The Gray Lady: Objective Gloating about Vice
May 15, 2023
Note: This essay is the work of a real and still-alive dinobaby. No smart software involved, just a dumb humanoid.
Do you have dreams about the church lady on Saturday Night Live. That skit frightened me. A flashback shook my placid mental state when I read “Vice, Decayed Digital Colossus, Files for Bankruptcy.” I conjured up without the assistance of smart software, the image of Dana Carvey talking about the pundit spawning machine named Vice with the statement, “Well, isn’t that special?”
The New York Times’s article reported:
Vice Media filed for bankruptcy on Monday, punctuating a years long descent from a new-media darling to a cautionary tale of the problems facing the digital publishing industry.
The write up omits any reference to the New York Times’s failure with its own online venture under the guidance of Jeff Pemberton, the flame out with its LexisNexis play, the fraught effort to index its own content, and the misadventures which have become the Wordle success story. The past Don Quixote-like sallies into the digital world are either Irrelevant or unknown to the current crop of Gray Lady “real” news hounds I surmise.
The article states:
Investments from media titans like Disney and shrewd financial investors like TPG, which spent hundreds of millions of dollars, will
be rendered worthless by the bankruptcy, cementing Vice’s status among the most notable bad bets in the media industry. [Emphasis added.]
Well, isn’t that special? Perhaps similar to the Times’s first online adventure in the late 1970s?
The article includes a quote from a community journalism company too:
“We now know that a brand tethered to social media for its growth and audience alone is not sustainable.”
Perhaps like the desire for more money than the Times’s LexisNexis deal provided? Perhaps?
Is Vice that special? I think the story is a footnote to the Gray Lady’s own adventures in the digital realm?
Isn’t that special too?
Stephen E Arnold, May 15, 2023
ChatGPT Mind Reading: Sure, Plus It Is a Force for Good
May 15, 2023
Note: This essay is the work of a real and still-alive dinobaby. No smart software involved, just a dumb humanoid.
The potential of artificial intelligence, for both good and evil, just got bumped up another notch. Surprised? Neither are we. The Guardian reveals, “AI Makes Non-Invasive Mind-Reading Possible by Turning Thoughts into Text.” For 15 years, researchers at the University of Texas at Austin have been working on a way to help patients whose stroke, motor neuron disease, or other conditions have made it hard to communicate. While impressive, previous systems could translate brain activity into text only with the help of surgical implants. More recently, researchers found a way to do the same thing with data from fMRI scans. But the process was so slow as to make it nearly useless as a communication tool. Until now. Correspondent Hannah Devlin writes:
“However, the advent of large language models – the kind of AI underpinning OpenAI’s ChatGPT – provided a new way in. These models are able to represent, in numbers, the semantic meaning of speech, allowing the scientists to look at which patterns of neuronal activity corresponded to strings of words with a particular meaning rather than attempting to read out activity word by word. The learning process was intensive: three volunteers were required to lie in a scanner for 16 hours each, listening to podcasts. The decoder was trained to match brain activity to meaning using a large language model, GPT-1, a precursor to ChatGPT. Later, the same participants were scanned listening to a new story or imagining telling a story and the decoder was used to generate text from brain activity alone. About half the time, the text closely – and sometimes precisely – matched the intended meanings of the original words. ‘Our system works at the level of ideas, semantics, meaning,’ said Huth. ‘This is the reason why what we get out is not the exact words, it’s the gist.’ For instance, when a participant was played the words ‘I don’t have my driver’s license yet,’ the decoder translated them as ‘She has not even started to learn to drive yet’.”
That is a pretty good gist. See the write-up for more examples as well as a few limitations researchers found. Naturally, refinement continues. The study‘s co-author Jerry Tang acknowledges this technology could be dangerous in the hands of bad actors, but says they have “worked to avoid that.” He does not reveal exactly how. That is probably for the best.
Cynthia Murrell, May 15, 2023
HP Autonomy: A Modest Disagreement Escalates
May 15, 2023
Note: This essay is the work of a real and still-alive dinobaby. No smart software involved, just a dumb humanoid.
About 12 years ago, Hewlett Packard acquired Autonomy. The deal was, as I understand the deal, HP wanted to snap up Autonomy to make a move in the enterprise services business. Autonomy was one of the major providers of search and some related content processing services in 2010. Autonomy’s revenues were nosing toward $800 million, a level no other search and retrieval software company had previously achieved.
