The RAG Snag: Convenience May Undermine Thinking for Millions
December 4, 2023
This essay is the work of a dumb dinobaby. No smart software required.
My understanding is that everyone who is informed about AI knows about RAG. The acronym means Retrieval Augmented Generation. One explanation of RAG appears in the nVidia blog in the essay “What Is Retrieval Augmented Generation aka RAG.” nVidia, in my opinion, loves whatever drives demand for its products.
The idea is that machine processes to minimize errors in output. The write up states:
Retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) is a technique for enhancing the accuracy and reliability of generative AI models with facts fetched from external sources.
Simplifying the idea, RAG methods gather information and perform reference checks. The checks can be performed by consulting other smart software, the Web, or knowledge bases like an engineering database. nVidia provides a “reference architecture,” which obviously relies on nVidia products.
The write up does an obligatory tour of a couple of search and retrieval systems. Why? Most of the trendy smart software are demonstrations of information access methods wrapped up in tools that think for the “searcher” or person requiring output to answer a question, explain a concept, or help the human to think clearly. (In dinosaur days, the software is performing functions once associated with a special librarian or an informed colleague who could ask questions and conduct a reference interview. I hope the dusty concepts did not make you sneeze.)
“Yes, young man. The idea of using multiples sources can result in learning. We now call this RAG, not research.” The young man, stunned with the insight say, “WTF?” Thanks, MSFT Copilot. I love the dual tassels. The young expert is obviously twice as intelligent as the somewhat more experienced dinobaby with the weird fingers.
The article includes a diagram which I found difficult to read. I think the simple blocks represent the way in which smart software obviates the need for the user to know much about sources, verification, or provenance about the sources used to provide information. Furthermore, the diagram makes the entire process look just like getting the location of a pizza restaurant from an iPhone (no Google Maps for me).
The highlight of the write up are the links within the article. An interested reader can follow the links for additional information.
Several observations:
- The emergence of RAG as a replacement for such concepts as “search”, “special librarian,” and “provenance” makes clear that finding information is a problem not solved for systems, software, and people. New words make the “old” problem appear “new” again.
- The push for recursive methods to figure out what’s “right” or “correct” will regress to the mean; that is, despite the mathiness of the methods, systems will deliver “acceptable” or “average” outputs. A person who thinks that software will impart genius to a user are believing in a dream. These individuals will not be living the dream.
- widespread use of smart software and automation means that for most people, critical thinking will become the equivalent of an appendix. Instead of mother knows best, the system will provide the framing, the context, and the implication that the outputs are correct.
RAG opens new doors for those who operate widely adopted smart software systems will have significant control over what people think and, thus, do. If the iPhone shows a pizza joint, what about other pizza joints? Just ask. The system will not show pizza joints not verified in some way. If that “verification” requires the company advertising to be in the data set, well, that’s the set of pizza joints one will see. The others? Invisible, not on the radar, and doomed to failure seem their fate.
RAG is significant because it is new speak and it marks a disassociation of “knowing” from “accepting” output information as the best and final words on a topic. I want to point out that for a small percentage of humans, their superior cognitive abilities will ensure a different trajectory. The “new elite” will become the individuals who design, shape, control, and deploy these “smart” systems.
Most people will think they are informed because they can obtain information from a device. The mass of humanity will not know how information control influences their understanding and behavior. Am I correct? I don’t know. I do know one thing: This dinobaby prefers to do knowledge acquisition the old fashioned, slow, inefficient, and uncontrolled way.
Stephen E Arnold, December 4, 2023
Health Care and Steerable AI
December 4, 2023
This essay is the work of a dumb dinobaby. No smart software required.
Large language models are powerful tools that can be used for the betterment of humanity. Or, in the hands of for-profit entities, to get away with wringing every last penny out of a system in the most opaque and intractable ways possible. When that system manages the wellbeing of millions and millions of people, the fallout can be tragic. TechDirt charges, “’AI’ Is Supercharging our Broken Healthcare System’s Worst Tendencies.”
