Slackers, Rejoice: Google Has a Great Idea Just for You
August 31, 2023
Note: This essay is the work of a real and still-alive dinobaby. No smart software involved, just a dumb humanoid.
I want to keep this short because the idea of not doing work to do work offends me deeply. Just like the big thinkers who want people to relax, take time, smell the roses, and avoid those Type A tendencies annoy me. I like being a Type A. In fact, if I were not a Type A, I would not “be” to use some fancy Descartes logic.
Is anyone looking down the Information Superhighway to see what speeding AI vehicle is approaching? Of course not, everyone is on break or playing Foosball. Thanks, Mother MidJourney, you did not send me to the arbitration committee for my image request.
“Google Meet’s New AI Will Be Able to Go to Meetings for You” reports:
…you might never need to pay attention to another meeting again — or even show up at all.
Let’s think about this new Google service. If AI continues to advance at a reasonable pace, an AI which can attend a meeting for a person can at some point replace the person. Does that sound reasonable? What a GenZ thrill. Money for no work. The advice to take time for kicking back and living a stress free life is just fantastic.
In today’s business climate, I am not sure that delegating knowledge work to smart software is a good idea. I like to use the phrase “gradient descent.” My connotation of this jargon means a cushioned roller coaster to one or more of the Seven Deadly Sins. I much prefer intentional use of software. I still like most of the old-fashioned methods of learning and completing projects. I am happy to encounter a barrier like my search for the ultimate owners of the domain rrrrrrrrrrr.com or the methods for enabling online fraud practiced by some Internet service providers. (Sorry, I won’t name these fine outfits in this free blog post. If you are attending my keynote at the Massachusetts and New York Association of Crime Analysts’ conference in early October, say, “Hello.” In that setting, I will identify some of these outstanding companies and share some thoughts about how these folks trample laws and regulations. Sound like fun?
Google’s objective is to become the source for smart software. In that position, the company will have access to knobs and levers controlling information access, shaping, and distribution. The end goal is a quarterly financial report and the diminution of competition from annoying digital tsetse flies in my opinion.
Wouldn’t it be helpful if the “real news” looked down the Information Highway? No, of course not. For a Type A, the new “Duet” service does not “do it” for me.
Stephen E Arnold, August 31, 2023
Microsoft and Good Enough Engineering: The MSI BSOD Triviality
August 30, 2023
My line up of computers does not have a motherboard from MSI. Call me “Lucky” I guess. Some MSI product owners were not. “Microsoft Puts Little Blame on Its Windows Update after Unsupported Processor BSOD Bug” is a fun read for those who are keeping notes about Microsoft’s management methods. The short essay romps through a handful of Microsoft’s recent quality misadventures.
“Which of you broke mom’s new vase?” asks the sister. The boys look surprised. The vase has nothing to say about the problem. Thanks, MidJourney, no adjudication required for this image.
I noted this passage in the NeoWin.net article:
It has been a pretty eventful week for Microsoft and Intel in terms of major news and rumors. First up, we had the “Downfall” GDS vulnerability which affects almost all of Intel’s slightly older CPUs. This was followed by a leaked Intel document which suggests upcoming Wi-Fi 7 may only be limited to Windows 11, Windows 12, and newer.
The most helpful statement in the article in my opinion was this statement:
Interestingly, the company says that its latest non-security preview updates, ie, Windows 11 (KB5029351) and Windows 10 (KB5029331), which seemingly triggered this Unsupported CPU BSOD error, is not really what’s to blame for the error. It says that this is an issue with a “specific subset of processors”…
Like the SolarWinds’ misstep and a handful of other bone-chilling issues, Microsoft is skilled at making sure that its engineering is not the entire problem. That may be one benefit of what I call good enough engineering. The space created by certain systems and methods means that those who follow documentation can make mistakes. That’s where the blame should be placed.
Makes sense to me. Some MSI motherboard users looking at the beloved BSOD may not agree.
Stephen E Arnold, August 30, 2023
This Dinobaby Likes Advanced Search, Boolean Operators, and Precision. Most Do Not
August 28, 2023
Note: This essay is the work of a real and still-alive dinobaby. No smart software involved, just a dumb humanoid.
