Google Challenges NSO Group As PR Champ
July 23, 2022
This factoid — if true — is amazing for two reasons: [1] A glimpse of Googzilla’s Big People Operations’ procedures in action, and [2] Google may knock NSO Group off its top spot as a PR magnet for media personality-journalists.
The scoop is the property of a former Buzzfeed writer, a Davos fave, and a LinkedIn podcast personality. The artificial intelligence / machine learning expert named Blake Lemoine has been allowed by the Google to find his future elsewhere. You can read the Buzzfeed-type write up “Google Fires Blake Lemoine, Engineer Who Called Its AI Sentient” and revel in:
In his conversations with LaMDA, Lemoine discovered the system had developed a robust sense of self-awareness, expressing concern about death, a desire for protection, and a conviction that it felt emotions like happiness and sadness. Lemoine said he considers LaMDA a friend.
I like the “friend.”
Quick question: Will Mr. Lemoine be allowed to interact with the digital friend when he chases gig work or angles for a new job in the very stable, never hyped, and certainly not crazy world of artificial intelligence and machine learning.
Money and the Google business card are tough to lose. But a “friend” like LaMDA which Mr. Lemoine legitimately believes to be a person. Come on now. Alive? You know like a person whom one can take to an exhibition at the Tate?
The Engadget write up quoted an expert pundit resource as saying that Mr. Lemoine’s statements about LaMDA being alive as
On stilts. I like that because why not personify nonsense as illogical outputs as a stilt walker. On the other hand, thinking LaMDA is alive is almost as credible as the claims of cyber security companies which promise protection from bad actors. Yeah, stilts.
Let’s recap.
- Google wants to solve death and announces quantum supremacy.
- Google shows AI/ML experts the door for saying, in effect, Google’s smart software is wonky. Hasta la vista Drs. Gebru, Mitchell, and Chatterjee! [Yep, each one allowed to find their future elsewhere in the rock-solid, really credible world of AI/ML.]
- Mr. Lemoine— now a former Google AI/ML expert — asserted that Google’s smart software is alive.
- Google’s Big People Management System allegedly bids farewell to Mr. Lemoine.
- News of the termination rockets through the datasphere displacing NSO Group and Elon Musk/Twitter as the headline and PR grabber of the moment. Wow. Too bad for Pegasus and Musk I think. (Some at NSO Group and Tesla might want this Lemoine “it’s alive” confection to persist.
- A Google management case study takes shape. Lucky MBA students!
Reality or sci-fi? That’s a good question.
Stephen E Arnold, July 23, 2022
Softie Follies: Update Signals and Waveforms
July 22, 2022
Sine waves go up. Sine waves go down. Sometimes, the tidy signal becomes chaotic. I wonder how many at Microsoft remember images like this:
The wave is nice, tidy, simple, peaks fully realized, etc.
Now what about this wave form:
Looking a little chaotic, right?
I read about two Microsoft announcements, and the result is a burst of the chaotic in my limited mental apparatus.
The first write up reports that Microsoft is shifting from updating in the most annoying way possible to a slightly less wacky method. “Goodbye Endless Updates? Report Says Microsoft Is Moving Back To The Old Schedule & Windows 12 Is Coming” states:
Back in 2015, a Microsoft employee revealed that Windows 10 would be the last OS they launch but Windows 11 is a thing now and, according to this report, Windows 12 is coming as well. After a few years where Microsoft tried to turn their OS into “Windows as a service”, deploying countless updates instead of a big release every few years, now the company seems to be changing course.
Will there be some spicy chaos added to the Windows whatever? Of course. The write up explains:
Starting with Windows 11 version 22H2 (Sun Valley 2), Microsoft is kicking off a new “Moments” engineering effort which is designed to allow the company to rollout new features and experiences at key points throughout the year, outside of major OS releases. I hear the company intends to ship new features to the in-market version of Windows every few months, up to four times a year, starting in 2023,” reports WindowsCentral.
I thought that Microsoft said in 2015 Windows 10 was the last version of Windows. Obviously my memory is faulty, chaotic like the seemingly randomized fluctuations in Microsoft’s tactics to achieve global domination.