However, as Qatalyst Partners reported in an Autonomy profile, the share price was not exactly hitting home runs each quarter:
Source: Autonomy Trading and Financial Statistics, 2011 by Qatalyst Partners
After some HP executive turmoil, the deal was done. After a year or so, HP analysts determined that the Silicon Valley company paid too much for Autonomy. The result was high profile litigation. One Autonomy executive found himself losing and suffering the embarrassment of jail time.
“Autonomy Founder Mike Lynch Flown to US for HPE Fraud Trial” reports:
Autonomy founder Mike Lynch has been extradited to the US under criminal charges that he defrauded HP when he sold his software business to them for $11 billion in 2011. The 57-year-old is facing allegations that he inflated the books at Autonomy to generate a higher sale price for the business, the value of which HP subsequently wrote down by billions of dollars.
Although I did some consulting work for Autonomy, I have no unique information about the company, the HP allegations, or the legal process which will unspool in the US.
In a recent conversation with a person who had first hand knowledge of the deal, I learned that HP was disappointed with the Autonomy approach to business. I pushed back and pointed out three things to a person who was quite agitated that I did not share his outrage. My points, as I recall, were:
- A number of search-and-retrieval companies failed to generate revenue sufficient to meet their investors’ expectations. These included outfits like Convera (formerly Excalibur Technologies), Entopia, and numerous other firms. Some were sold and were operated as reasonably successful businesses; for example, Dassault Systèmes and Exalead. Others were folded into a larger business; for example, Microsoft’s purchase of Fast Search & Transfer and Oracle’s acquisition of Endeca. The period from 2008 to 2013 was particularly difficult for vendors of enterprise search and content processing systems. I documented these issues in The Enterprise Search Report and a couple of other books I wrote.
- Enterprise search vendors and some hybrid outfits which developed search-related products and services used bundling as a way to make sales. The idea was not new. IBM refined the approach. Buy a mainframe and get support free for a period of time. Then the customer could pay a license fee for the software and upgrades and pay for services. IBM charged me $850 to roll a specialist to look at my three out-of-warranty PC 704 servers. (That was the end of my reliance on IBM equipment and its marvelous ServeRAID technology.) Libraries, for example, could acquire hardware. The “soft” components had a different budget cycle. The solution? Split up the deal. I think Autonomy emulated this approach and added some unique features. Nevertheless, the market for search and content related services was and is a difficult one. Fast Search & Transfer had its own approach. That landed the company in hot water and the founder on the pages of newspapers across Scandinavia.
- Sales professionals could generate interest in search and content processing systems by describing the benefits of finding information buried in a company’s file cabinets, tucked into PowerPoint presentations, and sleeping peacefully in email. Like the current buzz about OpenAI and ChatGPT, expectations are loftier than the reality of some implementations. Enterprise search vendors like Autonomy had to deal with angry licensees who could not find information, heated objections to the cost of reindexing content to make it possible for employees to find the file saved yesterday (an expensive and difficult task even today), and howls of outrage because certain functions had to be coded to meet the specific content requirements of a particular licensee. Remember that a large company does not need one search and retrieval system. There are many, quite specific requirements. These range from engineering drawings in the R&D center to the super sensitive employee compensation data, from the legal department’s need to process discovery information to the mandated classified documents associated with a government contract.
These issues remain today. Autonomy is now back in the spot light. The British government, as I understand the situation, is not chasing Dr. Lynch for his methods. HP and the US legal system are.
The person with whom I spoke was not interested in my three points. He has a Harvard education and I am a geriatric. I will survive his anger toward Autonomy and his obvious affection for the estimable HP, its eavesdropping Board and its executive revolving door.
What few recall is that Autonomy was one of the first vendors of search to use smart software. The implementation was described as Neuro Linguistic Programming. Like today’s smart software, the functioning of the Autonomy core technology was a black box. I assume the litigation will expose this Autonomy black box. Is there a message for the ChatGPT-type outfits blossoming at a prodigious rate?
Yes, the enterprise search sector is about to undergo a rebirth. Organizations have information. Findability remains difficult. The fix? Merge ChatGPT type methods with an organization’s content. What do you get? A party which faded away in 2010 is coming back. The Beatles and Elvis vibe will be live, on stage, act fast.
