Google Shows Its Smarts by Trimming Its Market Value
February 10, 2023
The title of this blog is Beyond Search. More than a decade ago, I wanted to have a place to put my observations about search and retrieval. Retirement was coming, and I was unable to put criticism of search baloney in the write ups I was paid to do. (Nope, I won’t name the publication.)
Art generated and probably owned by Craiyon, Dreamtime, Getty, Alamy, Shutterstock and any other outfit looking to make a buck surfing on legal water droplets. I sure did not create this picture.
That’s why I have not been going head over heels with the smart software revolution. I now point to articles that offer something I find either interesting, amusing, or certifiably whacky. Today, I want to call your attention to a statement I quite like which appeared in “Google Bard or Google Storyteller”. Here’s the quote:
The problem here isn’t just the mistake. It’s the fact that this mistake was highlighted as an example of what Google Bard could accomplish. Before releasing this information, there were likely many people involved at Google. None were competent enough to fact-check what they wanted to show the world. This is not only embarrassing, but it also casts many doubts about Google’s internal checks on its products and shows an astounding level of amateurism for one of the biggest companies in the world.
Do you recall the antics of Abbott and Costello or the Three Stooges? I wonder if this slip betwixt cup and lip is the first program of the 2023 season for the Sundar and Prabhakar Show, sponsored by Microsoft and OpenAI where you just Bing it!
I can hear the announcer saying,
“With Jeff Dean, Marcus White, and special guest stars Larry Page and Sergey Brin. Here are Sundar and Prabhakar, who have just returned from a meeting at what’s left of Charlie’s Café where the talented duo were discussing smart search. We join Sundar and Prabhakar in the once glorious dining facility…”
What would the comedy script generated by Bard say? I don’t want to know because that loss in market value was a hoot appropriate for a thunder lizard with a broken leg in the snow.
Stephen E Arnold, February 10, 2023
Google Is Busy: What about YouTube Filtering?
February 10, 2023
We noted a reference to a video produced by Wendover Productions. I know zero about the outfit’s videos, but one caught my eye. The video is “How to Illegally Cro0ss the Mexico-US Border.” The video runs 14 minutes and has been online for more than a year. The company describes its “aboutness” this way:
Wendover Productions is all about explaining how our world works. From travel, to economics, to geography, to marketing and more, every video will leave you with a little better understanding of our world. New videos go out every other Tuesday.
The video does not strike me as particularly helpful. But there are some interesting factoids:
- Barriers protect about one-third of the border
- Walk across is possible in certain locations. Maybe Brownsville, Texas
- Cross in remote areas but a walk of 20 to 30 miles may be necessary
- Humanitarian groups have set up water stations in certain area
New methods of dealing with certain border infractions are in place and some like the Anduril tower and drone method seem to have some value. The situation, of course, determines what steps are taken and what methods are employed by authorized officials.
I wanted to highlight this video as I have those which provide information about to obtain and hack commercial software.
My question is, “Has Google been sufficiently distracted by bonuses, possible revenue shrinkage, and Code Red cartwheels to have ignored what appears to be information facilitating illegal activity.
Another possibility is that Google’s method of identifying certain types of content like stealing software and entering the US illegally is of little interest to Googlers or its smart software.
A related question is, “What will slip through the gaps in the Bard system?”
Stephen E Arnold, February 10, 2023
The Microsoft Vision: Agent-Intermediated Computing
February 9, 2023
Not one single input from smart software. — Editor
[Mise en scène] Googzilla is towering over advertisers, hissing and brandishing its long talons. Then the creature turns its head. It tiny ear slits twitch. He hears a sound like “boink” or “thunk.” Distracted, the 25 year-old terror looks from the cowering advertisers and fixes his maroon-hued eyes on a almost insignificant figure. That entity is Satya Nadella, who has just ruing Sundar’s and Prabhakar’s high school reunion. The fear of answering the question “Hey, how did you guys miss this ChatGPT – Microsoft thing” is terrifying. Googzilla emits a plaintive “welp.” The advertisers back away and start walking toward Redmond. [Fade to black]
The shoe has dropped. Boink or thunk, depending on your perceptual equipment. “Microsoft’s AI-Powered Bing Will Challenge Google Search” reports “Microsoft may finally have figured out how to get you to use Bing.” The article adds a quote directly from the champion of high school reunions in India:
“All computer interaction is going to be mediated with an agent helping,” Chief Executive Satya Nadella said at a launch event at the company’s headquarters in Redmond, Washington. “We’re going to have this notion of a co-pilot that’s going to be there across every application.”
