Vint Cerf: Explaining Why Google Is Scrambling
May 9, 2023
Note: This essay is the work of a real and still-alive dinobaby. No smart software involved, just a dumb humanoid.
One thing OpenAI’s ChatGPT legions of cheerleaders cannot do is use Dr. Vint Cerf as the pointy end of a PR stick. I recall the first time I met Dr. Cerf. He was the keynote at an obscure conference about search and retrieval. Indeed he took off his jacket. He then unbuttoned his shirt to display a white T shirt with “I TCP on everything.” The crowd laughed — not a Jack Benny 30 second blast of ebullience — but a warm sound.
Midjourney output this illustration capturing Googzilla in a rocking chair in the midst of the snow storm after the Microsoft asteroid strike at Davos. Does the Google look aged? Does the Google look angry? Does the Google do anything but talk in the future and progressive tenses? Of course not. Google is not an old dinosaur. The Google is the king of online advertising which is the apex of technology.
I thought about that moment when I read “Vint Cerf on the Exhilarating Mix of Thrill and Hazard at the Frontiers of Tech: That’s Always an Exciting Place to Be — A Place Where Nobody’s Ever Been Before.’” The interview is a peculiar mix of ignoring the fact that the Google is elegantly managing wizards (some who then terminate themselves by alleging falling or jumping off buildings), trapped in a conveyer belt of increasing expenses related to its plumbing and the maintenance thereof, and watching the fireworks ignited by the ChatGPT emulators. And Google is watching from a back alley, not the front row as I write this. The Google may push its way into the prime viewing zone, but it is OpenAI and a handful of other folks who are assembling the sky rockets and aerial bombs, igniting the fuses, and capturing attention.
Yes, that’s an exciting place to be, but at the moment that is not where Google is. Google is doing big time public relations as outfits like Microsoft expand the zing of smart Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint, and — believe it or not — Excel. Google is close enough to see the bright lights and hear the applause directed at lesser outfits. Google knows it is not the focus of attention. That’s where Vint Cerf’s comes into play on the occasion of winning an award for advancing technology (in general, not just online advertising).
Here are a handful of statements I noticed in the TechMeme “Featured Article” conversation with Dr. Cerf. Note, please, that my personal observations are in italic type in a color similar to that used for Alphabet’s Code Red emergency.
Snip 1: “Sergey has come back to do a little bit more on the artificial intelligence side of things…” Interesting. I interpret this as a college student getting a call to come back home to help out an ailing mom in what some health care workers call “sunset mode.” And Mr. Page? Maintaining a lower profile for non-Googley reasons? See the allegedly accurate report “Virgin Islands issued subpoena to Google co-founder Larry Page in lawsuit against JPMorgan Chase over Jeffrey Epstein.”
Snip 2: “a place where nobody’s ever been before.” I interpret this to mean that the Google is behind the eight ball or between an agile athlete and a team composed of yesterday’s champions or a helicopter pilot vaguely that the opposition is flying a nimble, smart rocket equipped fighter jet. Dinosaurs in rocking chairs watch the snow fall; they do not move to Nice, France.
Snip 3: “Be cautious about going too fast and trying to apply it without figuring out how to put guardrails in place.” How slow did Google go when it was inspired by the GoTo, Overture, and Yahoo ad model, settling for about $1 billion before the IPO? I don’t recall picking up the scent of ceramic brakes applied to the young, frisky, and devil-may-care baby Google. Step on the gas and go faster are the mantras I recall hearing.
Snip 4: “I will say that whenever something gets monetized, you should anticipate there will be emergent properties and possibly unexpected behavior, all driven by greed.” I wonder if the statement is a bit of a Freudian slip. Doesn’t the remark suggest that Google itself has manifested this behavior? It sure does to me, but I am no shrink. Who knew Google’s search-and-advertising business would become the poster reptile for surveillance capitalism?
