Is This Correct? Google Sues to Protect Copyright
December 30, 2025
Another dinobaby post. No AI unless it is an image. This dinobaby is not Grandma Moses, just Grandpa Arnold.
This headline stopped me in my tracks: “Google Lawsuit Says Data Scraping Company Uses Fake Searches to Steal Web Content.” The way my dinobaby brain works, I expect to see a publisher taking the world’s largest online advertising outfit in the crosshairs. But I trust Thomson Reuters because they tell me they are the trust outfit.
Google apparently cannot stop a third party from scraping content from its Web site. Is this SEO outfit operating at a level of sophistication beyond the ken of Mandiant, Gemini, and the third-party cyber tools the online giant has? Must be I guess. Thanks, Venice.ai. Good enough.
The alleged copyright violator in this case seems to be one of those estimable, highly professional firms engaged in search engine optimization. Those are the folks Google once saw as helpful to the sale of advertising. After all, if a Web site is not in a Google search result, that Web site does not exist. Therefore, to get traffic or clicks, the Web site “owner” can buy Google ads and, of course, make the Web site Google compliant. Maybe the estimable SEO professional will continue to fiddle and doctor words in a tireless quest to eliminate the notion of relevance in Google search results.
Now an SEO outfit is on the wrong site of what Google sees as the law. The write up says:
Google on Friday [December 19, 2025] sued a Texas company that “scrapes” data from online search results, alleging it uses hundreds of millions of fake Google search requests to access copyrighted material and “take it for free at an astonishing scale. The lawsuit against SerpApi, filed in federal court in California, said the company bypassed Google’s data protections to steal the content and sell it to third parties.
To be honest the phrase “astonishing scale” struck me as somewhat amusing. Google itself operates on “astonishing scale.” But what is good for the goose is obviously not good for the gander.
I asked You.com to provide some examples of people suing Google for alleged copyright violations. The AI spit out a laundry list. Here are four I sort of remembered:
- News Outlets & Authors v. Google (AI Training Copyright Cases)
- Google Users v. Google LLC (Privacy/Data Class Action with Copyright Claims)
- Advertisers v. Google LLC (Advertising Content Class Action)
- Oracle America, Inc. v. Google LLC
My thought is that with some experience in copyright litigation, Google is probably confident that the SEO outfit broke the law. I wanted to word it “broke the law which suits Google” but I am not sure that is clear.
Okay, which company will “win.” An SEO firm with resources slightly less robust than Google’s or Google?
Place your bet on one of the online gambling sites advertising everywhere at this time. Oh, Google permits online gambling ads in areas allowing gambling and with appropriate certifications, licenses, and compliance functions.
I am not sure what to make of this because Google’s ability to filter, its smart software, and its security procedures obviously are either insufficient, don’t work, or are full of exploitable gaps.
Stephen E Arnold, December 30, 2025
Way to Go, Waymo: The Non-Googley Drivers Are Breaking the Law
December 26, 2025
Another dinobaby post. No AI unless it is an image. This dinobaby is not Grandma Moses, just Grandpa Arnold.
To be honest I like to capture Googley moments in the real world. Forget the outputs of Google’s wonderful Web search engine. (Hey, where did those pages of links go?) The Google-reality interface is a heck of lot more fun.
Consider this article, which I assume like everything I read on the Internet, to be rock solid capital T truth. “Waymo Spotted Driving Wrong Way Down Busy Street.” The write up states as actual factual:
This week, one of Waymo’s fully driverless cabs was spotted blundering down the wrong side of a street in Austin, Texas, causing the human motorists driving in the correct direction to cautiously come to a halt, not unlike hikers encountering a bear.
That was no bear. That was a little Googzilla. These creatures, regardless of physical manifestation, operate by a set of rules and cultural traditions understandable only to those who have been in the Google environment.
Thanks to none of the AI image generators. I had to use three smart software to create a pink car driving the wrong way on a one way street. Great proof of a tiny problem with today’s best: ChatGPT, Venice, and MidJourney. Keep up the meh work.