I am not sure of the chronological age of the author of “7 Reasons to Replace Advanced Search with Filters So Users Can Easily Find What They Need.” From my point of view, the author has a mental age of someone much younger than I. The article identifies a number of reasons why “advanced search” functions are lousy. As a dinobaby, I want to be crystal clear: A user should have an interface which allows that user to locate the information required to respond in a useful way to a query.
The expert online searcher says with glee, “I love it when free online search services make finding information easy. Best of all is Amazon. It suggests so many things I absolutely need.” Hey, MidJourney, thanks for the image without suggesting Mother MJ okay my word choice. “Whoever said, ‘Nothing worthwhile comes easy’ is pretty stupid,” shouts or sliding board slider.
Advanced search in my dinobaby mental space means Boolean operators like AND, OR, and NOT, among others. Advanced search requires other meaningful “tags” specifically designed to minimize the ambiguity of words; for example, terminal can mean transportation or terminal can mean computing device. English is notable because it has numerous words which make sense only when a context is provided. Thus, a Field Code can instruct the retrieval system to discard the computing device context and retrieve the transportation context.
The write up makes clear that for today’s users training wheels are important. Are these “aids” like icons, images, bundles of results under a category dark patterns or assistance for a user. I can only imagine the push back I would receive if I were in a meeting with today’s “user experience” designers. Sorry, kids. I am a dinobaby.
I really want to work through seven reasons advanced search sucks. But I won’t. The number of people who know how to use key word search is tiny. One number I heard when I was a consultant to a certain big search engine is less than three percent of the Web search users. The good news for those who buy into the arguments in the cited article is that dinobabies will die.
Is it a lack of education? Is it laziness? Is it what most of today’s users understand?
I don’t know. I don’t care. A failure to understand how to obtain the specific information one requires is part of the long slow slide down a descent gradient. Enjoy the non-advanced search.
Stephen E Arnold, August 28, 2023
Software Marches On: Should Actors Be Worried?
August 25, 2023
Note: This essay is the work of a real and still-alive dinobaby. No smart software involved, just a dumb humanoid.
“How AI Is Bringing Film Stars Back from the Dead” is going to raise hackles of some professionals in Hollywood. I wonder how many people alive today remember James Dean. Car enthusiasts may know about his driving skills, but not too much about his dramaturgical abilities. I must confess that I know zippo about Jimmy other than he was a driver prone to miscalculations.
An angry human actor — recycled and improved by smart software — snarls, “I didn’t go to acting school to be replaced by software. I have a craft, and it deserves respect.” MidJourney, I only had to describe what I wanted one time. Keep on improving or recursing or whatever it is you do.
The Beeb reports:
The digital cloning of Dean also represents a significant shift in what is possible. Not only will his AI avatar be able to play a flat-screen role in Back to Eden and a series of subsequent films, but also to engage with audiences in interactive platforms including augmented reality, virtual reality and gaming. The technology goes far beyond passive digital reconstruction or deepfake technology that overlays one person’s face over someone else’s body. It raises the prospect of actors – or anyone else for that matter – achieving a kind of immortality that would have been otherwise impossible, with careers that go on long after their lives have ended.
The write up does not reference the IBM study suggesting that 40 percent of workers will require reskilling. I am not sure that a reskilled actor will be able to do. I polled my team and it came up with some Hollywood possibilities:
- Become an AI adept with a mastery of python, Java, and C. Code software replacing studio executives with a product called DorkMBA
- Channel the anger into a co-ed game of baseball and discuss enthusiastically with the umpire corrective lenses
- Start an anger management podcast and, like a certain Stanford professor, admit the indiscretions of one’s childhood
- Use MidJourney and ChatGPT to write a manga for Amazon
- Become a street person.
I am not sure these ideas will be acceptable to those annoyed by the BBC write up. I want to point out that smart software can do some interesting things. My hunch is that software can do endless versions of classic hits with old-time stars quickly and more economically than humanoid involved professionals.