Snip 5: “I think we are going to have to invest more in provenance and identity in order to evaluate the quality of that which we are experiencing.” Has Mr. Cerf again identified one of the conscious choices made by Google decades ago; that is, ignore date and time stamps for when the content was first spidered, when it was created, and when it was updated. What is the quality associated with the obfuscation of urls for certain content types, and remove a user’s ability to display the “content” the user wants; for example, a query for a bound phrase for an entity like “Amanda Rosenberg.” I also wonder about advertisements which link to certain types of content; for example, health care products or apps with gotcha functionalities.
Several observations:
- Google’s attempts to explain that its going slow is a mature business method for Google is amusing. I would recommend that the gag be included in the Sundar and Prabhakar comedy routine.
- The crafted phrases about guardrails and emergent behaviors do not explain why Google is talking and not doing. Furthermore, the talking is delivered not by users of a ChatGPT infused application. The words are flowing from a person who is no expert in smart software and has a few miles on his odometer as I do.
- The remarks ignore the raw fact that Microsoft dominated headlines with its Davos rocket launch. Google’s search wizards were thinking about cost control, legal hassles, and the embarrassing personnel actions related to smart software and intra-company guerilla skirmishes.
Net net: Read the interview and ask, “Where’s Googzilla now?” My answer is, “Prepping for retirement?”
Stephen E Arnold, May 9, 2023
Google Manager Checklist: What an Amazing Approach from the Online Ad Outfit!
May 8, 2023
Note: This essay is the work of a real and still-alive dinobaby. No smart software involved, just a dumb humanoid. I tagged this write up about the cited story as “News.” I wish I had a suitable term at my disposal because “news” does not capture the essence of the write up in my opinion.
Please, take a moment to read and savor “15 Years Ago, Google Determined the Best Bosses Share These 11 Traits. But 1 Behavior Is Still Missing.” If the title were not a fancy birthday cake, here’s the cherry on top in the form of a subtitle:
While Google’s approach to identifying its best managers is great, it ignores the fact a ‘new’ employee isn’t always new to the company.
Imagine. Google defines new in a way incomprehensible to an observer of outstanding, ethical, exemplary, high-performing commercial enterprises.
What are the traits of a super duper best boss at the Google? In fact, let’s look at each as the traits have been applied in recent Google management actions. You can judge for yourself how the wizards are manifesting “best boss” behavior.
Trait 1. My [Googley] manager gives me “actionable” feedback that helps me improve my performance. Based on my conversations with Google full time employees, communications is not exactly a core competency.
Trait 2. My [Googley] manager does not micro-manage. Based on my personal experience, management of any type is similar to the behavior of the snipe.
Trait 3. My [Googley] manager shows consideration to me as a person. Based on reading about the treatment of folks disagreeing with other Googlers (for instance, Dr. Timnit Gebru), consideration must be defined in a unique Alphabet which I don’t understand.
Trait 4. The actions of [a Googley] manager show that the full time equivalent values the perspective and employee brings to his/her team, even if it is different from his/her own. Wowza. See the Dr. Timnit Gebru reference above or consider the snapshots of Googlers protesting.
Trait 5. [The Googley manager] keeps the team focused on our priority results/deliverables. How about those killed projects, the weird dead end help pages, and the mysteries swirling around ad click fraud allegations?
Trait 6. [The Googley] manager regularly shares relevant information from his/her manager and senior leaders. Yeah, those Friday all-hands meetings now take place when?
Trait 7. [The Googley] manager has had a “meaningful discussion” with me about career development? In my view, terminating people via email when a senior manager gets a $200 million bonus is an outstanding way to stimulate a “meaningful discussion.”
Trait 8. [The Googley] manager communicates clear goals for our team. Absolutely. A good example is the existence of multiple chat apps, cancelation of some moon shots like solving death, and the fertility of the company’s legal department.
Trait 9. [The Googley manager] has technical expertise to manage a professional. Of course, that’s why a Google professional admitted that the AI software was alive and needed a lawyer. The management move of genius was to terminate the wizard. Mental health counseling? Ho ho ho.
Trait 10. [A Googler] recommends a super duper Googley manager to friends? Certainly. That’s what Glassdoor reviews permit. Also, there are posts on social media and oodles of praise opportunities on LinkedIn. The “secret” photographs at an off site? Those are perfect for a Telegram group.
