Google Goes Nuclear For Data Centers
October 31, 2024
From the The Future-Is-Just-Around-the-Corner Department:
Pollution is blamed on consumers who are told to cut their dependency on plastic and drive less, while mega corporations and tech companies are the biggest polluters in the world. Some of the biggest users of energy are data centers and Google decided to go nuclear to help power them says Engadget: “Google Strikes A Deal With A Nuclear Startup To Power Its AI Data Centers.”
Google is teaming up with Kairos Power to build seven small nuclear reactors in the United States. The reactors will power Google’s AI Drive and add 500 megawatts. The first reactor is expected to be built in 2030 with the plan to finish the rest by 2035. The reactors are called small modular reactors or SMRs for short.
Google’s deal with Kairos Power would be the first corporate deal to buy nuclear power from SMRs. The small reactors are build inside a factory, instead of on site so their construction is lower than a full power plant.
“Kairos will need the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission to approve design and construction permits for the plans. The startup has already received approval for a demonstration reactor in Tennessee, with an online date targeted for 2027. The company already builds test units (without nuclear-fuel components) at a development facility in Albuquerque, NM, where it assesses components, systems and its supply chain.
The companies didn’t announce the financial details of the arrangement. Google says the deal’s structure will help to keep costs down and get the energy online sooner.”
These tech companies say they’re green but now they are contributing more to global warming with their AI data centers and potential nuclear waste. At least nuclear energy is more powerful and doesn’t contribute as much as coal or natural gas to pollution, except when the reactors melt down. Amazon is doing one too.
Has Google made the engineering shift from moon shots to environmental impact statements, nuclear waste disposal, document management, assorted personnel challenges? Sure, of course. Oh, and one trivial question: Is there a commercially available and certified miniature nuclear power plant? Russia may be short on cash. Perhaps someone in that country will sell a propulsion unit from those super reliable nuclear submarines? Google can just repurpose it in a suitable data center. Maybe one in Ashburn, Virginia?
Whitney Grace, October 31, 2024
The DoJ Wants to Break Up Google and Maybe Destroy the Future of AI
October 25, 2024
Contrary to popular belief, the United States is an economically frisky operation. The country runs on a fluid system that mixes aspects regulation, the Wild West, monopolies, oligopolies, and stuff operating off the reservation. The government steps in when something needs regulation. The ageing Sherman Anti-Trust Act forbids monopolies. Yahoo Finance says that “Google Is About To Learn How DOJ Wants To Remake Its Empire.”
There have been rumblings about breaking up Big Tech companies like Google for a while. District of Columbia Judge Amit Mehta ruled that Google abused its power and that its search and ad businesses violated antitrust law. Nothing is clear about what will happen to Google, but a penalty may emerge in 2025. Judge Mehta could potentially end Google’s business agreements that make it the default search engine of devices and force search data to be available to competition. Google’s products: AdWords, Chrome browser, and the Android OS could be broken up and no longer send users to the search engine.
Judge Mehta must consider how breaking up Google will affect third parties, especially those who rely on Google and associated products to (basically) run society. Mehta has a lot to think about: Judge Mehta, however, may have to consider how remedies to restore competition in the traditional search engine market may impact competition in the emerging market for AI-assisted search.
One concern, legal experts said, is that Google’s search dominance could unfairly entrench its position in the market for next-generation search.
At the same time, these fresh threats may work to Google’s advantage in the remedies trial, allowing it to argue that its overall search dominance is already under threat.”
Nothing is going to happen quickly. The 2024 presidential election results will influence Mehta’s decision. Politicians will definitely have their say and the US government needs to evaluate how they use Google.
What’s Google’s answer to these charges? The company is suggesting that fiddling with Google could end the future of AI. Promise or threat?
Whitney Grace, October 25, 2024
Google Meet: Going in Circles Is Either Brilliant or Evidence of a Management Blind Spot
October 24, 2024
No smart software but we may use image generators to add some modern spice to the dinobaby’s output.