The cited article continues:
The incident was captured in footage uploaded to Reddit. For a split second, it shows the Waymo flash its emergency signal, before switching to its turn signal. The robotaxi then turns in the opposite direction indicated by its blinker and pulls into a gas station, taking its sweet time.
I beg to differ. Google does not operate on “sweet time.” Google time is a unique way to move toward its ultimate goal: Humans realizing that they are in the path of a little Googzilla. Therefore, adapt to the Googleplex. The Googleplex does not adapt to humanoids. Humanoids click and buy things. Google facilitates this by allowing humanoids to ride in little Googzilla vehicles and absorb Google advertisements.
The write up illustrates that it fails to grasp the brilliance of the Googzilla’s smart software; to wit:
Waymo recalled a software patch after its robotaxis were caught blowing past stopped school buses with active warning lights and stop signs, including at least one incident where a Waymo drove right by students who were disembarking. Twenty of these incidents were reported in Austin alone, MySA noted, prompting the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to open an investigation into the company. It’s not just school buses: the cabs don’t always stop for law enforcement, either. Earlier this month, a Waymo careened into an active police standoff, driving just a few feet away from a suspect who was lying facedown in the asphalt while cops had their guns trained on him.
These examples point out the low level of understanding that exists among the humanoids who consume advertising. Googzilla would replace humanoids if it could, but — for now — big and little Googzillas have to tolerate the inefficient friction humanoids introduce to the Google systems.
Let’s recap:
- Humans fail to understand Google rules
- Examples of Waymo “failures” identify the specific weaknesses Gemini can correct
- Little Googzillas define traffic rules.
So what if a bodega cat goes to the big urban area with dark alleys in the sky. Study Google and learn.
Stephen E Arnold, December 26, 2025
Google Web Indexing: Some Think It Is Degrading. Impossible
December 25, 2025
Another dinobaby post. No AI unless it is an image. This dinobaby is not Grandma Moses, just Grandpa Arnold.
I think Google’s Web indexing is the cat’s pajamas. It is the best. It has the most Web pages. It digs deep into sites few people visit like the Inter-American Foundation. Searches are quick, especially if you don’t use Gemini which seems to hang in dataspace today (December 12, 2025).
Imagine my reaction when I read that a person using a third-party blog publishing service was de-indexed. Now the pointer is still there, but it is no longer displayed by the esteemed Google system. You can read the human’s version of the issue he encountered in “Google De-Indexed My Entire Bear Blog and I Don’t Know Why.”
Google has brightened the day of a blogger. Google understands advertising. Some other things are bafflers to Googzilla. Thanks, Qwen. Good enough, but you spelled “de-indexed” correctly.
The write up reveals the issue. The human clicked on something and Google just followed its rules. Here’s the “why” from the source document:
On Oct 14, as I was digging around GSC, I noticed that it was telling me that one of the URLs weren’t indexed. I thought that was weird, and not being very familiar with GSC, I went ahead and clicked the “Validate” button. Only after did I realized that URL was the RSS feed subscribe link,
https://blog.james-zhan.com/feed/?type=rss, which wasn’t even a page so it made sense that it hadn’t been indexed, but it was too late and there was no way for me to stop the validation.
The essay explains how Google’s well crafted system responded to this signal to index an invalid url. Google could have taken time to add a message like “Are you sure?” or maybe a statement saying, “Clicking okay will cause de-indexing of the content at the root url.” But Google — with its massive amounts of user behavior data — knows that its interfaces are crystal clear. The vast majority of human Googlers understand what happens when they click on options to delete images from the Google Cloud. Or, when a Gmail user tries to delete old email using the familiar from: command.
But the basic issue is that a human caused the de-indexing.