Trait 11. [A true Googler] sees only greatness in Googley managers. Period.
Trait 12. [A Googler] loves Googley managers who are Googley. There is no such thing as too much Googley goodness.
Trait 13. [A Googley manager] does not change, including such actions as overdosing on a yacht with a “special services contractor” or dodging legal documents from a representative of a court or comparable entity from a non US nation state.
This article appears to be a recycling of either a Google science fiction story or a glitch in the matrix.
What’s remarkable is that a well known publication presents the information as substantive. Amazing. I wonder if this “content” is a product of an early version of smart software.
Stephen E Arnold, May 8, 2023
More Fake Drake and a Google Angle
May 5, 2023
Note: This essay is the work of a real and still-alive dinobaby. No smart software involved, just a dumb humanoid.
Copyright law was never designed to address algorithms that can flawlessly mimic artists and writers based on what it learns from the Internet. Absent any more relevant litigation, however, it may be up to the courts to resolve this thorny and rapidly escalating issue. And poor Google, possessor of both YouTube and lofty AI ambitions, is stuck between a rock and a hard place. The Verge reports, “AI Drake Just Set an Impossible Legal Trap for Google.”
To make a winding story short, someone used AI to create a song that sounded eerily like Drake and The Weekend and post it in TikTok. From there it made its way to Apple Music, Spotify, and YouTube. While Apple and Spotify could and did pull the track from their platforms right away, user-generated-content platforms TikTok and Google are bound by established takedown processes that rest on copyright law. And new content generated by AI that mimics humans is not protected by copyright. Yet.
The track was eventually removed on TikTok and YouTube based on an unauthorized sample of a producer tag at the beginning. But what if the song were re-released without that snippet? Publishers now assert that training AI on bodies of artists’ work is itself copyright infringement, and a fake Drake (or Taylor Swift or Tim McGraw) song is therefore a derivative work. Sounds logical to me. But for Google, both agreeing and disagreeing pose problems. Writer Nilay Patel explains:
“So now imagine that you are Google, which on the one hand operates YouTube, and on the other hand is racing to build generative AI products like Bard, which is… trained by scraping tons of data from the internet under a permissive interpretation of fair use that will definitely get challenged in a wave of lawsuits. AI Drake comes along, and Universal Music Group, one of the largest labels in the world, releases a strongly worded statement about generative AI and how its streaming partners need to respect its copyrights and artists. What do you do?
*If Google agrees with Universal that AI-generated music is an impermissible derivative work based on the unauthorized copying of training data, and that YouTube should pull down songs that labels flag for sounding like their artists, it undercuts its own fair use argument for Bard and every other generative AI product it makes — it undercuts the future of the company itself.
*If Google disagrees with Universal and says AI-generated music should stay up because merely training an AI with existing works is fair use, it protects its own AI efforts and the future of the company, but probably triggers a bunch of future lawsuits from Universal and potentially other labels, and certainly risks losing access to Universal’s music on YouTube, which puts YouTube at risk.”
Quite the conundrum. And of course, it is not just music. YouTube is bound to face similar issues with movies, TV shows, news, podcasts, and other content. Patel notes creators and their publishers are highly motivated to wage this fight because, for them, it is a fight to the potential death of their industries. Will Google sacrifice the currently lucrative YouTube or its potentially more profitable AI aspirations?
Cynthia Murrell, May 5, 2023
Google Smart Software: Lawyers to the Rescue
May 2, 2023
The article “Beginning of the End of OpenAI” in Analytics India raised an interesting point about Google’s smart software. The essay suggests that a legal spat over a trademark for “GPT” could allow Google to make a come-from-behind play in the generative software race. I noted this passage:
A lot of product names appear with the term ‘GPT’ in it. Now, if OpenAI manages to get its trademark application decided in favour, all of these applications would have to change their name, and ultimately not look appealing to customers.