Reporter Karl Bode begins by illustrating the bad blend of corporate greed and AI with journalism as an example. Media companies, he writes, were so eager to cut corners and dodge unionized labor they adopted AI technology before it was ready. In that case the results were “plagiarism, bull[pucky], a lower quality product, and chaos.” Those are bad. Mistakes in healthcare are worse. We learn:
“Not to be outdone, the very broken U.S. healthcare industry is similarly trying to layer half-baked AI systems on top of a very broken system. Except here, human lives are at stake. For example UnitedHealthcare, the largest health insurance company in the US, has been using AI to determine whether elderly patients should be cut off from Medicare benefits. If you’ve ever navigated this system on behalf of an elderly loved one, you likely know what a preposterously heartless [poop]whistle this whole system already is long before automation gets involved. But a recent investigation by STAT showed the AI consistently made major errors and cut elderly folks off from needed care prematurely, with little recourse by patients or families. … A recent lawsuit filed in the US District Court for the District of Minnesota alleges that the AI in question was reversed by human review roughly 90 percent of the time.”
And yet, employees were ordered to follow the algorithm’s decisions no matter their inanity. For the few patients who did win hard-fought reversals, those decisions were immediately followed by fresh rejections that kicked them back to square one. Bode writes:
“The company in question insists that the AI’s rulings are only used as a guide. But it seems pretty apparent that, as in most early applications of LLMs, the systems are primarily viewed by executives as a quick and easy way to cut costs and automate systems already rife with problems, frustrated consumers, and underpaid and overtaxed support employees.”
But is there hope these trends will be eventually curtailed? Well, no. The write-up concludes by scoffing at the idea that government regulations or class action lawsuits are any match for corporate greed. Sounds about right.
Cynthia Murrell, December 4, 2023
AI Adolescence Ascendance: AI-iiiiii!
December 1, 2023
This essay is the work of a dumb dinobaby. No smart software required.
The monkey business of smart software has revealed its inner core. The cute high school essays and the comments about how to do search engine optimization are based on the fundamental elements of money, power, and what I call ego-tanium. When these fundamental elements go critical, exciting things happen. I know this this assertion is correct because I read “The AI Doomers Have Lost This Battle”, an essay which appears in the weird orange newspaper The Financial Times.
The British bastion of practical financial information says:
It would be easy to say that this chaos showed that both OpenAI’s board and its curious subdivided non-profit and for-profit structure were not fit for purpose. One could also suggest that the external board members did not have the appropriate background or experience to oversee a $90bn company that has been setting the agenda for a hugely important technology breakthrough.
In my lingo, the orange newspaper is pointing out that a high school science club management style is like a burning electric vehicle. Once ignited, the message is, “Stand back, folks. Let it burn.”
“Isn’t this great?” asks the driver. The passenger, a former Doomsayer, replies, “AIiiiiiiiiii.” Thanks MidJourney, another good enough illustration which I am supposed to be able to determine contains copyrighted material. Exactly how? may I ask. Oh, you don’t know.
The FT picks up a big-picture idea; that is, smart software can become a problem for humanity. That’s interesting because the book “Weapons of Math Destruction” did a good job of explaining why algorithms can go off the rails. But the FT’s essay embraces the idea of software as the Terminator with the enthusiasm of the crazy old-time guy who shouted “Eureka.”
I note this passage:
Unfortunately for the “doomers”, the events of the last week have sped everything up. One of the now resigned board members was quoted as saying that shutting down OpenAI would be consistent with the mission (better safe than sorry). But the hundreds of companies that were building on OpenAI’s application programming interfaces are scrambling for alternatives, both from its commercial competitors and from the growing wave of open-source projects that aren’t controlled by anyone. AI will now move faster and be more dispersed and less controlled. Failed coups often accelerate the thing that they were trying to prevent.
Okay, the yip yap about slowing down smart software is officially wrong. I am not sure about the government committees’ and their white papers about artificial intelligence. Perhaps the documents can be printed out and used to heat the camp sites of knowledge workers who find themselves out of work.
I find it amusing that some of the governments worried about smart software are involved in autonomous weapons. The idea of a drone with access to a facial recognition component can pick out a target and then explode over the person’s head is an interesting one.
Is there a connection between the high school antics of OpenAI, the hand-wringing about smart software, and the diffusion of decider systems? Yes, and the relationship is one of those hockey stick curves so loved by MBAs from prestigious US universities. (Non reproducibility and a fondness for Jeffrey Epstein-type donors is normative behavior.)
Those who want to cash in on the next Big Thing are officially in the 2023 equivalent of the California gold rush. Unlike the FT, I had no doubt about the ascendance of the go-fast approach to technological innovation. Technologies, even lousy ones, are like gerbils. Start with a two or three and pretty so there are lots of gerbils.