Stephen E Arnold, May 15, 2023
The Seven Wonders of the Google AI World
May 12, 2023
Note: This essay is the work of a real and still-alive dinobaby. No smart software involved, just a dumb humanoid.
I read the content at this Google Web page: https://ai.google/responsibility/principles/. I found it darned amazing. In fact, I thought of the original seven wonders of the world. Let’s see how Google’s statements compare with the down-through-time achievements of mere mortals from ancient times.
Let’s imagine two comedians explaining the difference between the two important set of landmarks in human achievement. Here are the entertainers. These impressive individuals are a product of MidJourney’s smart software. The drawing illustrates the possibilities of artificial intelligence applied to regular intelligence and a certain big ad company’s capabilities. (That’s humor, gentle reader.)
Here are the seven wonders of the world according to the semi reliable National Geographic (l loved those old Nat Geos when I was in the seventh grade in 1956-1957!):
- The pyramids of Giza (tombs or alien machinery, take your pick)
- The hanging gardens of Babylon (a building with a flower show)
- The temple of Artemis (god of the hunt for maybe relevant advertising?)
- The statue of Zeus (the thunder god like Googzilla?)
- The mausoleum at Halicarnassus (a tomb)
- The colossus of Rhodes (Greek sun god who inspired Louis XIV and his just-so-hoity toity pals)
- The lighthouse of Alexandria (bright light which baffles some who doubt a fire can cast a bright light to ships at sea)
Now the seven wonders of the Google AI world:
- Socially beneficial AI (how does AI help those who are not advertisers?)
- Avoid creating or reinforcing unfair bias (What’s Dr. Timnit Gebru say about this?)
- Be built and tested for safety? (Will AI address video on YouTube which provide links to cracked software; e.g. this one?)
- Be accountable to people? (Maybe people who call for Google customer support?)
- Incorporate privacy design principles? (Will the European Commission embrace the Google, not litigate it?)
- Uphold high standards of scientific excellence? (Interesting. What’s “high” mean? What’s scientific about threshold fiddling? What’s “excellence”?)
- AI will be made available for uses that “accord with these principles”. (Is this another “Don’t be evil moment?)
Now let’s evaluate in broad strokes the two seven wonders. My initial impression is that the ancient seven wonders were fungible, not based on the future tense, the progressive tense, and breathing the exhaust fumes of OpenAI and others in the AI game. After a bit of thought, I am not sure Google’s management will be able to convince me that its personnel policies, its management of its high school science club, and its knee jerk reaction to the Microsoft Davos slam dunk are more than bloviating. Finally, the original seven wonders are either ruins or lost to all but a MidJourney reconstruction or a Bing output. Google is in the “careful” business. Translating: Google is Googley. OpenAI and ChatGPT are delivering blocks and stones for a real wonder of the world.
Net net: The ancient seven wonders represent something to which humans aspired or honored. The Google seven wonders of AI are, in my opinion, marketing via uncoordinated demos. However, Google will make more money than any of the ancient attractions did. The Google list may be perfect for the next Sundar and Prabhakar Comedy Show. Will it play in Paris? The last one there flopped.
Stephen E Arnold, May 12, 2023
Will McKinsey Be Replaced by AI: Missing the Point of Money and Power
May 12, 2023
Note: This essay is the work of a real and still-alive dinobaby. No smart software involved, just a dumb humanoid.
I read a very unusual anti-big company and anti-big tech essay called “Will AI Become the New McKinsey?” The thesis of the essay in my opinion is expressed in this statement:
AI is a threat because of the way it assists capital.
The argument upon which this assertion is perched boils down to capitalism, in its present form, in today’s US of A is roached. The choices available to make life into a hard rock candy mountain world are start: Boast capitalism so that it like cancer kills everything including itself. The other alternative is to wait for the “government” to implement policies to convert the endless scroll into a post-1984 theme park.