I read an article which seems to be a rhetorical semantic floor routine. “Google Meet (Original) Is Finally, Properly Dead” explains that once there was Google Meet. Actually there was something called Hangouts, which as I recall was not exactly stable on my steam powered system in rural Kentucky. Hangouts morphed into Hangouts Meet. Then Hangouts Meet forked itself (maybe Google forked its users?) and there was Hangouts Meet and Hangouts Chat. Hangouts Chat then became Google Chat.
The write up focuses on Hangouts Meet, which is now dead. But the write up says:
In April 2020, Google rebranded Hangouts Meet to just “Meet.” A couple of years later, in 2022, the company merged Google Duo into Google Meet due to Duo’s larger user base, aiming to streamline its video chat services. However, to avoid confusion between the two Meet apps, Google labeled the former Hangouts Meet as “Meet (Original)” and changed its icon to green. However, having two Google Meet apps didn’t make sense and the company began notifying users of the “Meet (Original)” app to uninstall it and switch to the Duo-rebranded Meet. Now, nearly 18 months later, Google is officially discontinuing the Meet (Original) app, consolidating everything and leaving just one version of Meet on the Play Store.
Got that? The article explains:
Phasing out the original Meet app is a logical move for Google as it continues to focus on developing and enhancing the newer, more widely used version of Meet. The Duo-rebranded Google Meet has over 5 billion downloads on the Play Store and is where Google has been adding new features. Redirecting users to this app aligns with Google’s goal of consolidating its video services into a single, feature-rich platform.
Let’s step back. What does this Meet tell us about Google’s efficiency? Here are my views:
- Without its monopoly money, Google could not afford the type of inefficiency evidenced by the tale of the Meets
- The product management process appears to operate without much, if any, senior management oversight
- Google allows internal developers to whack away, release services, and then flounder until a person decides, “Let’s try again, just with different Googlers.”
So how has that worked out for Google? First, I think Microsoft Teams is a deeply weird product. The Softies want Teams to have more functions than the elephantine Microsoft Word. But lots of companies use Word and they now use Teams. And there is Zoom. Poor Zoom has lost its focus on allowing quick and easy online video conferences. Now I have to hunt for options between a truly peculiar Zoom app and the even more clumsy Zoom Web site.
Then there is Google Meet Duo whatever. Amazing. The services are an example of a very confused dog chasing its tail. Round and round she goes until some adult steps in and says, “Down, girl, before you die.”
PS. Who Google Chats from email?
Stephen E Arnold, October 24, 2024
Google Is AI, Folks
October 24, 2024
Google’s legal team is certainly creative. In the face of the Justice Department’s push to break up the monopoly, reports Yahoo Finance, “Google’s New Antitrust Defense is AI.” Wait, what? Reporter Hamza Shaban points to a blog post by Google VP Lee-Anne Mulholland, writing:
“In Google’s view, the government’s heavy-handed approach to transforming the search market ignores the nascent developments in AI, the fresh competition in the space, and new modes of seeking information online, like AI-powered answer engines. The energy around AI and the potential disruption of how users interact with search is, competitively speaking, a negative for Google, said Wedbush analyst Dan Ives. But in another way, as a defense against antitrust charges, it’s a positive. ‘That’s an argument against monopoly that bodes well for Google,’ he said.”
Really? Some believe quite the opposite. We learn:
“‘The DOJ has specifically noted that this evolution in technology is precisely why they are intervening at this point in time,’ said Gil Luria, an analyst at DA Davidson. ‘They want to make sure that Google is not able to convert the monopoly it currently has in Search into a monopoly in AI Enhanced Search.’”
Exactly. Google is clearly a monopoly. We think their assertion means, "treat us special because we are special." This church-lady thinking may or may not work. We live in an interesting judicial moment.
Cynthia Murrell, October 24, 2024
Can Prabhakar Do the Black Widow Thing to Technology at Google?