What’s interesting about the human’s work around is that those actions could be interpreted as a gray or black hat effort to fiddle with Google’s exceptional approach to indexing. Here’s what the human did:
I copied my blog over to a different subdomain (you are on it right now), moved my domain from GoDaddy to Porkbun for URL forwarding, and set up URL forwarding with paths so any blog post URLs I posted online will automatically be redirected to the corresponding blog post on this new blog. I also avoided submitting the sitemap of the new blog to GSC. I’m just gonna let Google naturally index the blog this time. Hopefully, this new blog won’t run into the same issue.
I would point out that “hope” is not often an operative concept at the Google.
What’s interesting about this essay about a human error is that it touched a nerve amongst the readers of Hacker News. Here a few comments about this human error:
- PrairieFire offers this gentle observation: “Whether or not this specific author’s blog was de-indexed or de-prioritized, the issue this surfaces is real and genuine. The real issue at hand here is that it’s difficult to impossible to discover why, or raise an effective appeal, when one runs afoul of Google, or suspects they have. I shudder to use this word as I do think in some contexts it’s being overused, I think it’s the best word to use here though: the issue is really that Google is a Gatekeeper.
- FuturisticLover is a bit more direct: “Google search results have gone sh*t. I am facing some deindexing issues where Google is citing a content duplicate and picking a canonical URL itself, despite no similar content. Just the open is similar, but the intent is totally different, and so is the focus keyword. Not facing this issue in Bing and other search engines.
- Aldipower raises a question about excellence and domination of Web search technology: Yeah, Google search results are almost useless. How could they have neglected their core competence so badly?
Several observations are warranted:
- Don’t click on any Google button unless one does one’s homework. Interpreting Google speak without having fluency in the lingo can result in some interesting downstream consequences
- Google is unlikely to change due to its incentive programs. One does not get promoted for fixing up an statement that could lead to a site being removed from public view. One gets the brass ring for doing AI which hopefully works more reliably that Gemini today (December 12, 2025)
- Quite a few people posting to this Hacker News’ item don’t have the same level of affection I have for the scintillating Google search experience.
Net net: Get with the program. The courts have spoken in the US. The EU just collects money. Users consume ads. Adapt. My suggestion is to not screw around too much; otherwise, Bear Blogs might be de-indexed by an annoyed search administrator in Switzerland.
Stephen E Arnold, December 25, 2025
The Google Has a New Sheep Herder: An AI Boss to Nip at the Heels of the AI Beasties
December 17, 2025
Another dinobaby post. No AI unless it is an image. This dinobaby is not Grandma Moses, just Grandpa Arnold.
Staffing turmoil appears to be the end-of-year trend in some Silicon Valley outfits. Apple is spitting out executives. Meta is thrashing. OpenAI is doing the Code Red alert thing amidst unsettled wizards. And, today I learned that Google has a chief technologist for AI infrastructure. I think that means data centers, but it could extend some oversight to the new material science lab in the UK that will use AI (of course) to invent new materials. “Exclusive / Google Names New Chief of AI Infrastructure Buildout” reports:
Amin Vahdat, who joined Google from academia roughly 15 years ago, will be named chief technologist for AI infrastructure, according to the memo, and become one of 15 to 20 people reporting directly to CEO Sundar Pichai. Google estimates it will have spent more than $90 billion on capital expenditures by the end of 2025, most of it going into the part of the company Vahdat will now oversee.
The sheep dog attempts to herd the little data center doggies away from environmental issues, infrastructure inconsistencies, and roll-your-own engineering. Woof. Thanks, Venice.ai. Close enough for horseshoes.
I read this as making clear the following:
- Google spent “more than $90 billion” on infrastructure in 2025
- No one was paying attention to this investment
- For 2025, a former academic steeped in Googliness will herd the sheep in 2026.
I assume that is part of the McKinsey way, Fire, Aim, Ready! Dinobabies like me with some blue chip consulting experience feel slightly more comfortable with the old school Ready, Aim, Fire! But the world today is different from the one I traveled through decades ago. Nostalgia does not cut it in the “we have to win AI” business environment today.
Here’s a quote making clear that planning and organizing were not part of the 2025 check writing. I quote:
“This change establishes AI Infrastructure as a key focus area for the company,” wrote Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian in the Wednesday memo congratulating Vahdat.