The second write up hits a bit closer to home. “Microsoft Patch Tuesday Update Has Broken Another Really Important Software” explains:
It seems some updates that came as part of this month’s Patch Tuesday broke MS Access runtime applications. Multiple users have reported having this issue to Microsoft, saying MS Access 2016(opens in new tab) and MS Access 2013 are having issues, post KB5002112 and KB5002121 updates. Microsoft has since acknowledged the existence of the problem, with Shane Groff, software design engineer, noting(opens in new tab), “The Access product team is investigating this issue. Thank you for the report, we will update soon.”
I think this means that Microsoft’s wizards cannot fix problems in a reliable way. But there is another twist to the story. The cited article asserts:
Right now, there is no official workaround, or a way to bypass the issue, so the only way to address the problem is to uninstall the patches. That, however, also means exposing the system to multiple known vulnerabilities…
I think this means that an outfit relying on Microsoft Access has a nifty set of options:
- Stop anything requiring Microsoft Access
- Uninstall the outstanding update and create some opportunities for bad actors
- Get rid of the crazy, often unstable and sometimes sluggish Access and embrace a more 21st century solution.
You may have some other ideas; for example, selling the business and taking a long-postponed vacation, thinking about the relationship between stress and heart failure, calling Microsoft’s ever helpful customer support team for intellectual inputs, or some other super duper fix.
Several observations:
- Microsoft appears to be unqualified to perform strategic and tactical functions their customers deserve and want; for instance, functioning systems and secure software
- Microsoft pushed out Windows 11 before the oven timer binged (no pun intended, of course). The half-baked software cookies are just not too appealing and could make some companies wary of what bad actors can and will do
- Microsoft wants to “manage” a big game company which has a wonderful legacy of treating employees in a professional manner when Microsoft cannot manage its own update coding.
Net net: I think this graph captures the outputs of the Softies and its apologists:
Stephen E Arnold, July 19, 2022
The Engadget Facebook Entanglement
July 22, 2022
Engadget is a Silicon Valley type of “real” news outfit in my opinion. The online information service published “Fired Employee Claims Facebook Created Secret Tool to Read Users’ Deleted Messages.” The main idea is that Engadget presents information illustrating some fancy dancing at Facebook. The source is a “former employee.”
The write up reports:
a fired Meta employee who claims the company set up a “protocol” to pull up certain users’ deleted posts and hand them over to law enforcement.
Interesting.
I have heard that Facebook, like some other online outfits with oodles of data, has a procedure in place to respond to legally-okayed requests for certain information. I have also heard that Facebook, like other big time information outfits, does not have the resources to respond to requests as quickly as some officials desire. At one conference, I heard a remark that suggested some Facebook professionals were often busy with other prioritized tasks. The legally-okayed requests were placed in a queue. Eventually the Zuckers got to the requests.
Pace, energy, and responsiveness — these are often the hallmarks of a successful investigation. When absent, the momentum is embedded in digital Jell-O. The treat comes in one flavor: Bureaucratic blueberry, a tangy and bitter treat.
The write up points out this allegation presented in a former employee’s complaint:
a Facebook manager briefed Lawson [a former employee who presented the information] on a new tool which, “allowed them to circumvent Facebook’s normal privacy protocols in order to access user-deleted data.
The article explains Facebook’s alleged actions, its software tools, and the former employee’s actions regarding a method for viewing deleted content.k
Several questions:
- The question is, “Are data really deleted or are pointers removed and the data remain in the system?” In my experience, “removing” data can be a tricky and resource intensive process.
- Another question which occurred to me was, “Is this alleged behavior of the Zuckbook surprising based on the firm’s behaviors manifested in Congressional hearings over the last five years? I know that I was not surprised.
- What are the consequences for Facebook if the allegations are in fact true? An engineer can explain that such and such a tool was little more than a modified utility routinely used to determine what content is consuming storage space allocated for a particular data table. Will the legal eagles be able to resolve a repurposed utility designed to investigate storage space?
I am also intrigued with Engadget’s interest in Facebook. My question is, “What’s the entanglement at a distance between these two remarkable companies?” Engadget finds leakers. Leakers find Engadget. Facebook stories are like replays of events on “Live at Five” TV news programs. Repetitive and routine whether “real” or cooked up like a presenter’s recollection of an event like taking fire in a helicopter flying in a war zone.
