify things this time around, so you can have a user-friendly bot explain things to you, book travel for you, and make movies for you.
I disagree. Google became popular because it indexed Web sites, used some Clever ideas, and implemented processes that produced pages usually related to the user’s query. Over time, wrapper software provided Google with a way to optimize its revenue. Innovation eluded the company. In the social media “space”, Google bumbled Orkut and then continued to bumble until it pretty much gave up on killing Facebook. In the Microsoft “space,” Google created its own office and it rolled out its cloud service. There have not had a significant impact in the enterprise market when the river of money flows for Microsoft and whatever it calls its alleged monopolistic-inclined services. There are other examples of outright failure.
Now the Google is just spewing smart software products. This reminds me of a person who, shortly before dying, sees bright lights and watches the past flash before them. Then the person dies. My view is that Google is having what are like those near death experiences. The person survives but knows exactly what death is.
Believe me, Google knows that the annoying competitors are more popular; to wit, Sam AI-Man and his ChatGPT, his vision for the “everything” app, and his rather clever deal with Telegram. To wit, Microsoft and its deals with most smart software companies and its software lock in the US Federal government, its boot camp deal with Palantir Technologies, and its mind-boggling array of ways to get access to word processing software.
Google has not proven it can deal with the confluence of regulators demanding money and lesser entities serving up products and services that capture headlines. Code Red and dozens of “new” products each infused with Gemini or whatever the name of the smart software is today is not a solution that returns Google to its glory days.
The patient is going through tough times. Googzilla may survive but search is going to remain finding on point information. LLMs are a current approach that people like. By itself, it will not kill Google or allow it to survive. Google is caught between the reality of meaningful regulatory action and innovators who are more agile.
Googzilla is old and spends some time looking for suitable elder care facilities.
Stephen E Arnold, June 9, 2025
Jobs for Humanoids: AI Output Checker Like a Digital Grocery Clerk
June 9, 2025
George at the Throwable Substack believes humans will forever have a place in software development. In the post, “What’s Next for Software,” the blogger believes code maintenance will always rely on human judgement. This, he imagines, will balance out the code-creation jobs lost to AI. After all, he believes, humans will always be held liable for snafus. He writes:
“While engineers won’t be as responsible for producing code, they will be ultimately responsible for what that code does. A VP or CEO can blame an AI all they want when the system is down, but if the AI can’t solve the problem, it can’t solve the problem. And I don’t expect firing the AI will be very cathartic.”
Maybe not. But do executives value catharsis over saving money? We think they will find a way to cope. Perhaps a season pass to the opera. The post continues:
“It’s hard to imagine a future where humans aren’t the last line of defense for maintenance, debugging, incident response, etc. Paired with the above—that they’re vastly outnumbered by the quantity of services and features and more divorced from the code that’s running than ever before—being that last line of defense is a tall order.”
So tall it can never be assigned to AI? Do not bet on it. In a fast-moving, cost-driven environment, software will act more quickly. Each human layer will be replaced as technology improves. Sticking one’s head in the sand is not the way to prepare for that eventuality.
Cynthia Murrell, June 6, 2025
Lawyers Versus Lawyers: We Need a Spy Versus Spy Cartoon Now
June 5, 2025
Just the dinobaby operating without Copilot or its ilk.
Rupert Murdoch, a media tycoon with some alleged telephone intercept activity, owns a number of “real” news outfits. One of these published “What Is Big Tech Trying to Hide? Amazon, Apple, Google Are All Being Accused of Abusing Legal Privilege in Battles to Strip Away Their Power.” As a dinobaby in rural Kentucky, I have absolutely no idea if the information in the write up is spot on, close enough for horseshoes, or dead solid slam dunk in the information game.
What’s interesting is that the US legal system is getting quite a bit of coverage. Recently a judge in a fly over state found herself in handcuffs. Grousing about biased and unfair judges pops up in social media posts. One of my contacts in Manhattan told me that some judges have been receiving communications implying kinetic action.
Yep, lawyers.
Now the story about US big technology companies using the US legal system in a way that directly benefits these firms reveals “news” that I found mildly amusing. In rural Kentucky, when one gets in trouble or receives a call from law enforcement about a wayward sibling, the first action is to call one of the outstanding legal professionals who advertise in direct mail blasts on the six pm news and put memorable telephone numbers on the sides of the mostly empty bus vehicles that slowly prowl the pot-holed streets.