Will the AI gerbils and the progeny be good or bad. Because they are based on the essential elements of life — money, power, and ego-tanium — the outlook is … exciting. I am glad I am a dinobaby. Too bad about the Doomers, who are regrouping to try and build shield around the most powerful elements now emitting excited particles. The glint in the eyes of Microsoft executives and some venture firms are the traces of high-energy AI emissions in the innovators’ aqueous humor.
Stephen E Arnold, December 1, 2023
Google and X: Shall We Again Love These Bad Dogs?
November 30, 2023
This essay is the work of a dumb dinobaby. No smart software required.
Two stories popped out of my blah newsfeed this morning (Thursday, November 30, 2023). I want to highlight each and offer a handful of observations. Why? I am a dinobaby, and I remember the adults who influenced me telling me to behave, use common sense, and follow the rules of “good” behavior. Dull? Yes. A license to cut corners and do crazy stuff? No.
The first story, if it is indeed accurate, is startling. “Google Caught Placing Big-Brand Ads on Hardcore Porn Sites, Report Says” includes a number of statements about the Google which make me uncomfortable. For instance:
advertisers who feel there’s no way to truly know if Google is meeting their brand safety standards are demanding more transparency from Google. Ideally, moving forward, they’d like access to data confirming where exactly their search ads have been displayed.
Where are big brand ads allegedly appearing? How about “undesirable sites.” What comes to mind for me is adult content. There are some quite sporty ads on certain sites that would make a Methodist Sunday school teacher blush.
These two big dogs are having a heck of a time ruining the living room sofa. Neither dog knows that the family will not be happy. These are dogs, not the mental heirs of Immanuel Kant. Thanks, MSFT Copilot. The stuffing looks like soap bubbles, but you are “good enough,” the benchmark for excellence today.
But the shocking factoid is that Google does not provide a way for advertisers to know where their ads have been displayed. Also, there is a possibility that Google shared ad revenue with entities which may be hostile to the interests of the US. Let’s hope that the assertions reported in the article are inaccurate. But if the display of big brand ads on sites with content which could conceivably erode brand value, what exactly is Google’s system doing? I will return to this question in the observations section of this essay.
The second article is equally shocking to me.
“Elon Musk Tells Advertisers: ‘Go F*** Yourself’” reports that the EV and rocket man with a big hole digging machine allegedly said about advertisers who purchase promotions on X.com (Twitter?):
Don’t advertise,” … “If somebody is going to try to blackmail me with advertising, blackmail me with money, go fuck yourself. Go f*** yourself. Is that clear? I hope it is.” … ” If advertisers don’t return, Musk said, “what this advertising boycott is gonna do is it’s gonna kill the company.”
The cited story concludes with this statement:
The full interview was meandering and at times devolved into stream of consciousness responses; Musk spoke for triple the time most other interviewees did. But the questions around Musk’s own actions, and the resulting advertiser exodus — the things that could materially impact X — seemed to garner the most nonchalant answers. He doesn’t seem to care.
Two stories. Two large and successful companies. What can a person like myself conclude, recognizing that there is a possibility that both stories may have some gaps and flaws:
- There is a disdain for old-fashioned “values” related to acceptable business practices
- The thread of pornography and foul language runs through the reports. The notion of well-crafted statements and behaviors is not part of the Google and X game plan in my view
- The indifference of the senior managers at both companies seeps through the descriptions of how Google and X operate strikes me as intentional.
Now why?
I think that both companies are pushing the edge of business behavior. Google obviously is distributing ad inventory anywhere it can to try and create a market for more ads. Instead of telling advertisers where their ads are displayed or giving an advertiser control over where ads should appear, Google just displays the ads. The staggering irrelevance of the ads I see when I view a YouTube video is evidence that Google knows zero about me despite my being logged in and using some Google services. I don’t need feminine undergarments, concealed weapons products, or bogus health products.
With X.com the dismissive attitude of the firm’s senior management reeks of disdain. Why would someone advertise on a system which promotes behaviors that are detrimental to one’s mental set up?
The two companies are different, but in a way they are similar in their approach to users, customers, and advertisers. Something has gone off the rails in my opinion at both companies. It is generally a good idea to avoid riding trains which are known to run on bad tracks, ignore safety signals, and demonstrate remarkably questionable behavior.
What if the write ups are incorrect? Wow, both companies are paragons. What if both write ups are dead accurate? Wow, wow, the big dogs are tearing up the living room sofa. More than “bad dog” is needed to repair the furniture for living.