October 21, 2024
No smart software but we may use image generators to add some modern spice to the dinobaby’s output.
The reliable (mostly?) Wall Street Journal ran a story titled“Google Executive Overseeing Search and Advertising Leaves Role.” The executive in question is Prabhakar Raghavan, the other half of the Sundar and Prabhakar Comedy Team. The wizardly Prabhakar is the person Edward Zitron described as “The Man Who Killed Google Search.” I recommend reading that essay because it has more zip than the Murdoch approach to poohbah analysis.
I want to raise a question because I assume that Mr. Zitron is largely correct about the demise of Google Search. The sleek Prabhakar accelerated the decline. He was the agent of the McKinsey think infused in his comedy partner Sundar. The two still get laughs at their high school reunions amidst chums and more when classmates gather to explain their success to one another.
The Google approach: Who needs relevance? Thanks, MSFT Copilot. Not quite excellent.
What is the question? Here it is:
Will Prabhakar do to Google’s technology what he did to search?
My view is that Google’s technology has demonstrated corporate ossification. The company “invented”, according to Google lore, the transformer. Then Google — because it was concerned about its invention — released some of it as open source and then watched as Microsoft marketed AI as the next big thing for the Softies. And what was the outfit making Microsoft’s marketing coup possible? It was Sam AI-Man.
Microsoft, however, has not been a technology leader for how many years?
Suddenly the Google announced a crisis and put everyone on making Google the leader in AI. I assume the McKinsey think did not give much thought to the idea that MSFT’s transformer would be used to make Google look darned silly. In fact, it was Prabhakar who stole the attention of the pundits with a laughable AI demonstration in Paris.
Flash forward from early 2023 to late 2024 what’s Google doing with technology? My perception is that Google is trying to create AI winners, capture the corporate market from Microsoft, and convince as many people as possible that if Google is broken apart, AI in America will flop.
Yes, the fate of the nation hangs on Google’s remaining a monopoly. That sounds like a punch line to a skit in the Sundar and Prabhakar Comedy Show.
Here’s my hypothesis: The death of search (the Edward Zitron view) is a job well done. The curtains fall on Act I of the Google drama. Act II is about the Google technology. The idea is that the technology of the online advertising monopoly defines the future of America.
Stay tuned because the story will be streamed on YouTube with advertising, lots of advertising, of course.
Stephen E Arnold, October 21, 2024
AI Podcasters Are Reviewing Books Now
October 10, 2024
I read an article about how students are using AI to cheat on homework and receive book summaries. Students especially favor AI voices reading to them. I wasn’t surprised by that, because this generation is more visual and audial than others. What astounded me, however, was that AI is doing more than I expected such as reading and reviewing books according to ArsTechnica: “Fake AI “Podcasters” Are Reviewing My Book And It’s Freaking Me Out.”
Kyle Orland has followed generative AI for a while. He also recently wrote a book about Minesweeper. He was as astounded as me when we heard to AI generated podcasters discussing his book into a 12.5 minute distilled show. The chatbots were “engaging and endearing.” They were automated by Google’s new NotebookLM, a virtual research assistant that can summarize, explain complex ideas, and brainstorm from selected sources. Google recently added the Audio Overview feature to turn documents into audio discussions.
Orland fed his 30,000 word Minesweeper book into NotebookLM and he was amazed that it spat out a podcast similar to NPR’s Pop Culture Happy Hour. It did get include errors but as long as it wasn’t being used for serious research, Orland was cool with it:
“Small, overzealous errors like these—and a few key bits of the book left out of the podcast entirely—would give me pause if I were trying to use a NotebookLM summary as the basis for a scholarly article or piece of journalism. But I could see using a summary like this to get some quick Cliff’s Notes-style grounding on a thick tome I didn’t have the time or inclination to read fully. And, unlike poring through Cliff’s Notes, the pithy, podcast-style format would actually make for enjoyable background noise while out on a walk or running errands.”