Flip this idea to “if Google wins…”, OpenAI could — note “could” — face a fleet of Google legal eagles and the might of Google’s prescient, forward forward, quantumly supreme marketing army.
What about useful products, unbiased methods of generating outputs, and slick technology? Wait. I know the answer. “That stuff is secondary to our new core competency. The outputs of lawyers and marketing specialists.”
Stephen E Arnold May 2, 2023
Gmail: An Example of Control Addiction
May 1, 2023
Note: This essay is the work of a real and still-alive dinobaby. No smart software involved, just a dumb humanoid.
I read “Is Gmail Killing Independent Email?” The main idea for the essay by an outfit called Tutanota is to answer the question with a reasonably well-reasoned, “Yes.” I am not going to work through the headaches caused by Google’s spam policies. Instead I want to present one statement from the write up and invite you to consider it in the content of “control addiction.”
I circled one statement which illustrates how Alphabet responds to what I call “control addiction.” My definition of the term is that a firm in a position of power wants more power because it validates the company plus it creates revenue opportunities via lock in. Addicts generally feel compelled to keep buying from their supplier I believe.
Is it okay that Gmail has the power to decide whether a business is sending spam or not? At the very least, Gmail support team should have listened to the company and looked into the issue to fix it. If Google is not willing to do this, it is just another sign of how Google can abuse their market power and hinder smaller services or – in this case – self-hosting emails, limiting the options people and businesses have when they want that their emails are reliably received by Gmail.
Several observations:
- Getting a human at Google is possible; however, some sort of positive relationship with a Googler of influence is necessary in my experience.
- That Googler may not know what to do about the problem. Command-and-control at the Alphabet, Google, YouTube construct is — how shall I phrase it? — quantumly supreme. The idea is that procedures and staff responsible for something wink in an out of existence without warning and change state following the perturbations of mysterious dynamical forces.
- Google is not into customer service, user service, or any other type of other directed service unless it benefits the Googler involved.
Net net: Decades of regulatory floundering have made life cushy for Googlers. Some others? Yeah, not so much.
Stephen E Arnold, May 1, 2023
Google: Timing Is Everything
April 28, 2023
Note: This short blog post is the work of a real and still-alive dinobaby. No smart software involved, just a dumb humanoid.
Alphabet or the bastion of excellent judgment in matters of management captured headlines in the Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, the Financial Times, yada yada. My hunch is that you think Google has knocked the socks off the smart software world. Wrong. Maybe Google has introduced an unbeatable approach to online advertising? Wrong. Perhaps you think that Google has rolled out a low-cost, self-driving vehicle? Sorry, wrong.
In the midst of layoffs, lawsuits, and the remarkable market reach of OpenAI, Google’s most recent brilliant move is the release of information abut a big payday for Sundar Pichai. The Reuters’ story “Alphabet CEO Pichai reaps Over $200 Million in 2022 Amid Cost-Cutting” reported:
The pay disparity comes at a time when Alphabet, the parent company of Google, has been cutting jobs globally, The Mountain View, California-based company announced plans to cut 12,000 jobs around the world in January [2023], equivalent to 6% of its global workforce.
Google employees promptly fouled traffic as protestors mumbled and shouted algorithms at the company.
Alphabet’s Board of Directors is quite tolerant and pleased with one half of the Sundar and Prabhakar Comedy Duo. The Paris Bard show which sucked more value than the Ticketmaster and Taylor Swift swizzle. Then the Google management wizards fired people. With Microsoft releasing smart software on a weekly cadence, Mr. Pichai’s reward for a job well done makes headlines.
Timing is everything.
Stephen E Arnold, April 28, 2023
Google Innovates in Smart Software: A Reorganization
April 28, 2023
Note: This essay is the work of a real and still-alive dinobaby. No smart software involved, just a dumb humanoid.
Someone once told me that it takes six months for staff to adjust to a reorganization. Is this a bit of folklore. Nope, I just think the six month estimate is dead wrong. I think it takes longer, often a year or more to integrate two units of the same company. How do I know? I watched Halliburton take over Nuclear Utility Services. Then I watched Bell + Howell take over the Courier Journal’s database publishing unit. Finally, I have quite direct memories of not being able to find much of anything when we last moved.