The purpose of the legal system is to get paid to represent the client. The client pays money or here in rural Kentucky a working pinball machine was accepted as payment by my former, deceased, and dearly beloved attorney. You get the idea: Pay money, get professional services. The understanding in my dealings with legal professionals is that the lawyers listen to their paying customers, discuss options among themselves or here in rural Kentucky with a horse in their barn, and formulate arguments to present their clients’ sides of cases or matters.
Obviously a person with money wants attorneys who [a] want compensation, [b] want to allow the client to prevail in a legal dust up, and [c] push back but come to accept their clients’ positions.
So now the Wall Street Journal reveals that the US legal system works in a transparent, predictable, and straightforward way.
My view of the legal problems the US technology firms face is that these innovative firms rode the wave their products and services created among millions of people. As a person who has been involved in successful start ups, I know how the surprise, thrill, and opportunities become the drivers of business decisions. Most of the high technology start ups fail. The survivors believe their intelligence, decision making, and charisma made success happen. That’s a cultural characteristic of what I call the Sillycon Valley way. (I know about this first hand because I lived in Berkeley and experienced the carnival ride of a technological winner.)
Without exposure to how technologies like “online” work, it was and to some extent still difficult to comprehend the potential impacts of the shift from media anchored in non digital ecosystems to the there is not there there hot house of a successful technology. Therefore, neither the “users” of the technology recognized the impact of consumerizing the most successful technologies nor the regulators could understand what was changing on a daily and sometimes hourly cadence. Even those involved at a fast-growing high technology company had no idea that the fizz of winning would override ethical and moral considerations.
Therefore:
- Not really news
- Standard operating procedure for big technology trials since the MSFT anti-trust matter
- The US ethical fabric plus the invincibility and super hero mindsets maps the future of legal dust ups in my opinion.
Net net: Sigh. William James’s quantum energy is definitely not buzzing.
Stephen E Arnold, June 5, 2025
Can You Detox When Everyone Is Addicted to Online?
June 5, 2025
Digital detox has been a thing for a while and it’s where you go off the grid. No phone. No computer. No Internet. The Internet and mobile devices are so ingrained into our consciousness that it’s a reflex to check for messages, social media, etc. Amanda Kooser at CNet when an entire day without the Internet and describes what happens in: “24 Hours Without Internet: I Tried This Digital Detox and Thrived.”
Kooser set some ground rules to ensure her digital detox would be successful. She unplugged her Internet router to disable WiFi and connected Internet. She enabled Focus Mode on all her devices to silence them.
She started her day by waking up with a non-phone alarm clock, read a book, then headed to work without the use of Google maps. She got lost but used good, old-fashioned directions to arrive at her destination. Kooser also watched TV with an antenna instead of streaming her shows. She learned that antenna TV sucks.
Here’s her overall opinion:
“The best part of having no internet for the day was the pause on micro-interruptions — all the little things that steal attention: neighborhood alerts, store sales and emails that need to be deleted. I enjoyed the quiet so much that I didn’t turn the T-Mobile 5G Home Internet gateway back on until Sunday morning, 36 hours after the digital detox experiment began. I’m working on being better about reaching for my phone for every little thing. Now that I’ve unlocked the full power of Focus Mode, I can put it into service. I can have my quiet moments on top of a mountain where the only alerts are the squirrels calling from the trees. I’ve already developed a sense of nostalgia for my internet-free day. It’s a rosy memory of fun times in the car listening to the classic rock station on the radio, not knowing if we would find our destination, not worrying that it even mattered.”
Now back to the question, “Can you detox when everyone is addicted to online?” Answer: Not easily and maybe not at all. Think a fish in a fish bowl, can that creature stop looking out through his bowl?
Whitney Grace, June 5, 2025
A SundAI Special: Who Will Get RIFed? Answer: News Presenters for Sure
June 1, 2025
Just a dinobaby and some AI: How horrible an approach?
Why would “real” news outfits dump humanoids for AI-generated personalities? For my money, there are three good reasons:
- Cost reduction
- Cost reduction
- Cost reduction.
The bean counter has donned his Ivy League super smart financial accoutrements: Meta smart glasses, an Open AI smart device, and an Apple iPhone with the vaunted AI inside (sorry, Intel, you missed this trend). Unfortunately the “good enough” approach, like a gradient descent does not deal in reality. Sum those near misses and what do you get: Dead organic things. The method applies to flora and fauna, including humanoids with automatable jobs. Thanks, You.com, you beat the pants off Venice.ai which simply does not follow prompts. A perfect solution for some applications, right?