Stephen E Arnold, November 30, 2023
Google Maps: Rapid Progress on Un-Usability
November 30, 2023
This essay is the work of a dumb dinobaby. No smart software required.
I read a Xhitter.com post about Google Maps. Those who have either heard me talk about the “new” Google Maps or who have read some of my blog posts on the subject know my view. The current Google Maps is useless for my needs. Last year, as one of my team were driving to a Federal secure facility, I bought an overpriced paper map at one of the truck stops. Why? I had no idea how to interact with the map in a meaningful way. My recollection was that I could coax Google Maps and Waze to be semi-helpful. Now the Google Maps’s developers have become tangled in a very large thorn bush. The team discusses how large the thorn bush is, how sharp the thorns are, and how such a large thorn bush could thrive in the Googley hot house.
This dinobaby expresses some consternation at [a] not knowing where to look, [b] how to show the route, and [c] not cause a motor vehicle accident. Thanks, MSFT Copilot. Good enough I think.
The result is enhancements to Google Maps which are the digital equivalent of skin cancer. The disgusting result is a vehicle for advertising and engagement that no one can use without head scratching moments. Am I alone in my complaint. Nope, the afore mentioned Xhitter.com post aligns quite well with my perception. The author is a person who once designed a more usable version of Google Maps.
Her Xhitter.com post highlights the digital skin cancer the team of Googley wizards has concocted. Here’s a screen capture of her annotated, life-threatening disfigurement:
She writes:
The map should be sacred real estate. Only things that are highly useful to many people should obscure it. There should be a very limited number of features that can cover the map view. And there are multiple ways to add new features without overlaying them directly on the map.
Sounds good. But Xooglers and other outsiders are not likely to get much traction from the Map team. Everyone is working hard at landing in the hot AI area or some other discipline which will deliver a bonus and a promotion. Maps? Nope.
The former Google Maps’ designer points out:
In 2007, I was 1 of 2 designers on Google Maps. At that time, Maps had already become a cluttered mess. We were wedging new features into any space we could find in the UI. The user experience was suffering and the product was growing increasingly complicated. We had to rethink the app to be simple and scale for the future.
Yep, Google Maps, a case study for people who are brilliant who have lost the atlas to reality. And “sacred” at Google? Ad revenue, not making dear old grandma safer when she drives. (Tesla, Cruise, where are those smart, self-driving cars? Ah, I forgot. They are with Waymo, keeping their profile low.)
Stephen E Arnold, November 30, 2023
Amazon Customer Service: Let Many Flowers Bloom and Die on the Vine
November 29, 2023
This essay is the work of a dumb dinobaby. No smart software required.
Amazon has been outputting artificial intelligence “assertions” at a furious pace. What’s clear is that Amazon is “into” the volume and variety business in my opinion. The logic of offering multiple “works in progress” and getting them to work reasonably well is going to have three characteristics: The first is that deploying and operating different smart software systems is going to be expensive. The second is that tuning and maintaining high levels of accuracy in the outputs will be expensive. The third is that supporting the users, partners, customers, and integrators is going to be expensive. If we use a bit of freshman in high school algebra, the common factor is expensive. Amazon’s remarkable assertion that no one wants to bet a business on just one model strikes me as a bit out of step with the world in which bean counters scuttle and scurry in green eyeshades and sleeve protectors. (See. I am a dinobaby. Sleeve protectors. I bet none of the OpenAI type outfits have accountants who use these fashion accessories!)
Let’s focus on just one facet of the expensive burdens I touched upon above— customer service. Navigate to the remarkable and stunningly uncritical write up called “How to Reach Amazon Customer Service: A Complete Guide.” The write up is an earthworm list of the “options” Amazon provides. As Amazon was announcing its new new big big things, I was trying to figure out why an order for an $18 product was rejected. The item in question was one part of a multipart order. The other, more costly items were approved and billed to my Amazon credit card.
Thanks MSFT Copilot. You do a nice broken bulldozer or at least a good enough one.
But the dog treats?
I systematically worked through the Amazon customer service options. As a Prime customer, I assumed one of them would work. Here’s my report card:
- Amazon’s automated help. A loop. See Help pages which suggested I navigate too the customer service page. Cute. A first year comp sci student’s programming error. A loop right out of the box. Nifty.
- The customer service page. Well, that page sent me to Help and Help sent me to the automation loop. Cool Zero for two.