Let’s consider McKinsey. Whether the firm likes it or not, it has become the poster child and revenue model for other services firms. Paying to turn on one’s steering wheel heating element is an example of McKinsey-type thinking. The fentanyl problem is an unintended consequence of offering some baller ideas to a few big pharma outfits in the Us. There are other examples. I prefer to focus on some intellectual characteristics which make the firm into the symbol of that which is wrong with the good old US of A; to wit:
- MBA think. Numbers drive decisions, not feel good ideas like togetherness, helping others, and emulating Twitch’s AI powered ask_Jesus program. If you have not seen this, check it out at this link. It has 64 viewers as I write this on May 7, 2023 at 2 pm US Eastern.
- Hitting goals. These are either expressed as targets to consultants or passed along by executives to the junior MBAs pushing the mill stone round and round with dot points, charts, graphs, and zippy jargon speak. The incentive plan and its goals feed the MBAs. I think of these entities as cattle with some brains.
- Being viewed as super smart. I know that most successful consultants know they are smart. But many smart people who work at consulting firms like McKinsey are more insecure than an 11 year old watching an Olympic gymnast flip and spin in a effortless manner. To overcome that insecurity, the MBA consultant seeks approval from his/her/its peers and from clients who eagerly pick the option the report was crafted to make a no-brainer. Yes, slaps on the back, lunch with a senior partner, and identified as a person who would undertake grinding another rail car filled with wheat.
The essay, however, overlooks a simple fact about AI and similar “it will change everything” technology.
The technology does not do anything. It is a tool. The action comes from the individuals smart enough, bold enough, and quick enough to implement or apply it first. Once the momentum is visible, then the technology is shaped, weaponized, and guided to targets. The technology does not have much of a vote. In fact, technology is the mill stone. The owner of the cattle is running the show. The write up ignores this simple fact.
One solution is to let the “government” develop policies. Another is for the technology to kill itself. Another is for those with money, courage, and brains to develop an ethical mindset. Yeah, good luck with these.
The government works for the big outfits in the good old US of A. No firm action against monopolies, right? Why? Lawyers, lobbyists, and leverage.
What’s the essay achieve? [a] Calling attention to McKinsey helps McKinsey sell. [b] Trying to gently push a lefty idea is tough when those who can’t afford an apartment in Manhattan are swiping their iPhones and posting on BlueSky. [c] Accepting the reality that technology serves those who understand and have the cash to use that technology to gain more power and money.
Ugly? Only for those excluded from the top of the social pyramid and juicy jobs at blue chip consulting firms, expertise in manipulating advanced systems and methods, and the mindset to succeed in what is the only game in town.
PS. MBAs make errors like the Bud Light promotion. That type of mistake, not opioid tactics, may be an instrument of change. But taming AI to make a better, more ethical world. That’s a comedy hook worthy of the next Sundar & Prabhakar show.
Stephen E Arnold, May 12, 2023
IBM Embraces a Younger Hot Number. Tough Luck, Watson, You Old Dog, You
May 12, 2023
Note: This essay is the work of a real and still-alive dinobaby. No smart software involved, just a dumb humanoid.
That outstanding newspaper, The New York Post, published “IBM Pauses Hiring for 7,800 Jobs Because They Could Be Performed by AI.” The story picks up where the dinobaby tale ends. As you may recall, IBM decided that old timers could train contractors and then head to the old age home. The evictees were dubbed “dinobabies.” As a former supplier to IBM, I eagerly adopted the moniker and use an anigif to illustrate how spritely a dinobaby can be.
The new approach to work at IBM, according to the estimable newspaper, is smart software, not smart software elder uncle. The article states:
Krishna said that the company will either slow down or altogether suspend hiring for so-called “back office” functions such as human resources.
Back office functions is not defined. Perhaps it will include [a] junior and mid level programmers, [b] customer facing engineers who do Zoom type calls demonstrating sympathy and technical skills in looking up information in Big Blue’s proprietary technical databases, [c] some annoying MBAs who churn out slide decks and viewpoints about how to make IBM young again, and [d] non essential personnel like expensive old lawyers, assorted strategic planners working on the old money machines like the mainframes, and annoying design professionals who want to add L.E.D.s to IBM’s once speed champion super computers.
But whose AI will Big Blue embrace? My hunch is that it will be a combination of the forward forward technology employed by a few renegade researchers who embraced Google methods and open source software which could be dressed up with a RedHat business model. You may have a different idea. I am sticking with mine, thank you, until IBM reveals its new, rejuvenated self after a weekend in the Bahamas with its new bestie or is it best-ai?