I won’t point out that “all” is a logical impossibility when it comes to humanoids and computer systems. But I will let that slide… because ChatGPT.
Kudos to Microsoft for pulling off the marketing play of the year. I know it is only early February 2023, but it may take something truly special to tap into the brush fires ignited by ChatGPT. Will Bing be better? Maybe? Will the ChatGPT thing frighten the allegedly monopolistic Google? I think it has.
There are several examples that illustrate the disarray of the Google radar system. First, the search beacon missed the incoming ChatGPT balloon. Hello, Prabhakar. Isn’t and maybe wasn’t that your job?
Then there was the startling Code Red. Yeah, that’s professional. OpenAI has been around six or seven years. Now it is Code Red. Situational awareness seems to be lacking where Googzilla hunts. This is a flaw in an apex predator, is it not?
The dollop of whipped cream on this torched cupcake was asking the former head chefs of data hoovering and search engine optimization as an spur to buying advertising to return to the wizard lair. Yep, Sundar asked Sergey and Larry to help out with the Code Red thing. Okay, but let’s recall the origin of the Google money machine. Wasn’t it Yahoo-Overture-GoTo? Yeah, I think it was and there was a legal hassle and a billion dollar sentiment to make the GOOG gleam like a sprightly young Googzilla.
The actions that cement the frenzy in the House of Google is the steady flow of “it’s coming,” “yes, it’s a demo,” and “okay, we bought an outfit that Sam Bankman Fried found interesting.” The problem is that “to be” does not close the gap with the ChatGPT riding its hyper-drive electronic motorcycle on Google’s private motorways.
Several observations:
- Will the OpenAI and ChatGPT thing help Microsoft address the security of its existing software and services? When?
- Will Microsoft milk the marketing buzz and return to business as usual: Killing printers, interfaces that baffle, and features that disrupt one’s activity on a Windows enabled system?
- Will Microsoft have an answer to those who would claim that smart software violates fair use of intellectual property?
- Will Microsoft be able to handle bias and outputs which lead to interesting but harmful outcomes like a student getting expelled after mommy and daddy paid $135,000 for tuition?
But for now. The payoff for Microsoft is the thrill of watching Googzilla squirm. And the “all” word? That’s just an illustration of the imprecision of Microsoftie speech.
Stephen E Arnold, February 9, 2023
Google and OpenAI: The Big Dust Up
February 8, 2023
Let’s go back to high school English class and a very demanding spinster named Miss Drake. Her test question was, “Who wrote this line?”
O heaven! that one might read the book of fate, and see the revolution of the times. (Henry IV, Part 2 [~ 1597] Act 3)
Do you remember? I do. The answer is the Bard of Avon, and he allegedly spun the phrase from his brain cells or he ripped it off from another playwright. Yeah, the plagiarism thing has not been resolved, and it is unclear if and with whom the Bard sucked in content and output a money-making play. Was the real Bard a primordial version of a creator on YouTube? Sure, why not draw that connection?
Now back to the quote. I like the idea of “the revolution of the times.”
The idea is that some wizard like Sundar or Prabhakar can check out the “Book of Fate” which may or may be among the works in the Google data warehouse and see the future. Just the Palantir seeing stone which works so darned well as those SPAC bets attest. Perhaps that’s what happened when Google declared a Code Red? Fear and a big bet that the GOOG can de-momentum ChatGPT.