- Access through the Amazon app. Nope. I don’t install “apps” on my computing devices unless I have zero choice. (Yes, I am thinking about Apple and Google.) Too bad Amazon, I reject your app the way I reject QR codes used by restaurants. (Do these hash slingers know that QR codes are a fave of some bad actors?)
- Live chat with Amazon customer service was not live. It was a bot. The suggestion? Get back in the loop. Maybe the chat staff was at the Amazon AI announcement or just severely overstaffed or simply did not care. Another loser.
- Request a call from Amazon customer service. Yeah, I got to that after I call Amazon customer service. Another loser.
I repeated the “call Amazon customer service” twice and I finally worked through the automated system and got a person who barely spoke English. I explained the problem. One product rejected because my Amazon credit card was rejected. I learned that this particular customer service expert did not understand how that could have happened. Yeah, great work.
How did I resolve the rejected credit card. I called the Chase Bank customer service number. I told a person my card was manipulated and I suspected fraud. I was escalated to someone who understood the word “fr4aud.” After about five minutes of “’Will you please hold”, the Chase person told me, “The problem is at Amazon, not your card and not Chase.”
What was the fix? Chase said, “Cancel the order.” I did and went to another vendor.
Now what’s that experience suggest about Amazon’s ability (willingness) to provide effective, efficient customer support to users of its purported multiple large language models, AI systems, and assorted marketing baloney output during Amazon’s “we are into AI” week?
My answer? The Bezos bulldozer has an engine belching black smoke, making a lot of noise because the muffler has a hole in it, and the thumpity thump of the engine reveals that something is out of tune.
Yeah, AI and customer support. Just one of the “expensive” things Amazon may not be able to deliver. The troubling thing is that Amazon’s AI may have been powering the multiple customer support systems. Yikes.
Stephen E Arnold, November 29, 2023
Is YouTube Marching Toward Its Waterloo?
November 28, 2023
This essay is the work of a dumb dinobaby. No smart software required.
I have limited knowledge of the craft of warfare. I do have a hazy recollection that Napoleon found himself at the wrong end of a pointy stick at the Battle of Waterloo. I do recall that Napoleon lost the battle and experienced the domino effect which knocked him down a notch or two. He ended up on the island of Saint Helena in the south Atlantic Ocean with Africa a short 1,200 miles to the east. But Nappy had no mobile phone, no yacht purchased with laundered money, and no Internet. Losing has its downsides. Bummer. No empire.
I thought about Napoleon when I read “YouTube’s Ad Blocker Crackdown Heats Up.” The question I posed to myself was, “Is the YouTube push for subscription revenue and unfettered YouTube user data collection a road to Google’s Battle of Waterloo?”
Thanks, MSFT Copilot. You have a knack for capturing the essence of a loser. I love good enough illustrations too.
The cited article from Channel News reports:
YouTube is taking a new approach to its crackdown on ad-blockers by delaying the start of videos for users attempting to avoid ads. There were also complaints by various X (formerly Twitter) users who said that YouTube would not even let a video play until the ad blocker was disabled or the user purchased a YouTube Premium subscription. Instead of an ad, some sources using Firefox and Edge browsers have reported waiting around five seconds before the video launches the content. According to users, the Chrome browser, which the streaming giant shares an owner with, remains unaffected.
If the information is accurate, Google is taking steps to damage what the firm has called the “user experience.” The idea is that users who want to watch “free” videos, have a choice:
- Put up with delays, pop ups, and mindless appeals to pay Google to show videos from people who may or may not be compensated by the Google
- Just fork over a credit card and let Google collect about $150 per year until the rates go up. (The cable TV and mobile phone billing model is alive and well in the Google ecosystem.)
- Experiment with advertisement blocking technology and accept the risk of being banned from Google services
- Learn to love TikTok, Instagram, DailyMotion, and Bitchute, among other options available to a penny-conscious consumer of user-produced content
- Quit YouTube and new-form video. Buy a book.
What happened to Napoleon before the really great decision to fight Wellington in a lovely part of Belgium. Waterloo is about nine miles south of the wonderful, diverse city of Brussels. Napoleon did not have a drone to send images of the rolling farmland, where the “enemies” were located, or the availability of something behind which to hide. Despite Nappy’s fine experience in his march to Russia, he muddled forward. Despite allegedly having said, “The right information is nine-tenths of every battle,” the Emperor entered battle, suffered 40,000 casualties, and ended up in what is today a bit of a tourist hot spot. In 1816, it was somewhat less enticing. Ordering troops to charge uphill against a septuagenarian’s forces was arguably as stupid as walking to Russia as snowflakes began to fall.