Orland thinks generative AI chatbot podcasts will be an enjoyable and viable entertainment option in the future. They probably will. There’s actually a lot of creative ways creators could use AI chatbots to generate content from their own imaginations. It’s worrisome but also gets the creative juices flowing.
Whitney Grace October 10, 2024
Why Present Bad Sites?
October 7, 2024
This blog post did not require the use of smart software, just a dumb humanoid.I read “Google Search Is Testing Blue Checkmark Feature That Helps Users Spot Genuine Websites.” I know this is a test, but I have a question: What’s genuine mean to Google and its smart software? I know that Google cannot answer this question without resorting to consulting nonsensicalness, but “genuine” is a word. I just don’t know what’s genuine to Google. Is a Web site that uses SEO trickery to appear in a results list? Is it a blog post written by a duplicitous PR person working at a large Google-type firm? Is it a PDF appearing on a “genuine” government’s Web site?
A programmer thinking about blue check marks. The obvious conclusion is to provide a free blue check mark. Then later one can charge for that sign of goodness. Thanks, Microsoft. Good enough. Just like that big Windows update. Good enough.
The write up reports:
Blue checkmarks have appeared next to certain websites on Google Search for some users. According to a report from The Verge, this is because Google is experimenting with a verification feature to let users know that sites aren’t fraudulent or scams.
Okay, what’s “fraudulent” and what’s a “scam”?
What does Google say? According to the write up:
A Google spokesperson confirmed the experiment, telling Mashable, “We regularly experiment with features that help shoppers identify trustworthy businesses online, and we are currently running a small experiment showing checkmarks next to certain businesses on Google.”
A couple of observations:
- Why not allow the user to NOT out these sites? Better yet, give the user a choice of seeing de-junked or fully junked sites? Wow, that’s too hard. Imagine. A Boolean operator.
- Why does Google bother to index these sites? Why not change the block list for the crawl? Wow, that’s too much work. Imagine a Googler editing a “do not crawl” list manually.
- Is Google admitting that it can identify problematic sites like those which push fake medications or the stolen software videos on YouTube? That’s pretty useful information for an attorney taking legal action against Google, isn’t it?
Net net: Google is unregulated and spouts baloney. Google needs to jack up its revenue. It has fines to pay and AI wizards to pay. Tough work.
Stephen E Arnold, October 7, 2024
Google Rear Ends Microsoft on an EU Information Highway
September 25, 2024
![green-dino_thumb_thumb_thumb_thumb_t[2]_thumb](https://arnoldit.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/green-dino_thumb_thumb_thumb_thumb_t2_thumb-3.gif "green-dino_thumb_thumb_thumb_thumb_t[2]_thumb")
This essay is the work of a dumb dinobaby. No smart software required.
A couple of high-technology dinosaurs with big teeth and even bigger wallets are squabbling in a rather clever way. If the dispute escalates some of the smaller vehicles on the EU’s Information Superhighway are going to be affected by a remarkable collision. The orange newspaper published “Google Files Brussels Complaint against Microsoft Cloud Business.” On the surface, the story explains that “Google accuses Microsoft of locking customers into its Azure services, preventing them from easily switching to alternatives.”
Two very large and easily provoked dinosaurs are engaged in a contest in a court of law. Which will prevail, or will both end up with broken arms? Thanks, MSFT Copilot. I think you are the prettier dinosaur.
To put some bite into the allegation, Google aka Googzilla has:
filed an antitrust complaint in Brussels against Microsoft, alleging its Big Tech rival engages in unfair cloud computing practices that has led to a reduction in choice and an increase in prices… Google said Microsoft is “exploiting” its customers’ reliance on products such as its Windows software by imposing “steep penalties” on using rival cloud providers.
From my vantage point this looks like a rear ender; that is, Google — itself under considerable scrutiny by assorted governmental entities — has smacked into Microsoft, a veteran of EU regulatory penalties. Google explained to the monopoly officer that Microsoft was using discriminatory practices to prevent Google, AWS, and Alibaba from closing cloud computing deals.