When did OpenAI become a thing? I would suggest that it was in 2015 if one believes Sillycon Valley history. The next highlight of what was something of note took place in 2019 but possibly earlier when Microsoft plopped some Azure cycles on the OpenAI conference table. Two years later we get this:
Google at Code Red over ChatGPT As Teams Reassigned to Work on Competing AI Products
Almost coincident with Google’s realizing that people were genuinely excited about ChatGPT, Google realized that Prabhakar’s hair had caught on fire. Sundar, the Sillycon Valley manager par excellence called back the original Relevance Revolutionaries (Messrs. Brin and Page) after Microsoft made it evident to the well-fed at Davos that Softies were good at marketing. Maybe Microsoft fell short of the “Start Me Up” for the outstandingly “good enough” Windows 95, but the Chat GPT deal is notable. To make sure the GOOG got the message that Microsoft was surfing on the waves created by ChatGPT, another bundle of billions were allocated to OpenAI and ChatGPT. The time was January 2023, and it was clear that millions of norms interested in Microsoft’s use of ChatGPT in those “good enough” engineering marvels, Bing.com and the Google infused Edge browser.
Where are we on Wednesday, February 8, 2023? How about this as a marker:
Google said Bard would be widely available to the public in the next few weeks. Source: MSN.com
Yep, the killer words are right there—”would be.” Not here, the conditional future, just a limited test. Not integrated into heaven knows how many apps like OpenAI. Not here like the collection of links generated by Matt Shumer. Not here like the YouTube videos explaining how to build an app from scratch with ChatGPT. Nope. Google is into the “to be” and “demo” mode.
Let’s do simple math on Google’s situational awareness:
- 2015 OpenAI and Elon Musk are visible
- 2019 Microsoft provides some “money” which may be a round trip to pay for Azure cycles
- 2022 (November) ChatGPT gets a million users in five days
- 2022 (December) Google feels the heat from burning hair and screeches “Code Red”
- 2023 (January) Davos talks about ChatGPT, not just the new world order, power, money, and where to eat dinner
- 2023 (February) Google says, “Out version of ChatGPT is coming… soon. Really, very soon.” But for now it’s a limited demo. And Microsoft? The ChatGPT thing turned up when one of my team ran a query on Tuesday, February 7, 2023. Yep, ready or not there it was.
Several observations:
- The Sundar and Prabhakar duo missed the boat on the impact of ChatGPT for search. Err, you are supposed to be the search wizards, and you are standing on the platform waiting for the next train to arrive?
- The uptake of ChatGPT may be a reaction against the Google search system, not a reaction to the inherent greatness of ChatGPT. A certain search company with a 90 percent share and a genuine disdain to relevant responses to users’ queries may have boosted the interest in ChatGPT. If I am correct, this is an unintended consequence of being Googley.
- The Microsoft marketing move is an outstanding [a] bit of luck, [b] a super star tactic that warrants a Grammy (oh, wait, the Grammies suck), or [c] a way to breathe new life into products which suffer from featuritis and a lack of differentiation.
Net net: Sundar and Prabhakar are destined for Harvard case study glory. Also, the dynamic duo may pull a marshmallow from the fire, but will it make a great S’more? Does sophomoric rhyme with Anthropic. And Code Red? The revolution of the times might be here as the Bard wrote or obtained from a fellow playwright.
Stephen E Arnold, February 8, 2023
An Interesting View of AI Deployment
February 8, 2023
Let me summarize the 5,000 word essay “Let’s Speed Up AI”: Go faster. The idea is that one has to accelerate that which is already accelerating. Imagine a downhill skier with a jet pack. Once momentum is gained, fire the jet back pack. The author believes that wide, rapid uptake of AI methods will result in the types of applications and controls. I certainly am not keen on having Terminator kick in my door, but I will reserve judgment on the wisdom of this “technology will work out its kinks.” A French guy pointed out that technology has unanticipated consequences. Today it is not necessary to get one’s priestly robes in a twist.
