Up for a Downer: The Limits of Growth… Baaaackkkk with a Vengeance
June 13, 2025
Just a dinobaby and no AI: How horrible an approach?
Where were you in 1972? Oh, not born yet. Oh, hanging out in the frat house or shopping with sorority pals? Maybe you were working at a big time consulting firm?
An outfit known as Potomac Associates slapped its name on a thought piece with some repetitive charts. The original work evolved from an outfit contributing big ideas. The Club of Rome lassoed William W. Behrens, Dennis and Donella Meadows, and Jørgen Randers to pound data into the then-state-of-the-art World3 model allegedly developed by Jay Forrester at MIT. (Were there graduate students involved? Of course not.)
The result of the effort was evidence that growth becomes unsustainable and everything falls down. Business, government systems, universities, etc. etc. Personally I am not sure why the idea that infinite growth with finite resources will last forever was a big deal. The idea seems obvious to me. I was able to get my little hands on a copy of the document courtesy of Dominique Doré, the super great documentalist at the company which employed my jejune and naive self. Who was I too think, “This book’s conclusion is obvious, right?” Was I wrong. The concept of hockey sticks that had handles to the ends of the universe was a shocker to some.
The book’s big conclusion is the focus of “Limits to Growth Was Right about Collapse.” Why? I think the idea that the realization is a novel one to those who watched their shares in Amazon, Google, and Meta zoom to the sky. Growth is unlimited, some believed. The write up in “The Next Wave,” an online newsletter or information service happily quotes an update to the original Club of Rome document:
This improved parameter set results in a World3 simulation that shows the same overshoot and collapse mode in the coming decade as the original business as usual scenario of the LtG standard run.
Bummer. The kiddie story about Chicken Little had an acorn plop on its head. Chicken Little promptly proclaimed in a peer reviewed academic paper with non reproducible research and a YouTube video:
The sky is falling.
But keep in mind that the kiddie story is fiction. Humans are adept at survival. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs captures the spirit of species. Will life as modern CLs perceive it end?
I don’t think so. Without getting to philosophical, I would point to Gottlief Fichte’s thesis, antithesis, synthesis as a reasonably good way to think about change (gradual and catastrophic). I am not into philosophy so when life gives you lemons, one can make lemonade. Then sell the business to a local food service company.
Collapse and its pal chaos create opportunities. The sky remains.
The cited write up says:
Economists get over-excited when anyone mentions ‘degrowth’, and fellow-travelers such as the Tony Blair Institute treat climate policy as if it is some kind of typical 1990s political discussion. The point is that we’re going to get degrowth whether we think it’s a good idea or not. The data here is, in effect, about the tipping point at the end of a 200-to-250-year exponential curve, at least in the richer parts of the world. The only question is whether we manage degrowth or just let it happen to us. This isn’t a neutral question. I know which one of these is worse.
See de-growth creates opportunities. Chicken Little was wrong when the acorn beaned her. The collapse will be just another chance to monetize. Today is Friday the 13th. Watch out for acorns and recycled “insights.”
Stephen E Arnold, June 13, 2025
Developers: Try to Kill ‘Em Off and They Come Back Like Giant Hogweeds
June 12, 2025
Just a dinobaby and no AI: How horrible an approach?
Developers, which probably extends to “coders” and “programmers”, have been an employee category of note for more than a half century. Even the esteemed Institute of Advanced Study enforced some boundaries between the “real” thinking mathematicians and the engineers who fooled around in the basement with a Stone Age computer.
Giant hogweeds can have negative impacts on humanoids who interact with them. Some say the same consequences ensue when accountants, lawyers, and MBAs engage in contact with programmers: Skin irritation and possibly blindness.
“The Recurring Cycle of ‘Developer Replacement’ Hype” addresses this boundary. The focus is on smart software which allegedly can do heavy-lifting programming. One of my team (Howard, the recipient of the old and forgotten Information Industry Association award for outstanding programming) is skeptical that AI can do what he does. I think that our work on the original MARS system which chugged along on the AT&T IBM MVS installation in Piscataway in the 1980s may have been a stretch for today’s coding wonders like Claude and ChatGPT. But who knows? Maybe these smart systems would have happily integrated Information Dimensions database with the MVS and allowed the newly formed Baby Bells to share certain data and “charge” one another for those bits? Trivial work now I suppose in the wonderful world of PL/1, Assembler, and the Basis “GO” instruction in one of today’s LLMs tuned to “do” code.