Who says you can teach an old dog how to do an old trick with a new bone? Not me. And Watson? Who?
Stephen E Arnold, May 12, 2013
The Big Show from the Google: Meh
May 11, 2023
Note: This essay is the work of a real and still-alive dinobaby. No smart software involved, just a dumb humanoid.
I ran a query on You.com, asking where I could view the Google Big Show* (no Tallulah Bankhead, just Sundar and friends). You replied as the show was airing on YouTube Live, “I don’t know where the program is.” Love that smart software, right? I clicked off because it was not as good as what Microsoft hit the slopes with in Davos. After Paris, I figured the Googlers would enlist its industry leading smart software and the really thrilled merged Google Brain and DeepMind wizards and roll out a killer program. I was thinking a digital Steve Jobs explaining killer innovations and an ending with “one more thing.” Alas, no reality distortion field, just me too, me too, me too.
A sad amateur vaudeville performer holds a tomato thrown at him when his song and dance act flopped. The art was created by the helpful and available MidJourney system. I wanted to use Bing, but I am not comfortable with the alleged surveillance characteristics of Credge.
How do I know my reaction is semi-valid. Today’s Murdochy Wall Street Journal ran the story about the Big Show on page three with the headline “Google Unveils Search Revamped for AI Era.” That’s like a vaudeville billing toward the bottom with the dog act and phrase “exotic animals.” Page three for the company that ignores the fact that it is selling online advertising with a system that generates oodles of cash yet not enough to keep a full complement of staff? That’s amazing!
I listened — briefly — to the This Week in Google podcast. I can’t understand how a program about Google can beat up on the firm with such gentle punches. I recall the phrase “a lack of strategic vision.” That was it. Navigate away to Lawfare, a program which actually discusses topics with some intellectual body blows.
I spoke with one of my research team. That person’s comment was:
I think Sundar is hitting the applause button and nothing is happening.
I though Google smart music could generate an applause track. Failing that, why not snip an applause track from one of Steve Jobs’s presentations. I like the one with the computer in the envelope or the roll out of the iPhone. I wonder if the AI infused Google search could not locate the video? You.com couldn’t locate the Google in out or off on program, but that is understandable. It was definitely a “don’t fail to miss it” event.
And where was Prabhakar Raghavan, the head of search? Where was Danny Sullivan, Google’s “we deliver relevant results”. Where was the charming head of DeepMind, an executive beloved by his team? Where was Dr. Jeff Dean, the inventor of Chubby and champion of recipes?
I know that OpenAI has been enjoying the Google wizard who explained that Google cannot keep up. See this allegedly accurate report called “Google and OpenAI Will Lose the AI Arms Race to Open-Source Engineers, a Googler Said in a Leaked Document.” Microsoft is probably high fiving and holding Team meetings with happy faces on the Microsofties who are logged in.
* The Big Show was a big flop for NBC when it aired in the early 1950s. Ah, Tallulah and the endless recycling of Jimmy Durante, snippets of stage plays, and truly memorable performers whose talent is different from today’s rap and pop stars. Here’s a famous quote from Tallulah which may be appropriate for Google’s hurry and catch up approach to innovation:
“There’s less here than meets the eye.”
I love that Tallulah quote.
Stephen E Arnold, May 11, 2023
Publishers: Why Not Replace Authors with ChatGPT and Raise Subscription Rates?
May 11, 2023
Note: This essay is the work of a real and still-alive dinobaby. No smart software involved, just a dumb humanoid.
I read another article about professional publishers. Nature Magazine reports that 40 editors have bailed from medical journals due to the fees Elsevier imposes on authors. The individuals who publish peer reviewed journal articles are often desperate for getting their name in what one supposes is a prestigious journal. I remember hearing at the Cornell Theory Center years ago that online “free” publications would not be considered for tenure evaluation or for certain grant applications. Why? Hey, that’s what universities want: Old school scholarship, thank you. Professional publishers cheerfully support the scheme. Libraries have to pay big subscription fees; commercial database producers are hamstrung due to restrictions on certain content; and the aspiring PhD student or starving adjunct professor is supposed to pay hundreds of dollars for output to proof. Yeah, that’s a great approach.