The write up states:
This idea that we can imagine every problem before it happens is a bizarre byproduct of a big drop in our risk tolerance as a society.
Are countries with access to AI technology risk averse? That’s a question I am not able to answer. I am not sure anyone can. Perhaps it is a job for the to-be systems from Microsoft Bing or the Code Red Google?
In reference to the suggestion that AI has to slow down, the write up says:
The basic premise of the slow-down article is that AI doom is inevitable. We’ve got to slow it down or stop the research now to avoid the disaster! It’s not that AI might go crazy and kill us all, it’s that it will kill us all!
If you are fans of the go-fast approach to technology, you may find the “Let’s Speed Up AI” argument on the money. I think that some pharma execs like the idea of go-fast.
Is it important that Google with its oodles of smart software and thousands of wizards [a] overlooked the potential of ChatGPT, [b] noted the demand and did not know how to frame Googzilla’s response, or [c] has too many executives like Sundar and Prabhakar who want to go slow or not go anywhere that would undermine their compensation?
Google’s new posture is go fast. I wonder if the firm has weighed objectively the risks of rolling out a knee jerk response to what is the marketing home run of the last six months.
My hunch is that the battle is not among smart software vendors; I think we are engaged in a marketing tussle. Technology is like the illustrations of new cars in a 1950s’ Saturday Evening Post. The cars were not that good. But the messages and images were outstanding.
Accelerating the accelerating sounds good. Should we ask the downhill skier with the jet pack?
Stephen E Arnold, February 8, 2023
Google: So Clever, So So Clever
February 6, 2023
I read a good summary of the US and state governments’ allegations about the behavior of the Google ad machine. I recommend “How Google Manipulated Digital Ad Prices and Hurt Publishers, Per DOJ.” The write up provides some useful insight into how the Google management environment has created a culture of being really cute, possibly really clever. The methods employed reminded me of a group of high school science club members pranking the hapless administration of a secondary school. Fun and being able to be smarter than everyone else is the name of the game.
Let me cite one example from the write up because it is short, to the point, and leaves little room for a statement like, “Senator, I did not know how the system’s components worked. I will provide the information you need. Again, I am sorry.” Does that line sound familiar? I left out the “Senator, thank you for the question” but otherwise the sentiment seems in tune with the song some companies sing to semi-aware elected officials.
Google Ads allegedly submitted two bid prices, unbeknownst to advertisers and publishers, effectively controlling the winning bids and the price floors. To entrench its market power even further, the suit argues Google started manipulating ad prices under a different method, which it dubbed “Bernanke.” Starting in 2013, according to the suit, Google Ads would submit bid prices to AdX above the amount advertisers had budgeted, in order to win high-value impressions for a group of publishers — the ones most likely to switch ad tech platforms. This insight could only be obtained by leveraging data in Google’s own publisher ad server. Once AdX cleared the bids, Google Ads would offset the losses by charging higher fees to other publishers less likely to switch ad tech providers. This scheme allegedly helped Google lock in key publishers away from other ad exchanges and ad buying tools, all while maintaining its profits at the expense of other smaller publishers.
Once of the best jobs I had in my life was my stint at the Courier-Journal & Louisville Times Co. That newspaper, like many others, has been unable to cope with the digital revolution. Outfits like Google and their clever methods may have hastened the financial precipice on which many publishers teeter.
My concern is that this particular method — just one of many I assume — has been grinding out cash for the Google for about a decade. Now there is some action, but I think the far more important challenge Google faces will be the active consumer uptake of newer options. These may prove to be familiar with Clever Avenue.
I hope these AI-informed travelers take the road called Ethical Behavior Boulevard.
Stephen E Arnold, February 6, 2023
More on the AI Betamax Versus VHS Dust Up
February 2, 2023
“24 Seriously Embarrassing Hours for AI” gathers four smart software stumbles. The examples are highly suggestive that some butchers have been putting their fingers on the scales. The examples include the stage set approach to Tesla’s self driving and OpenAI’s reliance on humans to beaver away out of sight to make outputs better. In general I agree with the points in the write up.