I am not Bogarting you.
Stephen E Arnold, August 25, 2023
Waking Up with Their Hair on Fire: What Is Beloved Google Doing to Us?
August 23, 2023
Note: This essay is the work of a real and still-alive dinobaby. No smart software involved, just a dumb humanoid.
Strident? Fearful? Doomed? Interesting words. These popped into my mind after I read two essays about the dearly beloved Google. I want to make clear that governments are powerless in the world of Google. Politicians taking action to impede Google will find themselves targets of their constituents ire. Technologies who grouse about the functions of the Google ecosystem will find themselves marginalized in numerous and interesting ways. Pundits will rail at the moon, lamenting that those reading their lamentations to the jazzed up version of Mozart’s final movement of his Requiem Mass in D minor, K. 62 the Lacrimosa. Bum bum. Bum.
“Real” news professions run down the Information Highway warning people about the Google. Helpful after 25 years. Thanks, MidJourney, I figured out how to get you to output original fear and panic.
Hand-wringers, it is too late. After 25 years of regulatory “attention,” Google controls quite a bit of the datasphere, including the subdivisions in which the moaners, groaners, and complainers dwell. Get over it may be a prudent policy. How dependent upon Google are professionals engaged in for fee research: A lot. How do certain Western governments get their information? Yep, the Google. How do advertisers communicate? That’s easy. The Google.
The first article to cause me to slap my knee is “Hundreds of AI news Sites Busily Spew Misinformation. Google and Meta’s Canadian News Ban May Make It Worse.” The write up contains this one-liner:
According to news and misinformation tracker NewsGuard, which has been monitoring the state of AI-driven fake news for the past several months, more than 400 “unreliable AI-generated news websites” have been identified so far — and analysts from the company say more are being discovered every day.
Huh? People turn to social media because “real” news is edutainment or out-of-step with what viewers and listeners want to know. Does the phrase “If it bleeds, it leads” ring a bell? What makes this Canadian invocation of Google interesting is that Canada has hastened its own information challenge. Getting Google or the Zuckbook to pay for something that is spiderable is not going to happen or at least in a way that makes the “real” news outfits happy. The problem has existed for two decades. Now a precipice? You have been falling for a long time and are now realizing that you will crash into an immovable object — Googzilla.
The second write up is a bit of verbal pyrotechnics which questions the Google’s alleged love fest with Frank Sinatra. Yep, old blue eyes himself. “Google and YouTube Are Trying to Have It Both Ways with AI and Copyright” — displayed against a truly lovely RGB color — points out that the end of copyright is here or at least coming down the Information Superhighway. Consider this passage from the write up:
Google is signaling that it will pay off the music industry with special deals that create brand-new — and potentially devastating! — private intellectual property rights, while basically telling the rest of the web that the price of being indexed in Search is complete capitulation to allowing Google to scrape data for AI training.
Signaling. Google has been doing one thing since it was inspired by the Yahoo.com, Overture, and GoTo.com pay-to-play approach to monetization. After 25 years, Googzilla is following its simple game plan: Become the datasphere. How could allegedly bright pundits miss this approach? I documented some of the systems and methods in my three monographs about Google written between 2003 and 2006: The Google Legacy, Google Version 2.0, and Google: The Digital Gutenberg. In those reports, I included diagrams of Google’s walled garden, and it is obvious that the architectural wonder is under active development. Quelle surprise!
So what?
Googzilla’s greatest weakness is itself and its assumption that information is infinite. I agree, but digital content is now recursing. Like the snake which nibbles on its tail, the company’s future is coming into view.
Do you hear the melody for Frank Sinatra’s “My Way”? Interrupted by ads, of course.
Stephen E Arnold, August 23, 2023
A Meta Canada Event: Tug of War with Life or Death Table Stakes
August 23, 2023
Note: This essay is the work of a real and still-alive dinobaby. No smart software involved, just a dumb humanoid. By the time this essay appears in Beyond Search, the impasse may have been removed. If so, be aware that I wrote this on August 19, 2023. The dinobaby is not a real-time guy.