Stephen E Arnold, July 22, 2022
Jargon Changes More Rapidly Than Search And Retrieval
July 22, 2022
Oh boy! There is a new term in the search and retrieval lexicon: neural search. While the term sounds like a search engine for telepaths or something a cyborg and/or android would use, Martech Series explained that it is something completely different: “Sinequa Adds Industry-Leading Neural Search Capabilities To Its Search Cloud Platform.”
Sinequa is an enterprise search leader and it recently announced the addition of advanced neural search capabilities to its Search Cloud Platform. The upgrade promises to provide unprecedented relevance, accuracy, etc. Sinequa is the first company to offer neural search in four deep learning language models commercially. The models are pre-trained with a combination of Sinequa’s trademark NLP and semantic search.
Search engines used neural search models for years, but they were not cost-effective for enterprise systems:
“Neural search models have been used in internet searches by Google and Bing since 2019, but computing requirements rendered them too costly and slow for most enterprises, especially at production scale. Sinequa optimized the models and collaborated with the Microsoft Azure and NVIDIA AI/ML teams to deliver a high performance, cost-efficient infrastructure to support intensive Neural Search workloads without a huge carbon footprint. Neural Search is optimized for Microsoft Azure and the latest NVIDIA A10 or A100 Tensor Core GPUs to efficiently process large amounts of unstructured data as well as user queries.”
Wonderful for Sinequa! Search and retrieval, especially in foreign languages are some of the biggest time wasters in productivity. Hopefully, Sinequa actually delivers an industry changing product, otherwise, they simply added more jargon to the tech glossary.
Whitney Grace, July 22, 2022
Google Play: Autosubscriber
July 22, 2022
I cam across a presentation available from the cyber firm Evina. “Autolycos” explains that one can / could download a malicious app from the Google Play Store. (How’s that smart software working to prevent this type of situation, Google? Hello, Google, are you there?)
The write up states:
In July 2022, a new malware family was discovered by top malware experts at Evina. This discovery is remarkable because new malware families are rarely detected (about once a year) and this specific new malware works in an entirely new way.
The operative word is “new.” Why is this important? Cyber security is a reactive business despite the marketing that says, “We predict threats before they do harm?” Well, marketing.
Among the malicious apps are:
- CoCo Camera
- Creative 3D Launcher
- Freeglow Camera
- Funny Camera
- GIF Keyboard
- Razer Keyboard and Theme
- VLOG Star Video Editor
- WOW Camera.
Aimed at younger folks? Sure looks that way;
The report points out:
The malware launches fraud attempts by . For some steps, it can execute urls on a remote browser and embed these results in the http requests. This operation is intended to make it harder for Google to differentiate Autolycos infected apps from legitimate ones. This is exactly why Autolycos remained unidentified for so long and reached over 3 million downloads.
The good news is that the apps appear to be popular outside the US, but there is tomorrow.
Stephen E Arnold, July 22, 2022
Ka-Ching: The Old Sound of New Revenue for the European Union
July 21, 2022
New billing cycle begins. Two benefits. The first is more revenue from fines on US big tech money spinners and the second is a good old school slide tackle with the cleats up. Ouch.
“DMA: Council Gives Final Approval to New Rules for Fair Competition Online” states:
The [Digital Marketing Act] DMA ensures a digital level playing field that establishes clear rights and rules for large online platforms (‘gatekeepers’) and makes sure that none of them abuses their position. Regulating the digital market at EU level will create a fair and competitive digital environment, allowing companies and consumers to benefit from digital opportunities.
And the bold face? That was part of the cited announcement. Ka-ching, slide, oh, broken shin, too bad, mon ami.
The write up elaborated that the Silicon Valley type of logical and efficiency centric companies will no longer be allowed to:
- rank their own products or services higher than those of others (self-preferencing)
- pre-install certain apps or software, or prevent users from easily un-installing these apps or software
- require the most important software (e.g. web browsers) to be installed by default when installing an operating system
- prevent developers from using third-party payment platforms for app sales
- reuse private data collected during a service for the purposes of another service.
Now the ka-ching part. Fines can be up to 20 percent of worldwide revenues. That means that the fines levied by Russia’s estimable agencies are small, brown, shriveled potatoes.
Then the slide tackle: The high tech “way above the clouds in self confidence and entitlement” will have to “inform the European Commission of their acquisitions and mergers.”
Well, so what? That’s an email, right?
Not so fast. A failure to “inform” means the 20 percent fee kicks in. A sluggishness, a bad attitude, and the old let’s apologize tactic will beget additional legislation.