However, there is one statement which attracted my yellow high light pen like a sci-fi movie tractor beam. Here it is:
Sometimes the slower road is the better road.
It may be that the AI TGV has already left the station and is hurtling down the rails from Paris to Nimes. Microsoft announced that the lovable Teams video chat and Swiss Army knife of widgets will be helping users lickity split. Other infusions are almost certain to follow. Even airlines are thinking smart software. Airlines! These outfits lose luggage with bar codes. Perhaps AI will help, but I remain skeptical. How does one lose a bag with a bar code in our post 9/11 world?
The challenge for Google, Facebook (which wants to be a leader in AI), and the other organizations betting their investors’ money on AI going to take a “slower road”?
My TGV high speed train reference is not poetical; it is a reflection of the momentum of information. The OpenAI machine — with or without legerdemain — is rolling along. OpenAI has momentum. With foresight or dumb luck, Microsoft is riding along.
The “slower road” echoes Google’s conservative approach. Remember that Google sacrificed credibility in AI with the Dr. Timnit Gebru affair. Like a jockey with a high value horse, the beast is now carrying lead pads. Combine that with bureaucratic bloat and concern for ad revenues, I am not sure Google and some other outfits can become the high twitch muscled creature needed to cope with market momentum.
Betamax was better. Well, it did not dominate the market. VHS was pushed into the ditch, but that required time and technological innovation. The AI race is not over but the “slow” angle is late from the gate.
Stephen E Arnold, February 2, 2023
You Have Been Googled!
February 1, 2023
If the information in “Google Engineer Who Was Laid Off While on Mental Health Leave Says She Silently Mourned After Receiving Her Severance Email at 2 a.m.” a new meaning for Google may have surfaced. The main point of the write up is that Google has been trimming some of its unwanted trees and shrubs (Populus Quisquilias). These are plants which have been cultivated with Google ideas, beliefs, and nutrients. But now: Root them out of the Google greenhouse, the spaces between cubes, and the grounds near lovely Shoreline Drive.
The article states:
Neil said she had an inclination that layoffs were coming but assumed she would be safe because she was already on leave. According to Neil, she “bled for Google.” She said she met and exceeded performance expectations, while also enjoying her job. Google felt like a safe and stable environment, where the risk of being laid off was very low, Neil said. She described the layoff process as “un-Googley” and done without care. “Now I’m left here having to find a job for the first time in years after being on mental health leave in quite possibly one of the most difficult hiring situations and housing markets,” Neil said. Google won’t allow Neil to go back to her office to drop off her work laptop and other devices, she said. The company has told her to meet security somewhere near the office, or ship the items in a box, she added.
I want to suggest that the new term for this management approach be called “googled.” To illustrate: In order to cut expenses, the firm googled 3,000 employees. Thus, the shift in meaning from “look up” to “look for your future elsewhere” represents a fresh approach for a cost conscious company.
It may be a signal of honor to have been “googled.” For the individual referenced in the write up, the pain and mental stress may take some time to go away. Does Google management know that Populus Quisquilias has feelings?
Stephen E Arnold, February 1, 2023
Doom: An Interesting Prediction from a Xoogler
January 31, 2023
I spotted an interesting prediction about Google or what I call Googzilla. The comment appeared in “Gmail Creator Says ChatGPT Will Destroy Google’s Business in Two Years.”
Google may be only a year or two away from total disruption. AI will eliminate the Search Engine Result Page, which is where they make most of their money. Even if they catch up on AI, they can’t fully deploy it without destroying the most valuable part of their business!
The alleged Xoogler posting the provocative comment was Paul Buchheit. (Once I heard that it was he who turned the phrase, “Don’t be evil.) Mr. Buchheit is attributed with “inventing” Gmail.