The cited article puts this sheep herder in context:
In August, Google disclosed in a paper co-authored by Vahdat that the amount of energy used to run the median prompt on its AI models was equivalent to watching less than nine seconds of television and consuming five drops of water. The numbers were far less than what some critics had feared and competitors had likely hoped for. There’s no single answer for how to best run an AI data center. It’s small, coordinated efforts across disparate teams that span the globe. The job of coordinating it all now has an official title.
See and understand. The power consumption for the Google AI data centers is trivial. The Google can plug these puppies into the local power grid, nip at the heels of the people who complain about rising electricity prices and brown outs, and nuzzle the folks who:
- Promise small, local nuclear power generation facilities. No problems with licensing, component engineering, and nuclear waste. Trivialities.
- Repurposed jet engines from a sort of real supersonic jet source. Noise? No problem. Heat? No problem. Emission control? No problem.
- Brand spanking new pressurized water reactors built by the old school nuclear crowd. No problem. Time? No problem. The new folks are accelerationists.
- Recommissioning turned off (deactivated) nuclear power stations. No problem. Costs? No problem. Components? No problem. Environmental concerns? Absolutely no problem.
Google is tops in strategic planning and technology. It should be. It crafted its expertise selling advertising. AI infrastructure is a piece of cake. I think sheep dogs herding AI can do the job which apparently was not done for more than a year. When a problem becomes to big to ignore, restructure. Grrr or Woof, not Yipe, little herder.
Stephen E Arnold, December 17, 2025
Google: Trying Hard Not to Be Noticed in a Crypto Club
December 16, 2025
Another dinobaby post. No AI unless it is an image. This dinobaby is not Grandma Moses, just Grandpa Arnold.
Google continues to creep into crypto. Google has interacted with ANT Financial. Google has invested in some interesting compute services. And now Google will, if “Exclusive: YouTube Launches Option for U.S. Creators to Receive Stablecoin Payouts through PayPal” is on the money, give crypto a whirl among its creators.
A friendly creature warms up in a yoga studio. Few notice the suave green beast. But one person spots a subtle touch: Pink gym shoes purchased with PayPal crypto. Such a deal. Thanks, Venice.ai. Good enough.
The Fortune article reports as actual factual:
A spokesperson for Google, which owns YouTube, confirmed the video site has added payouts for creators in PayPal’s stablecoin but declined to comment further. YouTube is already an existing customer of PayPal’s and uses the fintech giant’s payouts service, which helps large enterprises pay gig workers and contractors.
How does this work?
Based on the research we did for our crypto lectures, a YouTuber in the US would have to have a PayPal account. Google puts the payment in PayPal’s crypto in the account. The YouTuber would then use PayPal to convert PayPal crypto into US dollars. Then the YouTuber could move the US dollars to his or her US bank account. Allegedly there would be no gas fee slapped on the transactions, but there is an opportunity to add service charges at some point. (I mean what self respecting MBA angling for a promotion wouldn’t propose that money making idea?)
Several observations:
- In my new monograph “The Telegram Labyrinth” available only to law enforcement officials, we identified Google as one of the firms moving in what we call the “Telegram direction.” The Google crypto creeps plus PayPal reinforce that observation. Why? Money and information.
- Information about how Google’s activities in crypto will conform to assorted money related rules and regulations are not clear to me. Furthermore as we completed our “The Telegram Labyrinth” research in early September 2025, not too many people were thinking about Google as a crypto player. But that GOOGcoin does seem like something even the lowest level wizard at Alphabet could envision, doesn’t it?
- Google has a track record of doing what it wants. Therefore, in my opinion, more little tests, baby steps, and semi-low profile moves probably are in the wild. Hopefully someone will start looking.
Net net: Google does do pretty much what it wants to do. From gaining new training data from its mobile-to-ear-bud translation service to expanding its AI capabilities with its new silicon, the Google is a giant creature doing some low impact exercises. When the Google shifts to lifting big iron, a number of interesting challenges will arise. Are regulators ready? Are online fraud investigators ready? Is Microsoft ready?