Now the Alphabet Google thing is addressing its marketing problem with a reorganization. I learned this by reading “Announcing Google DeepMind.” The write up by a founder of DeepMind says:
Sundar is announcing that DeepMind and the Brain team from Google Research will be joining forces as a single, focused unit called Google DeepMind. Combining our talents and efforts will accelerate our progress towards a world in which AI helps solve the biggest challenges facing humanity…
Not a word about catching up with Microsoft’s Bing ChatGPT marketing, not a peep about the fast cycle integration of orchestration software across discrete ChatGPT-type functions, and not a whisper about why Google is writing about what is to happen.
What’s my take on this Code Red or Red Alert operational status which required the presence of Messrs. Brin and Page?
- Google is demonstrating that a reorganization will address the Microsoft ChatGPT marketing. A reorganization and a close partnership among Sundar [Pichai], Jeff Dean, James Manyika, and Demis [Hassabis]? Okay.
- Google announced quantum supremacy, its protein folding breakthrough, and the game playing ability of its smart software. Noble achievements, but Microsoft is pushing smart Bing into keyboards. That’s one way to get Android and iPhone users’ attention. Will it work for Microsoft? Probably not, but it is something visible.
- Google is simply not reacting. A baby ecosystem is growing up around Midjourney. I learned about unprompt.ai. The service provides a search and point-to-get the prompt service. When I saw this service, I realized that ChatGPT may be morphing in ways that any simple Web search engine could implement. For Google, deploying the service would be trivial. The problem is that reorgs don’t pay much attention outside of the fox hole in which senior management prefers to dwell.
Net net: Google is too big and has too much money to concede. However, the ChatGPT innovation off road vehicle is zipping along. Google is organizing the wizards who will on Google’s glitzy glamping rig. ChatGPT is hitting the rocks and crawling over obstacles. The Google machine is in a scenic observation point with a Pebble Beach-type of view. What’s the hurry? Google is moving… with a reorg.
Stephen E Arnold, April 28, 2023
The Google: A Digital Knife Twisted after Stabbing
April 27, 2023
This essay is the work of a real, still-living dinobaby. No smart software involved.
Brian Lee captures a personal opinion with the somewhat misleading title “Why Does Did Google Brain Exist?” To be fair, the typographic trope of striking out the “does” makes it clear that something changed in the GOOD’s smart software theme park. The lights on one thrill ride seem to have been turned off. Shadows flicker across other attractions, and it is not clear if maintenance is making repairs or if the shows are changing.
The article offers an analysis of the shotgun marriage of Google Brain with DeepMind. I heard the opening notes of “Duelling Banjos” from the 1972 film Deliverance. Instead of four city slickers floating on a raft, the theme accentuates the drama of similar but culturally different digital cruises on Alphabet’s river of cash.
I agree with most of the points presented in the article; for example, presenting “research” as a pretense for amping advertising revenue, the “hubris” of Google, and Google’s effort to be the big dog in smart software. Instead of offering snippets, I recommend that you read Mr. Lee’s essay.
I do want to quote what I think is the twisting of the knife after stabbing Googzilla in the heart. Mr. Lee shoves the knife deeper and pushed it side to side:
Despite Brain’s tremendous value creation from its early funding of open-ended ML research, it is becoming increasingly apparent to Google that it does not know how to capture that value. Google is of course not obligated to fund open-ended research, but it will nevertheless be a sad day for researchers and for the world if Google turns down its investments. Google is already a second-mover in many consumer and business product offerings and it seems like that’s the way it will be in ML research as well. I hope that Google at least does well at being second place.
The message is clear: The train carrying the company’s top acts has stalled on the way to big show. No longer getting top billing, the Sundar and Prabhakar Act is listed along with a trained pony act and a routine recycling Fibber McGee and Molly gags. Does the forced reorganization mean that Google has lost its star power?