My hunch is that many people (humanoids) will disagree. The counter arguments are:
- Human quantum behavior; that is, flubbing lines, getting into on air spats, displaying annoyance standing in a rain storm saying, “The wind velocity is picking up.”
- The cost of recruitment, training, health care, vacations, and pension plans (ho ho ho)
- The management hassle of having to attend meetings to talk about, become deciders, and — oh, no — accept responsibility for those decisions.
I read “The White-Collar Bloodbath’ Is All Part of the AI Hype Machine.” I am not sure how fear creates an appetite for smart software. The push for smart software boils down to generating revenues. To achieve revenues one can create a new product or service like the iPhone of the original Google search advertising machine. But how often do those inventions doddle down the Information Highway? Not too often because most of the innovative new new next big things are smashed by a Meta-type tractor trailer.
The write up explains that layoff fears are not operable in the CNN dataspace:
If the CEO of a soda company declared that soda-making technology is getting so good it’s going to ruin the global economy, you’d be forgiven for thinking that person is either lying or fully detached from reality. Yet when tech CEOs do the same thing, people tend to perk up. ICYMI: The 42-year-old billionaire Dario Amodei, who runs the AI firm Anthropic, told Axios this week that the technology he and other companies are building could wipe out half of all entry-level office jobs … sometime soon. Maybe in the next couple of years, he said.
First, the killing jobs angle is probably easily understood and accepted by individuals responsible for “cost reduction.” Second, the ICYMI reference means “in case you missed it,” a bit of short hand popular with those are not yet 80 year old dinobabies like me. Third, the source is a member of the AI leadership class. Listen up!
Several observations:
- AI hype is marketing. Money is at stake. Do stakeholders want their investments to sit mute and wait for the old “build it and they will come” pipedream to manifest?
- Smart software does not have to be perfect; it needs to be good enough. Once it is good enough cost reductionists take the stage and employees are ushered out of specific functions. One does not implement cost reductions at random. Consultants set priorities, develop scorecards, and make some charts with red numbers and arrows point up. Employees are expensive in general, so some work is needed to determine which can be replaced with good enough AI.
- News, journalism, and certain types of writing along with customer “support”, and some jobs suitable for automation like reviewing financial data for anomalies are likely to be among the first to be subject to a reduction in force or RIF.
So where does that leave the neutral observer? On one hand, the owners of the money dumpster fires are promoting like crazy. These wizards have to pull rabbit after rabbit out of a hat. How does that get handled? Think P.T. Barnum.
Some AI bean counters, CFOs, and financial advisors dream about dumpsters filled with money burning. This was supposed to be an icon, but Venice.ai happily ignores prompt instructions and includes fruit next to a burning something against a wooden wall. Perfect for the good enough approach to news, customer service, and MBA analyses.
On the other hand, you have the endangered species, the “real” news people and others in the “knowledge business but automatable knowledge business.” These folks are doing what they can to impede the hyperbole machine of smart software people.
Who or what will win? Keep in mind that I am a dinobaby. I am going extinct, so smart software has zero impact on me other than making devices less predictable and resistant to my approach to “work.” Here’s what I see happening:
- Increasing unemployment for those lower on the “knowledge word” food chain. Sorry, junior MBAs at blue chip consulting firms. Make sure you have lots of money, influential parents, or a former partner at a prestigious firm as a mom or dad. Too bad for those studying to purvey “real” news. Junior college graduates working in customer support. Yikes.
- “Good enough” will replace excellence in work. This means that the air traffic controller situation is a glimpse of what deteriorating systems will deliver. Smart software will probably come to the rescue, but those antacid gobblers will be history.
- Increasing social discontent will manifest itself. To get a glimpse of the future, take an Uber from Cape Town to the airport. Check out the low income housing.
Net net: The cited write up is essentially anti-AI marketing. Good luck with that until people realize the current path is unlikely to deliver the pot of gold for most AI implementations. But cost reduction only has to show payoffs. Balance sheets do not reflect a healthy, functioning datasphere.
Stephen E Arnold, June 1, 2025
2025 Is a Triangular Number: Tim Apple May Have No Way Out
May 30, 2025
Just a dinobaby and no AI: How horrible an approach?