The write up points out that the tension between bean counters, MBAs and developers follows a cycle. Over time, different memes have surfaced suggesting that there was a better, faster, and cheaper way to “do” code than with programmers. Here are the “movements” or “memes” the author of the cited essay presents:
- No code or low code. The idea is that working in PL/1 or any other “language” can be streamlined with middleware between the human and the executables, the libraries, and the control instructions.
- The cloud revolution. The idea is that one just taps into really reliable and super secure services or micro services. One needs to hook these together and a robust application emerges.
- Offshore coding. The concept is simple: Code where it is cheap. The code just has to be good enough. The operative word is cheap. Note that I did not highlight secure, stable, extensible, and similar semi desirable attributes.
- AI coding assistants. Let smart software do the work. Microsoft allegedly produces oodles of code with its smart software. Google is similarly thrilled with the idea that quirky wizards can be allowed to find their future elsewhere.
The essay’s main point is that despite the memes, developers keep cropping up like those pesky giant hogweeds.
The essay states:
Here’s what the "AI will replace developers" crowd fundamentally misunderstands: code is not an asset—it’s a liability. Every line must be maintained, debugged, secured, and eventually replaced. The real asset is the business capability that code enables. If AI makes writing code faster and cheaper, it’s really making it easier to create liability. When you can generate liability at unprecedented speed, the ability to manage and minimize that liability strategically becomes exponentially more valuable. This is particularly true because AI excels at local optimization but fails at global design. It can optimize individual functions but can’t determine whether a service should exist in the first place, or how it should interact with the broader system. When implementation speed increases dramatically, architectural mistakes get baked in before you realize they’re mistakes. For agency work building disposable marketing sites, this doesn’t matter. For systems that need to evolve over years, it’s catastrophic. The pattern of technological transformation remains consistent—sysadmins became DevOps engineers, backend developers became cloud architects—but AI accelerates everything. The skill that survives and thrives isn’t writing code. It’s architecting systems. And that’s the one thing AI can’t do.
I agree, but there are some things programmers can do that smart software cannot. Get medical insurance.
Stephen E Arnold, June 12, 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
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
Real News Outfit Finds a Study Proving That AI Has No Impact in the Workplace
May 27, 2025
Just the dinobaby operating without Copilot or its ilk.
The “real news” outfit is the wonderful business magazine Fortune, now only $1 a month. Subscribe now!
The title of the write up catching my attention was “Study Looking at AI Chatbots in 7,000 Workplaces Finds ‘No Significant Impact on Earnings or Recorded Hours in Any Occupation.” Out of the blocks this story caused me to say to myself, “This is another you-can’t-fire-human-writers” proxy.”
Was I correct? Here are three snips, and I not only urge you to subscribe to Fortune but read the original article and form your own opinion. Another option is to feed it into an LLM which is able to include Web content and ask it to tell you about the story. If you are reading my essay, you know that a dinobaby plucks the examples, no smart software required, although as I creep toward 81, I probably should let a free AI do the thinking for me.
Here’s the first snip I captured:
Their [smart software or large language models] popularity has created and destroyed entire job descriptions and sent company valuations into the stratosphere—then back down to earth. And yet, one of the first studies to look at AI use in conjunction with employment data finds the technology’s effect on time and money to be negligible.
You thought you could destroy humans, you high technology snake oil peddlers (not the contraband Snake Oil popular in Hong Kong at this time). Think old-time carnival barkers.
Here’s the second snip about the sample:
focusing on occupations believed to be susceptible to disruption by AI
Okay, “believed” is the operative word. Who does the believing a University of Chicago assistant professor of economics (Yay, Adam Smith. Yay, yay, Friedrich Hayak) and a graduate student. Yep, a time honored method: A graduate student.
Now the third snip which presents the rock solid proof:
On average, users of AI at work had a time savings of 3%, the researchers found. Some saved more time, but didn’t see better pay, with just 3%-7% of productivity gains being passed on to paychecks. In other words, while they found no mass displacement of human workers, neither did they see transformed productivity or hefty raises for AI-wielding super workers.
Okay, not much payoff from time savings. Okay, not much of a financial reward for the users. Okay, nobody got fired. I thought it was hard to terminate workers in some European countries.
After reading the article, I like the penultimate paragraph’s reminder that outfits like Duolingo and Shopify have begun rethinking the use of chatbots. Translation: You cannot get rid of human writers and real journalists.
Net net: A temporary reprieve will not stop the push to shift from expensive humans who want health care and vacations. That’s the news.