Stephen E Arnold, April 27, 2023
A Googley Rah Rah for Synthetic Data
April 27, 2023
Note: This essay is the work of a real and still-alive dinobaby. No smart software involved, just a dumb humanoid.
I want to keep this short. I know from experience that most people don’t think too much about synthetic data. The idea is important, but other concepts are important and no one really cares too much. When was the last time Euler’s Number came up at lunch?
A gaggle of Googlers extoll the virtues of synthetic in a 19 page ArXiv document called “Synthetic Data from Diffusion Models Improves ImageNet Classification.” The main idea is that data derived from “real” data are an expedient way to improve some indexing tasks.
I am not sure that a quote from the paper will do much to elucidate this facet of the generative model world. The paper includes charts, graphs, references to math, footnotes, a few email addresses, some pictures, wonky jargon, and this conclusion:
And we have shown improvements to ImageNet classification accuracy extend to large amounts of generated data, across a range of ResNet and Transformer-based models.
The specific portion of this quote which is quite important in my experience is the segment “across a range of ResNet and Transformer-based models.” Translating to Harrod’s Creek lingo, I think the wizards are saying, “Synthetic data is really good for text too.”
What’s bubbling beneath the surface of this archly-written paper? Here are my answers to this question:
- Synthetic data are a heck of a lot cheaper to generate for model training; therefore, embrace “good enough” and move forward. (Think profits and bonuses.)
- Synthetic data can be produced and updated more easily that fooling around with “real” data. Assembling training sets, tests, deploying and reprocessing are time sucks. (There is more work to do than humanoids to do it when it comes to training, which is needed frequently for some applications.)
- Synthetic datasets can be smaller. Even baby Satan aka Sam Altman is down with synthetic data. Why? Elon could only buy so many nVidia processing units. Thus finding a way to train models with synthetic data works around a supply bottleneck.
My summary of the Googlers’ article is much more brief than the original: Better, faster, cheaper.
You don’t have to pick one. Just believe the Google. Who does not trust the Google? Why not buy synthetic data and ready-to-deploy models for your next AutoGPT product? Google’s approach worked like a champ for online ads. Therefore, Google’s approach will work for your smart software. Trust Google.
Stephen E Arnold, April 27, 2023
The Google Reorg. Will It Output Xooglers, Not Innovations?
April 25, 2023
Note: This essay is the work of a real and still-alive dinobaby. No smart software involved, just a dumb humanoid.
My team and I have been talking about the Alphabet decision to merge DeepMind with Google Brain. Viewed from one angle, the decision reflects the type of efficiency favored by managers who value the idea of streamlining. The arguments for consolidation are logical; for example, the old tried-and-true buzzword synergy may be invoked to explain the realignment. The decision makes business sense, particularly for an engineer or a number-oriented MBA, accountant, or lawyer.
Arguing against the “one plus one equals three” viewpoint may be those who have experienced the friction generated when staff, business procedures, and projects get close, interact, and release energy. I use the term “energy” to explain the dormant forces unleashed as the reorganization evolves. When I worked at a nuclear consulting firm early in my career, I recall the acrimonious and irreconcilable differences between a smaller unit in Florida and a major division in Maryland. The fix was to reassign personnel and give up on the dream of one big, happy group.
This somewhat pathos-infused image was created using NightCafe Creator and Craiyon. The author (a dinobaby) added the caption which may appeal to large language model-centric start ups with money, ideas, and a “we can do this” vibe.
Over the years, my team and I have observed Google’s struggles to innovate. The successes have been notable. Before the Alphabet entity was constructed, the “old” Google purchased Keyhole, Inc. (a spin-off of the gaming company Intrinsic). That worked after the US government invested in the company. There have been some failures too. My team followed the Orkut product which evolved from a hire named Orkut Büyükkökten, who had developed an allegedly similar system while working at InCircle. Orkut was a success, particularly among users in Brazil and a handful of other countries. However, some Orkut users relied on the system for activities which some found unacceptable. Google killed the social networking system in 2014 as Facebook surged to global prominence as Google’s efforts fell to earth. The company was in a position to be a player in social media, and it botched the opportunity. Steve Ballmer allegedly described Google as a “one-trick pony.” Mr. Ballmer’s touch point was Google’s dependence on online advertising: One source of revenue; therefore, a circus pony able to do one thing. Mr. Ballmer’s quip illustrates the fact that over the firm’s 20-plus year history, Google has not been able to diversify its revenue. More than two-thirds of the company’s money comes directly or indirectly from advertising.