I read “As Wildfires Spread, Canadian Leaders Ask Meta to Reverse Its News Ban.” The article makes it clear that a single high technology company has become the focal point of the Canadian government. The write up states:
Meta began blocking news links for Facebook and Instagram users in Canada in June after the country passed a law that allows news organizations to negotiate with tech giants to receive payment for articles shared on their platforms. The ban by Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, has rankled Canadian authorities trying to share evacuation information this week across a remote swath of the country where social media is key to disseminating news.
The fires will kill some people and ravage wildlife unable to flee.
A county fair tug of war between the Zuckbook and Canadian government officials is taking place. Who will win this contest? How many will die as the struggle plays out? MidJourney, you are struggling. I said, “without sepia” and what do I get, “Grungy sepia.” Where is the elephant ears food cart?
On one side is the Canadian law requiring the Zuckbook to pay publishers for articles shared on the Zuck properties. I do understand the motive for the law. Traditional publishers are not equipped to deal with digital media platforms and the ways users of those platforms disseminate and create information. The Zuckbook — like it or not — is perceived by some to be a public utility, and the company should have the management expertise to serve the public and meet the needs of its stakeholders. I know it sound as if I want a commercial enterprise to consider the idea of compromise, ethical ideas, and react in a constructive manner during a time of crisis. Like death.
On the other side is the Zuckbook. The big Zuck has built a successful company, considered the equivalent of a fight in the grade school playground, and taken the view that paying for certain content is not part of the company’s playbook. The Canadian government is perceived by the Big Zuck as adversarial. Governments which pass a law and then beg a US publicly traded company to stop complying with that law are more than an annoyance. These behaviors are little more than evidence that the Canadian government wants to have a fresh croissant delivered by the Zuck minions and say, “Absolutement.”
How will this tug of war end? Will both sides tumble to their derrières? Will the Zuckbook roll over and say, “Certainment”? Will the Canadian government convene a Parliamentary quorum and reverse the law — temporarily, of course.
Several observations:
- Neither the Zuckbook nor the Canadian government is “right.” Compromise perhaps?
- The management approach of the Zuckbook has been and seems to be at this time taken from the famous manual “High School Science Club Management Methods: Superior Beings Can Keep Lesser Being in Their Rightful Place.”
- People will die. A US company and the Canadian government make clear the gulf that exists between commercial enterprises and government expectations.
Remarkable but not surprising.
Stephen E Arnold, August 23, 2023
Now Streaming in Real Time: Googzilla Lost in Space
August 22, 2023
“Google Executive Turnover and Role Changes Come As the Company Searches for New Identity” presents an interesting thesis: Google lacks an identity. I want to make a reference to Catcher in the Rye, but that book may not be a touchstone for some today. I wanted to link this statement from the book to the CNBC article:
\
MidJourney does a good dinosaur lost in space. It only took three tries before I said, “Good enough.” The descent along a gradient continues.,
“I think that one of these days…you’re going to have to find out where you want to go. And then you’ve got to start going there. But immediately. You can’t afford to lose a minute. Not you.”
Let’s let the short essay explain the alleged identity crisis at the Google:
it’s also searching for its own identity in a pivotal moment in the company’s history. The company was caught flat-footed last fall when OpenAI launched its AI-powered chatbot ChatGPT, and suddenly found itself in a rare spot where its core search business was threatened. Industry observers wondered if users could simply get answers from an AI-powered chatbot, how long would they keep entering queries into a search engine? It was an ironic moment for the search giant, given that CEO Sundar Pichai had been talking up the company’s “AI-first” strategy since 2016, with little to show externally.
Imagine. Microsoft — the giant beacon of excellence in engineering and security — catching Google “flat-footed.” When elephants dance, some people leave the party.
The write up points out:
In June, Google execs admitted to employees that users are “still not quite happy” with the search experience, CNBC reported. Search boss Prabhakar Raghavan and engineering VP HJ Kim spent several minutes pledging to do a better job to employees while Pichai noted that it’s still the most trusted search engine.
Yes, trust. That’s an interesting word, particularly when used by a technology giant and alleged monopoly.