What’s your answer?
Stephen E Arnold, December 16, 2025
Ka-Ching: The EU Cash Registers Tolls for the Google
December 16, 2025
Another dinobaby post. No AI unless it is an image. This dinobaby is not Grandma Moses, just Grandpa Arnold.
Thomson Reuters, the trust outfit because they say the company is, published another ka-ching story titled “Exclusive: Google Faces Fines Over Google Play if It Doesn’t Make More Concessions, Sources Say.” The story reports:
Alphabet’s Google is set to be hit with a potentially large EU fine early next year if it does not do more to ensure that its app store complies with EU rules aimed at ensuring fair access and competition, people with direct knowledge of the matter said.
An elected EU official introduces the new and permanent member of the parliament. Thanks, Venice.ai. Not exactly what I specified, but saving money on compute cycles is the name of the game today. Good enough.
I can hear the “Sorry. We’re really, really sorry” statement now. I can even anticipate the sequence of events; hence and herewith:
- Google says, “We believe we have complied.”
- The EU says, “Pay up.”
- Google says, “Let’s go to trial.”
- The EU says, “Fine with us.”
- The Google says, “We are innocent and have complied.”
- The EU says, “You are guilty and owe $X millions of dollars. (Note: The EU generates more revenue by fining US big tech companies than it does from certain tax streams I have heard.)
- The Google says, “Let’s negotiate.”
- The EU says, “Fine with us.”
- Google negotiates and says, “We have a deal plus we did nothing wrong.”
- The EU says, “Pay X millions less the Y millions we agree to deduct based on our fruitful negotiations.”
The actual factual article says:
DMA fines can be as much as 10% of a company’s global annual revenue. The Commission has also charged Google with favoring its associated search services in Google Search, and is investigating its use of online content for its artificial intelligence tools and services and its spam policy.
My interpretation of this snippet is that the EU has on deck another case of Google’s alleged law breaking. This is predictable, and the approach does generate revenue from companies with lots of cash.
Stephen E Arnold, December 16, 2025
Do Not Mess with the Mouse, Google
December 15, 2025
Another dinobaby post. No AI unless it is an image. This dinobaby is not Grandma Moses, just Grandpa Arnold.
“Google Removes AI Videos of Disney Characters After Cease and Desist Letter” made me visualize an image of Godzilla which I sometimes misspell as Googzilla frightened of a mouse; specifically, a quite angry Mickey. Why?
A mouse causes a fearsome creature to jump on the kitchen chair. Who knew a mouse could roar? Who knew the green beast would listen? Thanks, Qwen. Your mouse does not look like one of Disney’s characters. Good for you.
The write up says:
Google has removed dozens of AI-generated videos that depicted Disney-owned characters after receiving a cease and desist letter from the studio on Wednesday. Disney flagged the YouTube links to the videos in its letter, and demanded that Google remove them immediately.
What adds an interesting twist to this otherwise ho hum story about copyright viewed as an old-fashioned concept is that Walt Disney invested in OpenAI and worked out a deal for some OpenAI customers to output Disney-okayed images. (How this will work out at prompt wizards try to put Minnie, Snow White, and probably most of the seven dwarves in compromising situations I don’t know. (If I were 15 years old, I would probably experiment to find a way to generate an image involving Price Charming and the Lion King in a bus station facility violating one another and the law. But now? Nah, I don’t care what Disney, ChatGPT users, and AI do. Have at it.)
The write up says that Google said:
“We have a longstanding and mutually beneficial relationship with Disney, and will continue to engage with them,” the company said. “More generally, we use public data from the open web to build our AI and have built additional innovative copyright controls like Google-extended and Content ID for YouTube, which give sites and copyright holders control over their content.”
Yeah, how did that work out when YouTube TV subscribers lost access to some Disney content. Then, Google asked users who paid for content and did not get it to figure out how to sign up to get the refund. Yep, beneficial.