The article stated:
The company has built its business largely around its most successful product; the search engine could soon face a crisis… Google charges advertisers a fee for displaying their products and services right next to the search results, increasing the likelihood of the provider being found. In 2021, the company raked in over $250 billion in revenue, its best-ever income in its nearly 25-year-old existence.
Let’s think about ways Google could recover this predicted loss. Here are a few ideas:
- Stop paying vendors like Apple to feature Google search results. (A billion here and a billion there could add up.)
- Create new services and charge users for them. (I know Google tried to cook up a way to sell Loon balloons and a nifty early stab at the metaverse, but maybe the company will find a way to innovate without me toos.)
- Raise prices for consumer services. (That might cause a problem because companies with diversified revenue may lower the already low, low prices for video chat, online word processing, and email. One trick ponies by definition may have difficulty learning another trick or three.)
Will ChatGPT kill the Google? My thought is that even Xooglers feel that the Googzilla is getting arthritic and showing off its middle age spread. Nevertheless, Google’s Sundar and Raghavan management act will have to demonstrate some Fancy Dancing. The ChatGPT may output content that seems okay but tucks errors in its nouns and verbs. But there is the historical precedent of the Sony Betamax to keep in mind. ChatGPT may be flawed but people bought Pintos, and some of these could explode when rear ended. Ouch!
Why are former Google employees pointing out issues? That’s interesting apart from ChatGPT Code Red silliness.
Stephen E Arnold, January 31, 2023
Does Google Need a Better Snorkel and a Deeper Mind?
January 31, 2023
Recession, Sillycon Valley meltdown, and a disaffected workforce? Gloomy, right? Consider this paragraph from “ChatGPT Pro Is Coming. Here’s How You Can Join the Waitlist”:
ChatGPT has probably the fastest-growing user base ever, with a staggering million-plus users signing up a week after its release. That’s four times faster than Dall-E2, which took a month to reach a million users. Microsoft is already mulling an investment of $10 billion, bringing the total valuation of OpenAI, the startup behind ChatGPT, to $29 billion.
A more telling example of the PR coup Microsoft and OpenAI have achieved is the existence of this write up in Sportskeeda. Imagine Sportskeeda publishing “How Google’s AI Tool Sparrow Is Looking to Kill ChatGPT.” Google’s marketing has lured Sportskeeda to help make Google’s case. Impressive.
More blue sky reality, the next big thing has arrived, and the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow is visible. High school and college students have embraced ChatGPT. Lawyers find it unlawyerlike. Google finds it a bit of a problem.
How do I know?
Navigate to the Wall Street Journal, owned by Rupert Murdoch and sufficiently technologically challenged to use humans to write stories. Consider this one: “Google’s AI Now Plays Catch-Up to Newbies.” Imagine the joy of the remaining Google marketing types when news of a big story circulated. Now consider the disappointment when the Googlers read:
… Google employees began asking whether the company had missed a chance to attract users. During a company-wide meeting in December [2022], Mr. Dean [a Google senior wizard] Google had to move slower than startups because people place a high degree o trust in the company’s products, and current chatbots had issues with accuracy, said people who heard the remarks.
Okay, in that month what happened to ChatGPT? It became big and dominated the regular news and the high-tech news streams. What has Google accomplished:
- Promises that more than 20 products and services are coming? Is that a forward looking statement or vaporware?
- Google rolls over to the EU as it gets ready for the US probe of its modest advertising business
- New applications of Dall-E, ChatGPT, and variants clog the trendy online service Product Hunt.
Net net: Jeff Dean, the champion of recipes and Chubby (a Google technology known to few in my experience) is explaining what I call “to be” innovations. Due to Google’s size and customer base, these to-be smart software powered solutions may overwhelm the ChatGPT thing. Google’s snorkels will deliver life giving oxygen to the the beastie. The DeepMind crew will welcome their colleagues from Mountain View and roll out something that does not require a PhD in genetics to understand.
Yep, to be or not to be. That is a question for the Google.
Stephen E Arnold, January 31, 2023
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