My team and I have watched Google struggle to accept adapt its free-wheeling style to a more traditional business approach to policies and procedures. In one notable incident, my team and I were involved in reviewing proposals to index the content of the US Federal government. Google was one of the bidders. The Google proposal did not follow the expected format of responding to each individual requirement in the request for proposal. In 2000, Google professionals made it clear its method did not require that the government’s statement of work be followed. Other vendors responded, provided the required technical commentary, and produced cost estimates in a format familiar to those involved in the contracting award process. Flash forward 23 years, and Google has figured out how to capture US government work.
The key point: The learning process took a long time.
Why is this example relevant to the Alphabet decision to blend the Brain and DeepMind units? Change — despite the myths of Silicon Valley — is difficult for Alphabet. The tensions at the company are well known. Employees and part-time workers grouse and sometimes carry signs and disturb traffic. Specific personnel matters become, rightly or wrongly, messages that say, Google is unfair. The Google management generated an international spectacle with its all-thumbs approach to human relations. Dr. Timnit Gebru was a co-author of a technical paper which identified a characteristic of smart software. She and several colleagues explained that bias in training data produces results which are skewed. Anyone who has used any of the search systems which used open source libraries created by Google know that outputs are variable, which is a charitable way of saying, “Dr. Gebru was correct.” She became a Xoogler, set up a new organization, and organized a conference to further explain her research — the same research which ruffled the feathers of some Alphabet big birds.
The pace of generative artificial intelligence is accelerating. Disruption can be smelled like ozone in an old-fashioned electric power generation station. My team and I attempt to continue tracking innovations in smart software. We cannot do it. I am prepared to suggest that the job is quite challenging because the flow of new ChatGPT-type products, services, applications, and features is astounding. I recall the early days of the Internet when in 1993 I could navigate to a list of new sites via Mosaic browser and click on the ones of interest. I recall that in a matter of months the list grew too long to scan and was eventually discontinued. Smart software is behaving in this way: Too many people are doing too many new things.
I want to close this short personal essay with several points.
First, mashing up different cultures and a history of differences will act like a brake and add friction to innovative work. Such reorganizations will generate “heat” in the form of disputes, overt or quiet quitting, and an increase in productivity killers like planning meetings, internal product pitches, and getting legal’s blessing on a proposed service.
Second, a revenue monoculture is in danger when one pest runs rampant. Alphabet does not have a mechanism to slow down what is happening in the generative AI space. In online advertising, Google has knobs and levers. In the world of creating applications and hooking them together to complete tasks, Alphabet management seems to lack a magic button. The pests just eat the monoculture’s crop.
Third, the unexpected consequence of merging Brain and DeepMind may be creating what I call a “Xoogler Manufacturing Machine.” Annoyed or “grass is greener” Google AI experts may go to one of the many promising generative AI startups. Note: A former Google employee is sometimes labeled a “Xoogler,” which is shorthand for ex-Google employee.
Net net: In a conversation in 2005 with a Google professional whom I cannot name due to the confidentiality agreement I signed with the firm, I asked, “Do you think people and government officials will figure out what Google is really doing?” This person, who was a senior manager, said to the best of my recollection, “Sure and when people do, it’s game.” My personal view is that Alphabet is in a game in which the clock is ticking. And in the process of underperforming, Alphabet’s advertisers and users of free and for-fee services will shift their attention elsewhere, probably to a new or more agile firm able to leverage smart software. Alphabet’s most recent innovation is the creation of a Xoogler manufacturing system. The product? Former Google employees who want to do something instead of playing in the Alphabet sandbox with argumentative wizards and several ill-behaved office pets.
Stephen E Arnold, April 24, 2023
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