Macworld in my mind is associated with happy Macs, not sad Macs. I just read “Tim Cook’s Year Is Doomed and It’s Not Even June Yet.” That’s definitely a sad Mac headline and suggests that Tim Apple will morph into a well-compensated human in a little box something like this:
The write up says:
Cook’s bad, awful 2025 is pretty much on the record…
Why, pray tell? How about:
- The failure of Apple’s engineers to deliver smart software
- A donation to a certain political figure’s campaign only to be rewarded with tariffs
- Threats of an Apple “tax”
- Fancy dancing with China and pumping up manufacturing in India only to be told by a person of authority, “That’s not a good idea, Tim Apple.”
I think I have touched on the main downers. The write up concludes with:
For Apple, this may be a case of too much success being a bad thing. It is unlikely that Cook could have avoided Trump’s attention, given its inherent gravimetric field. The question is, now that a moderate show of obsequiousness has proven insufficiently mollifying, what will Cook do next?
Imagine a high flying US technology company not getting its way in the US and a couple of other countries to boot. And what about the European Union?
Several observations are warranted:
- Tim Cook should be paranoid. Lots of people are out to get Apple and he will be collateral damage.
- What happens if the iPhone craters? Will Apple TV blossom or blow?
- How many pro-Apple humans will suffer bouts of depression? My guess? Lots.
Net net: Numerologists will perceive 2025 as a year for Apple to reflect and prepare for new cycles. I just see 2025 as a triangular number with Tim Apple in its perimeter and no way out evident.
Stephen E Arnold, May 30, 2025
AI Can Do Your Knowledge Work But You Will Not Lose Your Job. Never!
May 30, 2025
The dinobaby wrote this without smart software. How stupid is that?
Ravical is going to preserve jobs for knowledge workers. Nevertheless, the company’s AI may complete 80% of the work in these types of organizations. No bean counter on earth would figure out that reducing humanoid workers would cut costs, eliminate the useless vacation scam, and chop the totally unnecessary health care plan. None.
The write up “Belgian AI Startup Says It Can Automate 80% of Work at Expert Firms” reports:
Joris Van Der Gucht, Ravical’s CEO and co-founder, said the “virtual employees” could do 80% of the work in these firms. “Ravical’s agents take on the repetitive, time-consuming tasks that slow experts down,” he told TNW, citing examples such as retrieving data from internal systems, checking the latest regulations, or reading long policies. Despite doing up to 80% of the work in these firms, Van Der Gucht downplayed concerns about the agents supplanting humans.
I believe this statement is 100 percent accurate. AI firms do not use excessive statements to explain their systems and methods. The article provides more concrete evidence that this replacement of humans is spot on:
Enrico Mellis, partner at Lakestar, the lead investor in the round, said he was excited to support the company in bringing its “proven” experience in automation to the booming agentic AI market. “Agentic AI is moving from buzzword to board-level priority,” Mellis said.
Several observations:
- Humans absolutely will be replaced, particularly those who cannot sell
- Bean counters will be among the first to point out that software, as long as it is good enough, will reduce costs
- Executives are judged on financial performance, not the quality of the work as long as revenues and profits result.
Will Ravical become the go-to solution for outfits engaged in knowledge work? No, but it will become a company that other agentic AI firms will watch closely. As long as the AI is good enough, humanoids without the ability to close deals will have plenty of time to ponder opportunities in the world of good enough, hallucinating smart software.
Stephen E Arnold, May 30, 2025
A Grok Crock: That Dog Ate My Homework
May 29, 2025
Just the dinobaby operating without Copilot or its ilk.
I think I have heard Grok (a unit of XAI I think) explain that outputs have been the result of a dog eating the code or whatever. I want to document these Grok Crocks. Perhaps I will put them in a Grok Pot and produce a list of recipes suitable for middle school and high school students.
The most recent example of “something just happened” appears in “Grok Says It’s Skeptical’ about Holocaust Death Toll, Then Blames Programming Error.” Does this mean that smart software is programming Grok? If so, the explanation should be worded, “Grok hallucinates.” If a human wizard made a programming error, then making a statement that quality control will become Job One. That worked for Microsoft until Copilot became the go-to task.