How does this Waterloo related to the YouTube fight now underway? I see several parallels:
- Google’s senior managers, informed with the management lore of 25 years of unfettered operation, knows that users can be knocked along a path of the firm’s choice. Think sheep. But sheep can be disorderly. One must watch sheep.
- The need to stem the rupturing of cash required to operate a massive “free” video service is another one of those Code Yellow and Code Red events for the company. With search known to be under threat from Sam AI-Man and the specters of “findability” AI apps, the loss of traffic could be catastrophic. Despite Google’s financial fancy dancing, costs are a bit of a challenge: New hardware costs money, options like making one’s own chips costs money, allegedly smart people cost money, marketing costs money, legal fees cost money, and maintaining the once-free SEO ad sales force costs money. Got the message: Expenses are a problem for the Google in my opinion.
- The threat of either TikTok or Instagram going long form remains. If these two outfits don’t make a move on YouTube, there will be some innovator who will. The price of “move fast and break things” means that the Google can be broken by an AI surfer. My team’s analysis suggests it is more brittle today than at any previous point in its history. The legal dust up with Yahoo about the Overture / GoTo issue was trivial compared to the cost control challenge and the AI threat. That’s a one-two for the Google management wizards to solve. Making sense of the Critique of Pure Reason is a much easier task in my view.
The cited article includes a statement which is likely to make some YouTube users uncomfortable. Here’s the statement:
Like other streaming giants, YouTube is raising its rates with the Premium price going up to $13.99 in the U.S., but users may have to shell out the money, and even if they do, they may not be completely free of ads.
What does this mean? My interpretation is that [a] even if you pay, a user may see ads; that is, paying does not eliminate ads for perpetuity; and [b] the fee is not permanent; that is, Google can increase it at any time.
Several observations:
- Google faces high-cost issues from different points of the business compass: Legal in the US and EU, commercial from known competitors like TikTok and Instagram, and psychological from innovators who find a way to use smart software to deliver a more compelling video experience for today’s users. These costs are not measured solely in financial terms. The mental stress of what will percolate from the seething mass of AI entrepreneurs. Nappy did not sleep too well after Waterloo. Too much Beef Wellington, perhaps?
- Google’s management methods have proven appropriate for generating revenue from a ad model in which Google controls the billing touch points. When those management techniques are applied to non-controllable functions, they fail. The hallmark of the management misstep is the handling of Dr. Timnit Gebru, a squeaky wheel in the Google AI content marketing machine. There is nothing quite like stifling a dissenting voice, the squawk of a parrot, and a don’t-let-the-door-hit-you-when -you-leave moment.
- The post-Covid, continuous warfare, and unsteady economic environment is causing the social fabric to fray and in some cases tear. This means that users may become contentious and become receptive to a spontaneous flash mob action toward Google and YouTube. User revolt at scale is not something Google has demonstrated a core competence.
Net net: I will get my microwave popcorn and watch this real-time Google Boogaloo unfold. Will a recipe become famous? How about Grilled Google en Croute?
Stephen E Arnold, November 28, 2023
Bogus Research Papers: They Are Here to Stay
November 27, 2023
This essay is the work of a dumb dinobaby. No smart software required.
“Science Is Littered with Zombie Studies. Here’s How to Stop Their Spread” is a Don Quixote-type write up. The good Don went to war against windmills. The windmills did not care. The people watching Don and his trusty sidekick did not care, and many found the site of a person of stature trying to gore a mill somewhat amusing.
A young researcher meets the ghosts of fake, distorted, and bogus information. These artefacts of a loss of ethical fabric wrap themselves around the peer-reviewed research available in many libraries and in for-fee online databases. When was the last time you spotted a correction to a paper in an online database? Thanks, MSFT Copilot. After several tries I got ghosts in a library. Wow, that was a task.
Fake research, non-reproducible research, and intellectual cheating like the exemplars at Harvard’s ethic department and the carpetland of Stanford’s former president’s office seem commonplace today.
The Hill’s article states:
Just by citing a zombie publication, new research becomes infected: A single unreliable citation can threaten the reliability of the research that cites it, and that infection can cascade, spreading across hundreds of papers. A 2019 paper on childhood cancer, for example, cites 51 different retracted papers, making its research likely impossible to salvage. For the scientific record to be a record of the best available knowledge, we need to take a knowledge maintenance perspective on the scholarly literature.