Stephen E Arnold, May 27, 2025
Behind Microsoft’s Dogged Copilot Push
May 20, 2025
Writer Simon Batt at XDA foresees a lot of annoyance in Windows users’ future. “Microsoft Will Only Get More Persistent Now that Copilot has Plateaued,” he predicts. Yes, Microsoft has failed to attract as many users to Copilot as it had hoped. It is as if users see through the AI hype. According to Batt, the company famous for doubling down on unpopular ideas will now pester us like never before. This can already be seen in the new way Microsoft harasses Windows 10 users. While it used to suggest every now and then such users purchase a Windows 11-capable device, now it specifically touts Copilot+ machines.
Batt suspects Microsoft will also relentlessly push other products to boost revenue. Especially anything it can bill monthly. Though Windows is ubiquitous, he notes, users can go years between purchases. Many of us, we would add, put off buying a new version until left with little choice. (Any XP users still out there?) He writes:
“When ChatGPT began to take off, I can imagine Microsoft seeing dollar signs when looking at its own assistant, Copilot. They could make special Copilot-enhanced devices (which make them money) that run Copilot locally and encourage people to upgrade to Copilot Pro (which makes them money) and perhaps then pay extra for the Office integration (which makes them money). But now that golden egg hasn’t panned out like Microsoft wants, and now it needs to find a way to help prop up the income while it tries to get Copilot off the ground. This means more ads for the Microsoft Store, more ads for its game store, and more ads for Microsoft 365. Oh, and let’s not forget the ads within Copilot itself. If you thought things were bad now, I have a nasty feeling we’re only just getting started with the ads.”
And they won’t stop, he expects, until most users have embraced Copilot. Microsoft may be creeping toward some painful financial realities.
Cynthia Murrell, May 20, 2025
Google Innovates: Another Investment Play. (How Many Are There Now?)
May 13, 2025
No AI, just the dinobaby expressing his opinions to Zillennials.
I am not sure how many investment, funding, and partnering deals Google has. But as the selfish only child says, “I want more, Mommy.” Is that Google’s strategy for achieving more AI dominance. The company has already suggested that it has won the AI battle. AI is everywhere even when one does not want it. But inferiority complexes have a way of motivating bright people to claim that they are winners only to wake at 3 am to think, “I must do more. Don’t hit me in the head, grandma.”
The write up “Google Launches New Initiative to Back Startups Building AI” brilliant, never before implemented tactic. The idea is to shovel money at startups that are [a] Googley, [b] focus on AI’s cutting edge, and [c] can reduce Google’s angst ridden 3 am soul searching. (Don’t hit me in the head, grandma.)
The article says:
Google announced the launch of its AI Futures Fund, a new initiative that seeks to invest in startups that are building with the latest AI tools from Google DeepMind, the company’s AI R&D lab. The fund will back startups from seed to late stage and will offer varying degrees of support, including allowing founders to have early access to Google AI models from DeepMind, the ability to work with Google experts from DeepMind and Google Labs, and Google Cloud credits. Some startups will also have the opportunity to receive direct investment from Google.
This meets criterion [a] above. The firms have to embrace Google’s quantumly supreme DeepMind, state of the art, world beating AI. I interpret the need to pay people to use DeepMind as a hint that making something commercially viable is just outside the sharp claws of Googzilla. Therefore, just pay for those who will be Googley and use the quantumly supreme DeepMind AI.
The write up adds:
Google has been making big commitments over the past few months to support the next generation of AI talent and scientific breakthroughs.
This meets criterion [b] above. Google is paying to try to get the future to appear under the new blurry G logo. Will this work? Sure, just as it works for regular investment outfits. The hit ratio is hoped to be 17X or more. But in tough times, a 10X return is good. Why? Many people are chasing AI opportunities. The failure rate of new high technology companies remains high even with the buzz of AI. If Google has infinite money, it can indeed win the future. But if the search advertising business takes a hit or the Chrome data system has a groin pull, owning or “inventing” the future becomes a more difficult job for Googzilla.
Now we come to criterion [c], the inferiority complex and the need to meeting grandma’s and the investors’ expectations. The write up does not spend much time on the psyches of the Google leadership. The write points out:
Google also has its Google for Startups Founders Funds, which supports founders from an array of industries and backgrounds building companies, including AI companies. A spokesperson told TechCrunch in February that this year, the fund would start investing in AI-focused startups in the U.S., with more information to come at a later date.
The article does not address the psychology of Googzilla. That’s too bad because that’s what makes fuzzy G logos, impending legal penalties, intense competition from Sam AI-Man and every engineering student in China, and the self serving quantumly supreme type lingo big picture windows into the inner Google.
Grandma, don’t hit any of those ever young leaders at Google on the head. It may do some psychological rewiring that may make you proud and some other people expecting even greater achievements in AI, self driving cars, relevant search, better-than-Facebook ad targeting, and more investment initiatives.