In a conversation with some of my research team, several observations surfaced from what I would describe as a jaded group. Let me share several of these:
- Locking up business is precisely the “game” for US high-technology dinosaurs with big teeth and some China-affiliated outfit too. I believe the jargon for this business tactic is “lock in.” IBM allegedly found the play helpful when mainframes were the next big thing. Just try and move some government agencies or large financial institutions from their Big Iron to Chromebooks and see how the suggestion is greeted.,
- Google has called attention to the alleged illegal actions of Microsoft, bringing the Softies into the EU litigation gladiatorial arena.
- Information provided by Google may illustrate the alleged business practices so that when compared to the Google’s approach, Googzilla looks like the ideal golfing partner.
- Any question that US outfits like Google and Microsoft are just mom-and-pop businesses is definitively resolved.
My personal opinion is that Google wants to make certain that Microsoft is dragged into what will be expensive, slow, and probably business trajectory altering legal processes. Perhaps Satya and Sundar will testify as their mercenaries explain that both companies are not monopolies, not hindering competition, and love whales, small start ups, ethical behavior, and the rule of law.
Stephen E Arnold, September 25, 2024
YouTube Is Bringing More AI To Its Platform
September 20, 2024
AI-generated videos have already swarmed on YouTube. These videos range from fake Disney movie trailers to inappropriate content that missed being flagged. YouTube creators are already upset that their videos are being overlooked by the algorithm, but some are being hired for an AI project. Digital Trends explains more: “More AI May Be Coming To YouTube In A Big Way.”
Gemini AI is currently in beta testing across YouTube. Gemini AI is described as a tool for YouTubers to brainstorm video ideas, including titles, topics, and thumbnails. Only a select few YouTubers are testing Gemini AI and will share their feedback. The AI tool will eventually be located underneath the platform’s analytic menu, under the research tab. The tool could actually be helpful:
“This marks Google’s second foray into including AI assistance in YouTube users’ creative processes. In May, the company launched a content inspiration tool on YouTube Studio that provides tips and suggestions for future clip topics based on viewer trends. For most any given topic, the AI will highlight related videos you’ve already published, provide tips on themes to use, and generate a script outline for you to follow.”
The YouTubers are experimenting with both Gemini AI and the content inspiration tool. They’re doing A/B testing and their experiences will shape how AI is used on the video platform. YouTube does acknowledge that AI is a transformative creative tool, but viewers want to know if what they’re watching is real or fake. Is anyone imagining a AI warning or rating system?
Whitney Grace, September 20, 2024
Great Moments in Leadership: Drive an Uber
September 18, 2024
I was zipping through my newsfeed and spotted this item: “Ex-Sony Boss Tells Laid-Off Employees to Drive an Uber and Find a Cheap Place to Live.” In the article, the ex-Sony boss is quoted as allegedly saying:
I think it’s probably very painful for the managers, but I don’t think that having skill in this area is going to be a lifetime of poverty or limitation. It’s still where the action is, and it’s like the pandemic but now you’re going to have to take a few…figure out how to get through it, drive an Uber or whatever, go off to find a cheap place to live and go to the beach for a year.
I admit that I find the advice reasonably practical. However, it costs money to summon an Uber. The other titbit is that a person without a job should find a “cheap place to live.” Ah, ha, van life or moving in with a friend. Possibly one could become a homeless person dwelling near a beach. What if the terminated individual has a family? I suppose there are community food services.
From an employee’s point of view, this is “tough love” management. How effective is this approach? I have worked for a number of firms in my 50 plus year career prior to my retiring in 2013. I can honestly say that this Uber and move to a cheaper place to live is remarkable. It is novel. Possibly a breakthrough in management methods.
I look forward to a TED talk from this leader. When will the Harvard Business Review present a more in-depth look at the former Sony president’s ideas? Oh, right. “Former” is the operative word. Yep, former.
Stephen E Arnold, September 17, 2024
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