The idea is interesting. It shares a bit of technical debt (the costs accrued by not fixing up older technology) and some of the GenX, GenY, and GenZ notions of “what’s right.” The article sidesteps a couple of thorny bushes on its way to the Promised Land of Integrity.
First, the academic paper is designed to accomplish several things. First, it is a demonstration of one’s knowledge value. “Hey, my peers said this paper was fit to publish” some authors say. Yeah, as a former peer reviewer, I want to tell you that harsh criticism is not what the professional publisher wanted. These papers mean income. Don’t screw up the cash flow,” was the message I heard.
Second, the professional publisher certainly does not want to spend the resources (time and money) required to do crapola archeology. The focus of a professional publisher is to make money by publishing information to niche markets and charging as much money as possible for that information. Academic accuracy, ethics, and idealistic hand waving are not part of the Officers’ Meetings at some professional publisher off-sites. The focus is on cost reduction, market capture, and beating the well-known cousins in other companies who compete with one another. The goal is not the best life partner; the objective is revenue and profit margin.
Third, the academic bureaucracy has to keep alive the mechanisms for brain stratification. Therefore, publishing something “groundbreaking” in a blog or putting the information in a TikTok simply does not count. In fact, despite the brilliance of the information, the vehicle is not accepted. No modern institution building its global reputation and its financial services revenue wants to accept a person unless that individual has been published in a peer reviewed journal of note. Therefore, no one wants to look at data or a paper. The attention is on the paper’s appearing in the peer reviewed journal.
Who pays for this knowledge garbage? The answer is [a] libraries who have to “get” the journals departments identify as significant, [b] the US government which funds quite a bit of baloney and hocus pocus research via grants, [c] the authors of the paper who have to pay for proofs, corrections, and goodness knows what else before the paper is enshrined in a peer-reviewed journal.
Who fixes the baloney? No one. The content is either accepted as accurate and never verified or the researcher cites that which is perceived as important. Who wants to criticize one’s doctoral advisor?
News flash: The prevalence and amount of crapola is unlikely to change. In fact, with the easy availability of smart software, the volume of bad scholarly information is likely to increase. Only the disinformation entities working for nation states hostile to the US of A will outpace US academics in the generation of bogus information.
Net net: The wise researcher will need to verify a lot. But that’s work. So there we are.
Stephen E Arnold, November 27, 2023
Another Xoogler and More Process Insights
November 23, 2023
This essay is the work of a dumb dinobaby. No smart software required.
Google employs many people. Over the last 25 years, quite a few Xooglers (former Google employees) are out and about. I find the essays by the verbal Xooglers interesting. “Reflecting on 18 Years at Google” contains several intriguing comments. Let me highlight a handful of these. You will want to read the entire Hixie article to get the context for the snips I have selected.
The first point I underlined with blushing pink marker was:
I found it quite frustrating how teams would be legitimately actively pursuing ideas that would be good for the world, without prioritizing short-term Google interests, only to be met with cynicism in the court of public opinion.
Old timers share stories about the golden past in the high-technology of online advertising. Thanks, Copilot, don’t overdo the schmaltz.
The “Google as a victim” is a notion not often discussed — except by some Xooglers. I recall a comment made to me by a seasoned manager at another firm, “Yes, I am paranoid. They are out to get me.” That comment may apply to some professionals at Google.
How about this passage?
My mandate was to do the best thing for the web, as whatever was good for the web would be good for Google (I was explicitly told to ignore Google’s interests).
The oft-repeated idea is that Google cares about its users and similar truisms are part of what I call the Google mythology. Intentionally, in my opinion, Google cultivates the “doing good” theme as part of its effort to distract observers from the actual engineering intent of the company. (You love those Google ads, don’t you?)
Google’s creative process is captured in this statement:
We essentially operated like a startup, discovering what we were building more than designing it.
I am not sure if this is part of Google’s effort to capture the “spirit” of the old-timey days of Bell Laboratories or an accurate representation of Google’s directionless methods became over the years. What people “did” is clearly dissociated from the advertising mechanisms on which the oversized tires and chrome do-dads were created and bolted on the ageing vehicle.
And, finally, this statement:
It would require some shake-up at the top of the company, moving the center of power from the CFO’s office back to someone with a clear long-term vision for how to use Google’s extensive resources to deliver value to users.