The cited article stated:
Grok said this response was “not intentional denial” and instead blamed it on “a May 14, 2025, programming error.” “An unauthorized change caused Grok to question mainstream narratives, including the Holocaust’s 6 million death toll, sparking controversy,” the chatbot said. Grok said it “now aligns with historical consensus” but continued to insist there was “academic debate on exact figures, which is true but was misinterpreted.” The “unauthorized change” that Grok referred to was presumably the one xAI had already blamed earlier in the week for the chatbot’s repeated insistence on mentioning “white genocide” (a conspiracy theory promoted by X and xAI owner Elon Musk), even when asked about completely unrelated subjects.
I am going to steer clear of the legality of these statements and the political shadows these Grok outputs cast. Instead, let me offer a few observations:
- I use a number of large language models. I have used Grok exactly twice. The outputs had nothing of interest for me. I asked, “Can you cite X.com messages.” The system said, “Nope.” I tried again after Grok 3 became available. Same answer. Hasta la vista, Grok.
- The training data, the fancy math, and the algorithms determine the output. Since current LLMs rely on Google’s big idea, one would expect the outputs to be similar. Outlier outputs like these alleged Grokings are a bit of a surprise. Perhaps someone at Grok could explain exactly why these outputs are happening. I know dogs could eat homework. The event is highly unlikely in my experience, although I had a dog which threw up on the typewriter I used to write a thesis.
- I am a suspicious person. Grok makes me suspicious. I am not sure marketing and smarmy talk can reduce my anxiety about Grok providing outlier content to middle school, high school, college, and “I don’t care” adults. Weaponized information in my opinion is just that a weapon. Dangerous stuff.
Net net: Is the dog eating homework one of the Tesla robots? if so, speak with the developers, please. An alternative would be to use Claude 3.7 or Gemini to double check Grok’s programming.
Stephen E Arnold, May 29, 2025
Telegram and xAI: Deal? What Deal?
May 29, 2025
![Dino 5 18 25_thumb[3]](https://www.arnoldit.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/Dino-5-18-25_thumb3.gif "Dino 5 18 25_thumb[3]")
Just a dinobaby and no AI: How horrible an approach?
What happens when two people with a penchant for spawning babies seem to sort of, mostly, well, generally want a deal? On May 28, 2025, one of the super humans suggested a deal existed between the Telegram company and the xAI outfit. Money and equity would change hands. The two parties were in sync. I woke this morning to an email that said, “No deal signed.”
The Kyiv Independent, a news outfit that pays close attention to Telegram because of the “special operation”, published “Durov Announces Telegram’s Partnership with Musk’s xAI, Who Says No Deal Signed Yet.” The story reports:
Telegram and Elon Musk’s xAI will enter a one-year partnership, integrating the Grok chatbot into the messaging app, Telegram CEO Pavel Durov announced on May 28. Musk, the world’s richest man who also owns Tesla and SpaceX, commented that "no deal has been signed," prompting Durov to clarify that the deal has been agreed in "principle" with "formalities pending." "This summer, Telegram users will gain access to the best AI technology on the market," Durov said.
The write up included an interesting item of information; to wit:
Durov has claimed he is a pariah and has been effectively exiled from Russia, but it was reported last year that he had visited Russia over 60 times since leaving the country, according to Kremlingram, a Ukrainian group that campaigns against the use of Telegram in Ukraine.
Mr. Musk, the master mind behind a large exploding space vehicle, and Mr. Durov have much to gain from a linkage. Telegram, like Apple, is not known for its smart software. Third party bots have made AI services available to Telegram’s more enterprising users. xAI has made modest progress on its path to becoming the “everything” app might benefit from getting front and center to the Telegram user base.
Both individuals are somewhat idiosyncratic. Both have interesting technology. Both present themselves as bright, engaging, and often extremely confident professionals.
What’s likely to happen? With two leaders with much in common, Grok or another smart software will make its way to the Telegram faithful. When that happens is unknown. The terms of the “deal” (if one exists) are marketing or jockeying as of May 29, 2025. The timeline for action is fuzzy.
What’s obvious is that volatility and questionable information shine the spotlight on both forward leading companies. The Telegram information distracts a bit from the failed rocket. Good for Mr. Musk. The Grok deal distracts a bit from the French-styled dog collar around Mr. Durov’s neck. Good for Mr. Durov.
When elephants fight, grope, and deal, the grass may take a beating. When the dust settles, what are these elephants doing? The grass has been stomped upon, but the beasties?
Stephen E Arnold, May 29, 2025
-
- Subscribe to Beyond Search
Feature archive
News archive
-