Stephen E Arnold, May 13, 2025
China Smart, US Dumb: Twisting the LLM Daozi
May 12, 2025
No AI, just the dinobaby expressing his opinions to Zellenials.
That hard-hitting technology information service Venture Beat published an interesting article. Its title is “Alibaba ZeroSearch Lets AI Learn to Google Itself — Slashing Training Costs by 88 Percent.” The main point of the write up, in my opinion, is that Chinese engineers have done something really “smart.” The knife at the throat of US smart software companies is cost. The money fires will flame out unless more dollars are dumped into the innovation furnaces of smart software.
The Venture Beat story makes the point that “could dramatically reduce the cost and complexity of training AI systems to search for information, eliminating the need for expensive commercial search engine APIs altogether.”
Oh, oh.
This is smart. Buring cash in pursuit of a fractional improvement is dumb, well, actually, stupid, if the write up’s inforamtion is accurate.
The Venture Beat story says:
The technique, called “ZeroSearch,” allows large language models (LLMs) to develop advanced search capabilities through a simulation approach rather than interacting with real search engines during the training process. This innovation could save companies significant API expenses while offering better control over how AI systems learn to retrieve information.
Is this a Snorkel variant hot from Stanford AI lab?
The write up does not delve into the synthetic data short cut to smart software. After some mumbo jumbo, the write up points out the meat of the “innovation”:
The cost savings are substantial. According to the researchers’ analysis, training with approximately 64,000 search queries using Google Search via SerpAPI would cost about $586.70, while using a 14B-parameter simulation LLM on four A100 GPUs costs only $70.80 — an 88% reduction.
Imagine. A dollar in cost becomes $0.12. If accurate, what should a savvy investor do? Pump money into an outfit like OpenAI or the Xai- type entity, or think harder about the China-smart solution?
Venture Beat explains the implication of the alleged cost savings:
The impact could be substantial for the AI industry.
No kidding?
The Venture Beat analysts add this observation:
The irony is clear: in teaching AI to search without search engines, Alibaba may have created a technology that makes traditional search engines less necessary for AI development. As these systems become more self-sufficient, the technology landscape could look very different in just a few years.
Yep, irony. Free transformer technology. Free Snorkle technology. Free kinetic into the core of the LLM money furnace.
If true, the implications are easy to outline. If bogus, the China Smart, US Dumb trope still captured ink and will be embedded in some smart software’s increasingly frequent hallucinatory outputs. At which point, the China Smart, US Dumb information gains traction and becomes “fact” to some.
Stephen E Arnold, May 12, 2025
Google, Its AI Search, and Web Site Traffic
May 12, 2025
No AI. Just a dinobaby sharing an observation about younger managers and their innocence.
I read “Google’s AI Search Switch Leaves Indie Websites Unmoored.” I think this is a Gen Y way of saying, “No traffic for you, bozos.” Of course, as a dinobaby, I am probably wrong.
Let’s look at the write up. It says:
many publishers said they either need to shut down or revamp their distribution strategy. Experts this effort could ultimately reduce the quality of information Google can access for its search results and AI answers.
Okay, but this is just one way to look at Google’s delicious decision.
May I share some of my personal thoughts about what this traffic downshift means for those blue-chip consultant Googlers in charge:
First, in the good old days before the decline began in 2006, Google indexed bluebirds (sites that had to be checked for new content or “deltas” on an accelerated heart beat. Examples were whitehouse.gov (no, not the whitehouse.com porn site). Then there were sparrows. These plentiful Web sites could be checked on a relaxed schedule. I mean how often do you visit the US government’s National Railway Retirement Web site if it still is maintained and online? Yep, the correct answer is, “Never.” There there were canaries. These were sites which might signal a surge in popularity. They were checked on a heart beat that ensured the Google wouldn’t miss a trend and fail to sell advertising to those lucky ad buyers.
So, bluebirds, canaries, and sparrows.
This shift means that Google can reduce costs by focusing on bluebirds and canaries. The sparrows — the site operated by someone’s grandmother to sell home made quilts — won’t get traffic unless the site operator buys advertising. It’s pay to play. If a site is not in the Google index, it just may not exist. Sure there are alternative Web search systems, but none, as far as I know, are close to the scope of the “old” Google in 2006.