What if the big dude-oids don’t follow the rules?
Just between you and me, okay, renting an apartment in France can be complicated. Now imagine how complicated it will become when the EU creates an environment in which regulatory authorities take a close interest in any touch point with a member. How about flying into Frankfort and being escorted to a return flight to the US? What about a private jet with a happy Silicon Valley-type logo on its tail being refused access to air space? What about some of those interesting employer-employee requirements: Lunch for a French staff in Paris is trivial to employment regulations not codified in a single law.
The write up resonates with that most musical sound: Ka-ching, ka-ching, ka-ching. Why? The agreement was adopted.
Stephen E Arnold, July 21, 2022
Is The TikTok Google Allegation Accurate?
July 21, 2022
Good question. I know that any outfit offering a “service” has individuals who can look at data, metadata, and any other “stuff” associated with a particular entity; for example, spend limit, contacts, and geodata. Privacy and security depend on access controls. In theory, certain data are sandboxed and special approvals may be needed to get into that nifty play area. The hitch in the git along is that a system fails, a senior executive needs something now to close a big deal, a friend begs for help with such and such a problem. There’s also just the endemic “good enough” and “close enough for horse shoes” attitude which affects TV personalities interaction with Air France to a busy parent trying to buy a hamburger and shake for a hungry lacrosse player at 4 pm on a blistering day in rural Kentucky.
That means… gaps, slip ups, work arounds, and doing what’s needed to fill time or get something done fast.
I read “Nothing Is Private: TikToker Who Says She’s a Former Google Admin Warns Workers about Work Accounts.” The information in the article is about a revelation on TikTok. The problem is that I am not sure the behavior described is accurate. Heck, it could be fabricated for some clicks and maybe an appearance on the Joe Rogan podcast. Fame is where you find it today.
The article states as what a TikTok denizen said:
Whatever you put in that account—whether it’s emails, photos, Google Drive documents, or anything else—is not private.
Okay, clear enough.
For fun, let’s assume the Xoogler spilling the beans on the utility of having access to billions of users information is sort of true.
Shocking?
Nah.
The write up says:
that means that a company has access to all of the documents within someone’s company Google account, which can include things like email drafts, G-chats, and Google Drive uploads. This also reportedly applies to universities with student Google accounts. Furthermore, one does not have to leave the job or university for their administrators to obtain this access. “I can get into any of it,” Lauren says. “Any of it!”
Ads, folks. Ads mean money. Who can resist generating revenue, beating performance targets, and getting a big bonus. Once Google would toss in a ski trip or a mouse pad. Go for it. The incentive plan is what makes the Googlers spin.
What’s the fix? The answer is:
Delete. Delete. Delete.
Sounds like reasonable advice if deletion is indeed “real.” Data are backed up and delete usually means removing a pointer to an object in a file. Those back ups, the copies of data tables in a marketing department laptop, or the data required to whip up a projection based on use of information to spur quicker depletion of ad inventory.
Probably not deleted.
Let’s assume the write up describes something the Google does not, could not, would not, and will not do. Wow. Bullet dodged.
But… what if…? Wow. Bullets incoming.
Stephen E Arnold, July 21, 2022
Flawed AI Makes Robots As Bad As Humans
July 21, 2022
Humans have bad behavior, especially on the Internet. Whenever a company releases a new chatbot, the Internet considers it a challenge to transform the chatbot into a racist, homophobic, sexist, etc. AI. It usually takes less than twenty-four hours for this to happen. While it is done for sh*ts and giggles, it also proves a lasting problem with AI. The Eurasia Review explores why in “Robots Turn Racist And Sexist With Flawed AI.”
Researchers at Johns Hopkins University, Georgia Institute of Technology, and the University of Washington studied robots loaded with accepted and widely-used data. They basically discovered the above scenario, except this was not done to fill time. The research will be presented at the 2022 Conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency (ACM FAccT).
The robots have learned toxic behavior and that could hinder technological advancement. Robots should not be sexist, racist, etc. nor should humans believe that it is okay for robots to “behave” in those manners.
” Those building artificial intelligence models to recognize humans and objects often turn to vast datasets available for free on the Internet. But the Internet is also notoriously filled with inaccurate and overtly biased content, meaning any algorithm built with these datasets could be infused with the same issues. Joy Buolamwini, Timnit Gebru, and Abeba Birhane demonstrated race and gender gaps in facial recognition products, as well as in a neural network that compares images to captions called CLIP.