The article makes clear that Google operates like a government, a government of a large and mostly disorganized country with a single crop. I noted this passage:
“Like mice, they are trapped in a maze of approvals, launch processes, legal reviews, performance reviews, exec reviews, documents, meetings, bug reports, triage, OKRs, H1 plans followed by H2 plans, all-hands summits, and inevitable reorgs.”— former Google employee Praveen Seshadri
And this interesting observation:
Now, the company faces its biggest challenge yet, which falls on the shoulders of Pichai and the next guard — trying to recreate the magic of its early days along with delivering revenue while being under more pressure than ever.
Several observations:
- Google has problems
- Google derives the majority of its revenue from its walled garden online advertising house of mirrors
- The company’s approach evokes the Lost in Space comparison
Net net: How does a company operating as a country shift from a monoculture based on selling bananas to a more diversified economy? The story is unfolding in real time. Like the TV show, the adventure presents in real time, crashes, earthquakes, and the consequences of its actors. Perfect for some TikTok type videos.
Stephen E Arnold, August 22, 2023
Amazon: You Are Lovable… to Some I Guess
August 21, 2023
Note: This essay is the work of a real and still-alive dinobaby. No smart software involved, just a dumb humanoid.
Three “real news” giants have make articles about the dearly beloved outfit Amazon. My hunch is that the publishers were trepidatious when the “real” reporters turned in their stories. I can hear the “Oh, my goodness. A negative Amazon story.” Not to worry. It is unlikely that the company will buy ad space in the publications.
A young individual finds that the giant who runs an alleged monopoly is truly lovable. Doesn’t everyone? MidJourney, after three tries I received an original image somewhat close to my instructions.
My thought is the fear that executives at the companies publishing negative information about the lovable Amazon could hear upon coming home from work, “You published this about Amazon. What if our Prime membership is cancelled? What if our Ring doorbell is taken offline? And did you think about the loss of Amazon videos? Of course not, you are just so superior. Fix your own dinner tonight. I am sleeping in the back bedroom tonight.”
The first story is “How Amazon’s In-House First Aid Clinics Push Injured Employees to Keep Working.” Imagine. Amazon creating a welcoming work environment in which injured employees are supposed to work. Amazon is pushing into healthcare. The article states:
“What some companies are doing, and I think Amazon is one of them, is using their own clinics to ‘treat people’ and send them right back to the job, so that their injury doesn’t have to be recordable,” says Jordan Barab, a former deputy assistant secretary at OSHA who writes a workplace safety newsletter.
Will Amazon’s other health care units operate in a similar way? Of course not.
The second story is “Authors and Booksellers Urge Justice Dept. to Investigate Amazon.” Imagine. Amazon exploiting its modest online bookstore and its instant print business to take sales away from the “real” publishers. The article states:
On Wednesday[August 16, 2023], the Open Markets Institute, an antitrust think tank, along with the Authors Guild and the American Booksellers Association, sent a letter to the Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission, calling on the government to curb Amazon’s “monopoly in its role as a seller of books to the public.”
Wow. Unfair? Some deliveries arrive in a day. A Kindle book pops up in the incredibly cluttered and reader-hostile interface in seconds. What’s not to like?
The third story is from the “real news outfit” MSN which recycles the estimable CNBC “talking heads”. This story is “Amazon Adds a New Fee for Sellers Who Ship Their Own Packages.” The happy family of MSN and CNBC report:
Beginning Oct. 1, members of Amazon’s Seller Fulfilled Prime program will pay the company a 2% fee on each product sold, according to a notice sent to merchants … The e-commerce giant also charges sellers a referral fee between 8% and 15% on each sale. Sellers may also pay for things like warehouse storage, packing and shipping, as well as advertising fees.
What’s the big deal?
To admirer who grew up relying on a giant company, no problem.
Stephen E Arnold, August 21, 2023
Elsevier Boosts Scopus With Generative AI
August 21, 2023
Note: This essay is the work of a real and still-alive dinobaby. No smart software involved, just a dumb humanoid.