Second, by dropping sparrows or pinging them once in a blue moon will reduce the costs of crawling, indexing, and doing the behind-the-scenes work that consumes Google cash at an astonishing rate. Therefore, the myth of indexing the “Web” is going to persist, but the content of the index is not going to be “fresh.” This is the concept that some sites like whitehouse.gov have important information that must be in search results. Non-priority sites just disappear or fade. Eventually the users won’t know something is missing, which is assisted by the decline in education for some Google users. The top one percent knows bad or missing information. The other 99 percent? Well, good luck.
Third, the change means that publishers will have some options. [a] They can block Google’s spider and chase the options. How’s Yandex.ru sound? [b] They can buy advertising and move forward. I suggest these publishers ask a Google advertising representative what the minimum spend is to get traffic. [c] Publishers can join together and try to come up with a joint effort to resist the increasingly aggressive business actions of Google. Do you have a Google button on your remote? Well, you will. [d] Be innovative. Yeah, no comment.
Net net: This item about the impact of AI Overviews is important. Just consider what Google gains and the pickle publishers and other Web sites now find themselves enjoying.
Stephen E Arnold, May 12, 2025
Microsoft AI: Little Numbers and Mucho Marketing
May 10, 2025
No AI. Just a dinobaby who gets revved up with buzzwords and baloney.
I am confused. The big AI outfits have spent and are spending big bucks on [a] marketing, [b] data centers, [c] marketing, [d] chips, [e] reorganizations, and [f] marketing. I think I have the main cost centers, but I may have missed one. Yeah, I did. Marketing.
Has the AI super machine run into some problems? Thanks, MidJourney, you were online today unlike OpenAI.
What is AI doing? It is definitely selling consulting services. Some wizards are using it to summarize documents because that takes a human time to do. You know: Reading, taking notes, then capturing the juicy bits. Let AI do that. And customer support? Yes, much cheaper some say than paying humans to talk to a mere customer.
Imagine my surprise when I read “Microsoft’s Big AI Hire Can’t Match OpenAI.” Microsoft’s AI leader among AI leaders, according to the write up, “hasn’t delivered the turnaround he was hired to bring.” Microsoft caught the Google by surprise a couple of years ago, caused a Googley Code Red or Yellow or whatever, and helped launch the “AI is the next big thing innovators have been waiting for.”
The write up asserts:
At Microsoft’s annual executive huddle last month, the company’s chief financial officer, Amy Hood, put up a slide that charted the number of users for its Copilot consumer AI tool over the past year. It was essentially a flat line, showing around 20 million weekly users. On the same slide was another line showing ChatGPT’s growth over the same period, arching ever upward toward 400 million weekly users. OpenAI’s iconic chatbot was soaring, while Microsoft’s best hope for a mass-adoption AI tool was idling.
Keep in mind that Google suggested it had 1.5 billion users of its Gemini service, and (I think) Google implied that its AI is the quantumly supreme smart software. I may have that wrong and Google’s approach just wins chess, creates new drugs, and suggests that one can glue cheese on pizza. I may have these achievements confused, but I am an 80 year old dinobaby and easily confused these days.
The write up also contains some information I found a bit troubling; to wit:
And at this point, Microsoft is just not in the running to build a model that can compete with the best from OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, and even xAI. The projects that people have mentioned to me feel incremental, as opposed to leapfrogging the competition.
One can argue that Microsoft does not have to be in the big leagues. The company usually takes three or more releases to get a feature working. (How about those printers that don’t work?) The number of Softie software users is big. Put the new functionality in a release and — bingo! — market leadership. That SharePoint is a wonderful content management system. Just ask some of the security team in the Israeli military struggling with a “squadron” fumble.
Several observations:
- Microsoft’s dialing back some data center action may be a response to the under performance of its AI is the future push. If not, then maybe Microsoft has just pulled a Bob or a Clippy?
- I am not sure that the payoffs for other AI leaders’ investments are going to grab the brass ring or produce a winning lottery ticket. So many people desperately want AI to deliver dump trucks of gold dust to their cubicles that the neediness is palpable. AI is — it must be — the next big thing.
- Users are finding that for some use cases, AI is definitely a winner. College students use it to make more free time for hanging out and using TikTok-type services. Law firms find that AI is good enough to track down obscure cases that can be used in court as long as a human who knows the legal landscape checks the references before handing them over to a judge who can use an ATM machine and a mobile phone for voice calls. For many applications, the hallucination issue looms large.
- China’s free smart software models work reasonably well and have ignited such diverse applications as automated pig butchering and proving that cheaper CPUs and GPUs work in a “good enough” way just for less money.
I don’t want to pick on Microsoft, but I want to ask a question, “Is this the first of the big technology companies hungry and thirsty for the next big thing starting to find out that AI may not deliver?”
Stephen E Arnold, May 13, 2025
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