Now some professors (presumably with tenure) are doing a bit of the crawfish thing; that is, backing up and getting away from what is now viewed as a bit of a scam. I used to review articles for publishers. Guess what? I did not get paid. I was improving the quality of the publication. Yeah, right. As soon as I rejected papers written in incomprehensible English with statistics which actually did not add up, I learned via a friendly chat that I should not reject so many papers.
Oh, right. I quit. What baloney.
If you want to read about Elsevier’s explanation of the fees in today’s Word to typeset page fees, check out the original. I am not an academic, a fact I happily share with crazy publishers who want me to write for their “prestigious” journals. I write stuff and have for decades. Now I post information in my blog and I write monographs which I make available to those in my lectures.
Publishers are not for me. Most are dead tree types, snared in the craziness of slicing and dicing non reproducible research results, specious cross references to legal and accounting content, and pretending that their industry is essential to the smooth running of the knowledge centric world.
Nope. Too bad it has taken decades for a handful of editors to wake up and smell the ersatz which passes for real coffee.
Stephen E Arnold, May 11, 2023
Google Wobblies: Are Falling Behind and Falling Off Buildings Linked?
May 11, 2023
Note: This essay is the work of a real and still-alive dinobaby. No smart software involved, just a dumb humanoid.
I read “Google and OpenAI Struggling to Keep Up with Open Source AI, Senior Engineer Warns.” I understand the Google falling behind because big technology outfits are not exactly known for their agile footwork or blazing speed. Let’s face it. Google is not a digital Vinícius Júnior of Real Madrid fame. But OpenAI? The write up states:
Open-source models are faster, more customizable, more private, and pound-for-pound more capable.
Open source? I thought open source had been sucked into the business strategies of Amazon AWS, the Google Cloud, and Microsoft Azure and GitHub. Apparently not.
I think the idea is not “open source,” however. Open source is a phrase which means in my view a heck of a lot of people fooling around with whatever free and low cost generative software is available. What happens when many cooks crowd into big kitchen? The output is going to be voluminous with some lousy, some okay, and a few dishes spectacular. The more cooks, the greater the chances that something spectacular will emerge. Probability low but a Bocuse d’Or-grade entrée may pop out of one’s Le Creuset.
Now what about the falling off buildings? I thought that was a Russian thing. If the New York Post’s reporting is spot on in its write up, there are some real-world consequences of Google’s falling behind.
Stephen E Arnold, May 11, 2023
The APA Zips Along Like … Like a Turtle, a Really Snappy Turtle Too
May 10, 2023
I read “American Psychology Group Issues Recommendations for Kids’ Social Media Use”. The article reports that social media is possibly, just maybe, perhaps, sort of an issue for some, a few, a handful, a teenie tiny percentage of young people. I am not sure when “social media” began. Maybe it was something called Six Degrees or Live Journal. I definitely recall the wonky weirdness of flashing MySpace pages. I do know about Orkut which if one cares to check was a big hit among a certain segment of Brazilians. The exact year is irrelevant; social media has been kicking around for about a quarter century.
Now, I learn:
The report doesn’t denounce social media, instead asserting that online social networks are “not inherently beneficial or harmful to young people,” but should be used thoughtfully. The health advisory also does not address specific social platforms, instead tackling a broad set of concerns around kids’ online lives with commonsense advice and insights compiled from broader research.
What are the data about teen suicides? What about teen depression? What about falling test scores? What about trend oddities among impressionable young people? Those data are available and easy to spot. In June 2023, another Federal agency will provide information about yet another clever way to exploit young people on social media.
Now the APA is taking a stand? Well, not really a stand, more of a general statement about what I think is one of the most destructive online application spaces available to young and old today.
How about this statement?
The APA recommends a reasonable, age-appropriate degree of “adult monitoring” through parental controls at the device and app level and urges parents to model their own healthy relationships with social media.
How many young people grow up with one parent and minimal adult monitoring? Yeah, how many? Do parents or a parent know what to monitor? Does a parent know about social media apps? Does a parent know the names of social media apps?
Impressive, APA. Now I remember why I thought Psych 101 was a total, absolute, waste of my time when I was a 17 year old fresh person at a third rate college for losers like me. My classmates — also losers — struggle to suppress laughter during the professor’s lectures. Now I am giggling at this APA position.
Sorry. Your paper and recommendations are late. You get an F.
Stephen E Arnold, May 10, 2023
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