Generative AI algorithms aka AI assistants are technology’s latest and greatest tool. Its buzzword status makes every industry want an AI algorithm designed specifically for them. Even Elsevier, the large international academic publisher and distributor of data analytics and scientific information, adopted a generative AI tool, says the press release: “Elsevier takes Scopus To The Next Level With Generative AI.”
Elsevier released the first version of Scopus AI, a new tool that combines Scopus’s peer-reviewed literature database with generative AI. Scopus Ai will allow researchers to get faster collaboration, share information, and gain deeper insights. This is not Elsevier’s first project using AI algorithms. Elsevier has experimented with AI for over a decade.
While it is easier than ever to access information, researchers still encounter challenges regarding access, misinformation, lack of transparency, and information overload. Scopus AI minimizes these difficulties:
“Scopus AI provides easy-to-read topic summaries based on trusted content from over 27,000 academic journals, from more than 7,000 publishers worldwide, with over 1.8 billion citations, and includes over 17 million author profiles. Content is rigorously vetted and selected by an independent review board, that is made up of 17 world-renowned scientists, researchers and librarians who represent the major scientific disciplines. Researchers can quickly dig deeper and explore these topics in several ways, including suggested follow-up questions and links to the original research.”
The Scopus AI offers summarized abstracts, “Go Deeper Links” for further research exploration, natural language queries, and visual maps showing interconnections between information.
Scopus AI is in its initial phase and being tested by 15,000 researchers. The full product launch will be in early 2024.
Scopus AI is being marketed as an objective research tool that will weed out misinformation, but it is still meant to make revenue. Some of the research in Scopus is non-reproducible and peer SEO is used to make certain papers rise to the top of search results. Scopus AI is bound to have other biased issues but in theory it sounds great.
Whitney Grace, August 21, 2023
Reddit: Feedback, Okay. Apologies, Forget It
August 18, 2023
Note: This essay is the work of a real and still-alive dinobaby. No smart software involved, just a dumb humanoid.
Do Reddit execs even understand what they did wrong in the first place? ArsTechnica reports, “Too Little Too Late—No Apologies as Reddit Halfheartedly Tries to Repair Ties with Moderators.”
A child telling a neighbor, “Don’t put your trash in my family’s garbage can, understand.” Good work MidJourney and no alerts to talk with the correctness group.
Writer Scharon Harding summarizes the recent conflict between the platform and its hard-working but unpaid moderators:
“Reddit went forward with its API pricing changes on July 1, resulting in many third-party Reddit apps closing and some cautiously attempting paid-for models. Since then, some longtime users, including moderators and communities, have exited Reddit, with some encouraging community members toward other social platforms, like Lemmy and Discord. … Reddit’s hasty implementation of API fees and its belittling of protests (both internally, reportedly, and to the press) and complaints are frequently cited by mods Ars has spoken to as elevating the protests beyond a debate on what the formerly free API should cost. Reddit has dug itself into a sizable hole that it will likely be unable to crawl out of through typical methods.”
And yet, it tries. Harding points to a (now missing) post in which a Reddit employee discussed the company’s efforts to repair the relationship, like new weekly feedback sessions and other communication channels. Notably absent are actual concessions to moderators or anything resembling an apology. Harding shares a couple moderators’ responses to the supposed olive branch. First:
“Akaash Maharaj, an r/equestrian mod who also participates in Reddit’s Mod Council, told Ars he doesn’t think the recently outlined efforts will mend broken relations on their own. That’s because the problem wasn’t a dearth of communication channels but, rather, corporate leadership showing consistent ‘contempt for the advice it has received during those communications.'”
Then there is the simple desire from Alyssa Videlock, moderator of multiple subreddits, some of them quite large:
“When asked how Reddit could restore its relationship with moderators, her answer was simple: an apology.”
But such humility may escape these tech wizards turned managers. Their high school science club method emerges like lava from a volcano in Iceland. Many little creatures are vaporized. People may be inconvenienced. New land may be formed. But management decisions can be controlled; their downstream consequences, like lava, cannot.
Cynthia Murrell, August 18, 2023
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