Something caused the Google to jump on a kitchen chair when the mouse said, “See you in court. Bring your checkbook.”
I thought Google was too big to obey any entity other than its own mental confections. I was wrong again. When will the EU find a mouse-type tactic?
Stephen E Arnold, December 15, 2025
Can Sergey Brin Manage? Maybe Not?
December 12, 2025
True Reason Sergey Used “Super Voting Power”
Yuchen Jin, the CTO and co-founder of Hyperbolic Labs posted on X about recent situation at Google. According topmost, Sergey Brin was disappointed in how Google was using Gemini. The AI algorithm, in fact, wasn’t being used for coding and Sergey wanted it to be used for that.
It created a big tiff. Sergey told Sundar that, “I can’t deal with these people. You have to deal with this.” Sergey still owns Google and has super voting power. Translation: he can do whatever he darn well pleases with his own company.
Yuchin Jin summed it up well:
“Big companies always build bureaucracy. Sergey (and Larry) still have super voting power, and he used it to cut through the BS. Suddenly Google is moving like a startup again. Their AI went from “way behind” to “easily #1” across domains in a year.”
Congratulations to Google making a move that other Big Tech companies knew to make without the intervention of founder.
Google would have eventually shifted to using Gemini for coding. Sergey’s influence only sped it up. The bigger question is if this “tiff” indicates something else. Big companies do have bureaucracies but if older workers have retired, then that means new blood is needed. The current new blood is Gen Z and they are as despised as Millennials once were.
I think this means Sergey cannot manage young tech workers either. He had to turn to the “consultant” to make things happen. It’s quite the admission from a Big Tech leader.
Whitney Grace, December 12, 2025
Google Data Slurps: Never, Ever
December 11, 2025
Here’s another lie from Googleland via Techspot, “Google Denies Gmail Reads Your Emails And Attachments To Train AI, But Here’s How To Opt-Out Anyway.” Google claims that it doesn’t use emails and attachments to train AI, but we know that’s false. Google correctly claims that it uses user-generation data for personalization of their applications, like Gmail. We all know that’s a workaround to use that data for other purposes.
The article includes instructions on how to opt out of information being used to train AI and “personalize” experiences. Gmail users, however, have had bad experiences with that option, including the need to turn the feature off multiple times.
Google claims it is committed to privacy but:
“Google has flatly denied using user content to train Gemini, noting that Gmail has offered some of these features for many years. However, the Workspace menu refers to newly added Gemini functionality several times.
The company also denied automatically modifying user permissions, but some people have reported needing multiple attempts to turn off smart features.”
There’s also security vulnerabilities:
“In addition to raising privacy concerns, Gmail’s AI functionality has exposed serious vulnerabilities. In March, Mozilla found that attackers could easily inject prompts that would cause the client’s AI generated summaries to become phishing messages.”
Imagine that one little digital switch protects your privacy and data. Methinks it is a placebo effect. Whitney Grace, December 11, 2025
Google Gemini Hits Copilot with a Dang Block: Oomph
December 10, 2025
Another dinobaby post. No AI unless it is an image. This dinobaby is not Grandma Moses, just Grandpa Arnold.
Smart software is finding its way into interesting places. One of my newsfeeds happily delivered “The War Department Unleashes AI on New GenAI.mil Platform.” Please, check out the original document because it contains some phrasing which is difficult for a dinobaby to understand. Here’s an example:
The War Department today announced the launch of Google Cloud’s Gemini for Government as the first of several frontier AI capabilities to be housed on GenAI.mil, the Department’s new bespoke AI platform.
There are a number of smart systems with government wide contracts. Is the Google Gemini deal just one of the crowd or is it the cloud over the other players? I am not sure what a “frontier” capability is when it comes to AI. The “frontier” of AI seems to be shifting each time a performance benchmark comes out from a GenX consulting firm or when a survey outfit produces a statement that QWEN accounts for 30 percent of AI involving an open source large language model. The idea of a “bespoke AI platform” is fascinating. Is it like a suit tailored on Oxford Street or a vehicle produced by Chip Foose, or is it one of those enterprise software systems with extensive customization? Maybe like an IBM government systems solution?