What happened to the ideas of doing good and exploratory innovation?
Net net: Xooglers pine for the days of the digital gold rush. Googlers may not be aware of what the company is and does. That may be a good thing.
Stephen E Arnold, November 23, 2023
OpenAI: What about Uncertainty and Google DeepMind?
November 20, 2023
This essay is the work of a dumb dinobaby. No smart software required.
A large number of write ups about Microsoft and its response to the OpenAI management move populate my inbox this morning (Monday, November 20, 2023).
To give you a sense of the number of poohbahs, mavens, and “real” journalists covering Microsoft’s hiring of Sam (AI-Man) Altman, I offer this screen shot of Techmeme.com taken at 1100 am US Eastern time:
A single screenshot cannot do justice to the digital bloviating on this subject as well as related matters.
I did a quick scan because I simply don’t have the time at age 79 to read every item in this single headline service. Therefore, I admit that others may have thought about the impact of the Steve Jobs’s like termination, the revolt of some AI wizards, and Microsoft’s creating a new “company” and hiring Sam AI-Man and a pride of his cohorts in the span of 72 hours (give or take time for biobreaks).
In this short essay, I want to hypothesize about how the news has been received by that merry band of online advertising professionals.
To begin, I want to suggest that the turmoil about who is on first at OpenAI sent a low voltage signal through the collective body of the Google. Frisson resulted. Uncertainty and opportunity appeared together like the beloved Scylla and Charybdis, the old pals of Ulysses. The Google found its right and left Brainiac hemispheres considering that OpenAI would experience a grave set back, thus clearing a path for Googzilla alone. Then one of the Brainiac hemisphere reconsidered and perceive a grave threat from the split. In short, the Google tipped into its zone of uncertainty.
A group of online advertising experts meet to consider the news that Microsoft has hired Sam Altman. The group looks unhappy. Uncertainty is an unpleasant factor in some business decisions. Thanks Microsoft Copilot, you captured the spirit of how some Silicon Valley wizards are reacting to the OpenAI turmoil because Microsoft used the OpenAI termination of Sam Altman as a way to gain the upper hand in the cloud and enterprise app AI sector.
Then the matter appeared to shift back to the pre-termination announcement. The co-founder of OpenAI gained more information about the number of OpenAI employees who were planning to quit or, even worse, start posting on Instagram, WhatsApp, and TikTok (X.com is no longer considered the go-to place by the in crowd.
The most interesting development was not that Sam AI-Man would return to the welcoming arms of Open AI. No, Sam AI-Man and another senior executive were going to hook up with the geniuses of Redmond. A new company would be formed with Sam AI-Man in charge.
As these actions unfolded, the Googlers sank under a heavy cloud of uncertainty. What if the Softies could use Google’s own open source methods, integrate rumored Microsoft-developed AI capabilities, and make good on Sam AI-Man’s vision of an AI application store?
The Googlers found themselves reading every “real news” item about the trajectory of Sam AI-Man and Microsoft’s new AI unit. The uncertainty has morphed into another January 2023 Davos moment. Here’s my take as of 230 pm US Eastern, November 20, 2023:
- The Google faces a significant threat when it comes to enterprise AI apps. Microsoft has a lock on law firms, the government, and a number of industry sectors. Google has a presence, but when it comes to go-to apps, Microsoft is the Big Dog. More and better AI raises the specter of Microsoft putting an effective laser defense behinds its existing enterprise moat.
- Microsoft can push its AI functionality as the Azure difference. Furthermore, whether Google or Amazon for that matter assert their cloud AI is better, Microsoft can argue, “We’re better because we have Sam AI-Man.” That is a compelling argument for government and enterprise customers who cannot imagine work without Excel and PowerPoint. Put more AI in those apps, and existing customers will resist blandishments from other cloud providers.
- Google now faces an interesting problem: It’s own open source code could be converted into a death ray, enhanced by Sam AI-Man, and directed at the Google. The irony of Googzilla having its left claw vaporized by its own technology is going to be more painful than Satya Nadella rolling out another Davos “we’re doing AI” announcement.
Net net: The OpenAI machinations are interesting to many companies. To the Google, the OpenAI event and the Microsoft response is like an unsuspecting person getting zapped by Nikola Tesla’s coil. Google’s mastery of high school science club management techniques will now dig into the heart of its DeepMind.
Stephen E Arnold, November 20, 2023
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