Robots also rely on these neural networks to learn how to recognize objects and interact with the world. Concerned about what such biases could mean for autonomous machines that make physical decisions without human guidance…”
The team conducted a study that confirmed what the Internet already knew: AI is biased and needs to be fixed.
These studies are needed to ensure better datasets are available to program socially acceptable and (dare we say) nice robots. But why did a research team need to investigate this? Many facial recognition companies and other AI startups discovered this already. It is in their favor to create better databases for nicer robots. Maybe it was to gather evidence from a non-commercial entity?
Smart AI is biased AI. Have I interpreted the write up correctly?
Whitney Grace, July 21, 2022
The Fix for Addiction Is More Addiction. Does That Sound Like a Solipsism?
July 21, 2022
I read a remarkable article on the Internet. I believe everything I read on the Internet. What could go wrong with that? (Hang on because one more philosophical puzzle awaits.)
“Samsung Says the Only Cure for Tech Dependency Is More Tech Dependency” caught my attention for two reasons.
First, the use of the word “only.” I like that type of categorical affirmative. It is just so positive in a world of intellectual gray. (Does Samsung make products tinted intellectual gray?)
Second, the solipsistic the fix for dependence is more dependence. Oh, yeah. That’s outstanding thinking.
The write up says:
You’re hooked on tech, and you wish you could stop. But wait, all you need is more tech, says Samsung — and its collaborator, Google.
Here’s another brilliantly sparkly gem:
Surely, though, we need a little more technology. Of course, we do.
This fentanyl-esque argument encapsulates the world view of the top quartile of the top one percent who work for Samsung and Google. Which is more representative of today’s technology environment? Samsung and Google teaming up to make tech the fix for everyone’s issues? The article about this outstanding idea? My pointing out the categorical affirmative and the solipsistic rhetoric? Blame me. Go on. It’s okay. I have a new high tech cable which neutralizes your criticism.
Stephen E Arnold, July 21, 2022
US Elected Officials Leap to the Aid of Consumers, Voters, and Those Who Have Not Spent Enough for Influence Peddlers
July 20, 2022
Over the years, I have enjoyed the very, very slow realization that search results are NOT objective, that user privacy is NOT a priority, and that Congressional investigations are NOT particularly rigorous. Remember those statements, “Senator, thank you for the question.” The statement is followed by jibber jabber that makes clear the person representing a giant firm does not know [a] much about what the business does, [b] is not sure about what the impact of those processes have, and [c] are mostly concerned with nest feathering and reputation grooming.
I thought about my past secret pleasures when I read “Internal Documents Show Facebook and Google Discussing Platform Strategies: The House Judiciary Committee Released New Documents Tuesday.” The write up reports as actual factual behavior:
The documents were obtained by the House Judiciary Committee as part of its lengthy investigation into anticompetitive behavior from Amazon, Apple, Google, and Facebook’s parent company Meta. The investigation wrapped up in 2020, but the newly published emails, memos, and reports provide new evidence backing the committee’s calls to advance tougher competition rules for the tech industry.
Okay, about a two year or more delay between having documents and fortuitously, sincerely, responsibly sharing the information.
Let’s see. I think the people releasing the documents in this expeditious manner affect high-tech companies. These are, in my opinion, exemplars of ethical capitalism which have contributed to [a] the destruction of small retail and service businesses, [b] fostered disunity with echo-chamber content recommendation scripts, [c] egregious management actions with regard to those who disagree or who generate babies in a legal department, [d] twisting procedures to create new revenue opportunities, and [e] just being all around great people at high school reunions, Aspen Institute gatherings, and at NCAA basketball playoff games.
If you want to read these documents, you can navigate to this page, live as of July 20, 2022: https://judiciary.house.gov/online-platforms-and-market-power/additional-documents.htm
My suggestion is that one should access the documents more quickly that the elected officials released them. Like information about the MIC, RAC, and ZPIC activities, data can disappear from a government Web site. Poof. Gone.
I am now officially laughing at this document dump and its timing. Ho ho ho. There are more Amazon documents than information from either Facebook or the Google. Lovable Amazon. Who knew?
Stephen E Arnold, July 20, 2022
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