Thanks, Google. Good enough. I wanted square and you did horizontal, but that’s okay. I understand.
And that’s just the first sentence. You are now officially on your own.
For me, the big news is that the old Department of Defense loved PowerPoint. If you have bumped into any old school Department of Defense professionals, the PowerPoint is the method of communication. Sure, there’s Word and Excel. But the real workhorse is PowerPoint. And now that old nag has Copilot inside.
The way I read this news release is that Google has pulled a classic blocking move or dang. Microsoft has been for decades the stallion in the stall. Now, the old nag has some competition from Googzilla, er, excuse me, Google. Word of this deal was floating around for several months, but the cited news release puts Microsoft in general and Copilot in particular on notice that it is no longer the de facto solution to a smart Department of War’s digital needs. Imagine a quarter century after screwing up a big to index the US government servers, Google has emerged as a “winner” among “several frontier AI capabilities” and will reside on “the Department’s new bespoke AI platform.”
This is big news for Google and Microsoft, its certified partners, and, of course, the PowerPoint users at the DoW.
The official document says:
The first instance on GenAI.mil, Gemini for Government, empowers intelligent agentic workflows, unleashes experimentation, and ushers in an AI-driven culture change that will dominate the digital battlefield for years to come. Gemini for Government is the embodiment of American AI excellence, placing unmatched analytical and creative power directly into the hands of the world’s most dominant fighting force.
But what about Sage, Seerist, and the dozens of other smart platforms? Obviously these solutions cannot deliver “intelligent agentic workflows” or unleash the “AI driven culture change” needed for the “digital battlefield.” Let’s hope so. Because some of those smart drones from a US firm have failed real world field tests in Ukraine. Perhaps the smart drone folks can level up instead of doing marketing?
I noted this statement:
The Department is providing no-cost training for GenAI.mil to all DoW employees. Training sessions are designed to build confidence in using AI and give personnel the education needed to realize its full potential. Security is paramount, and all tools on GenAI.mil are certified for Controlled Unclassified Information (CUI) and Impact Level 5 (IL5), making them secure for operational use. Gemini for Government provides an edge through natural language conversation, retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), and is web-grounded against Google Search to ensure outputs are reliable and dramatically reduces the risk of AI hallucinations.
But wait, please. I thought Microsoft and Palantir were doing the bootcamps, demonstrating, teaching, and then deploying next generation solutions. Those forward deployed engineers and the Microsoft certified partners have been beavering away for more than a year. Who will be doing the training? Will it be Googlers? I know that YouTube has some useful instructional videos, but those are from third parties. Google’s training is — how shall I phrase it — less notable than some of its other capabilities like publicizing its AI prowess.
The last paragraph of the document does not address the questions I have, but it does have a stentorian ring in my opinion:
GenAI.mil is another building block in America’s AI revolution. The War Department is unleashing a new era of operational dominance, where every warfighter wields frontier AI as a force multiplier. The release of GenAI.mil is an indispensable strategic imperative for our fighting force, further establishing the United States as the global leader in AI.
Several observations:
- Google is now getting its chance to put Microsoft in its place from inside the Department of War. Maybe the Copilot can come along for the ride, but it could be put on leave.
- The challenge of training is interesting. Training is truly a big deal, and I am curious how that will be handled. The DoW has lots of people to teach about the capabilities of Gemini AI.
- Google may face some push back from its employees. The company has been working to stop the Googlers from getting out of the company prescribed lanes. Will this shift to warfighting create some extra work for the “leadership” of that estimable company? I think Google’s management methods will be exercised.
Net net: Google knows about advertising. Does it have similar capabilities in warfighting?
Stephen E Arnold, December 10, 2025
-
- Subscribe to Beyond Search
Feature archive
News archive
-
