Once High-Flying Publication Identifies a Grim Future for Writers… and Itself
May 8, 2023
Note: This essay is the work of a real and still-alive dinobaby. No smart software involved, just a dumb humanoid.
I am not sure what a Hollywood or New York writer does. I do know that quite a few of these professionals are on strike. The signs are not as catchy as the ones protesters in Paris are using. But France is known for design, and Hollywood and New York is more into the conniving approach to creativity in my opinion.
The article “GPT-4 Can’t Replace Striking TV Writers, But Studios Are Going to Try” identifies a problem for writers. The issue is not the the real or perceived abuses of big studios. The key point of the write up is that software, never the core competency for most big entertainment executives, is now a way to disintermediate and decimate human writers.
ChatGPT apps — despite their flaws — are good enough. When creativity means recycling previous ideas, ChatGPT has some advantages; for example, no vacays, no nasty habits, and no agents. Writers have to be renewed which means meetings. Software is licensed which another piece of smart software can process.
In short, writers lose. Even if the ChatGPT produced “content” is not as good as a stellar film like Heaven’s Gate, that’s show business. Disintermediation has arrived. Protests and signs may not be as effective as some believe. Software may be good enough, not great. But it is works fast, cheap, and without annoying human sign carrying protests.
Stephen E Arnold, May 8, 2023
Google Manager Checklist: What an Amazing Approach from the Online Ad Outfit!
May 8, 2023
Note: This essay is the work of a real and still-alive dinobaby. No smart software involved, just a dumb humanoid. I tagged this write up about the cited story as “News.” I wish I had a suitable term at my disposal because “news” does not capture the essence of the write up in my opinion.
Please, take a moment to read and savor “15 Years Ago, Google Determined the Best Bosses Share These 11 Traits. But 1 Behavior Is Still Missing.” If the title were not a fancy birthday cake, here’s the cherry on top in the form of a subtitle:
While Google’s approach to identifying its best managers is great, it ignores the fact a ‘new’ employee isn’t always new to the company.
Imagine. Google defines new in a way incomprehensible to an observer of outstanding, ethical, exemplary, high-performing commercial enterprises.
What are the traits of a super duper best boss at the Google? In fact, let’s look at each as the traits have been applied in recent Google management actions. You can judge for yourself how the wizards are manifesting “best boss” behavior.
Trait 1. My [Googley] manager gives me “actionable” feedback that helps me improve my performance. Based on my conversations with Google full time employees, communications is not exactly a core competency.
Trait 2. My [Googley] manager does not micro-manage. Based on my personal experience, management of any type is similar to the behavior of the snipe.
Trait 3. My [Googley] manager shows consideration to me as a person. Based on reading about the treatment of folks disagreeing with other Googlers (for instance, Dr. Timnit Gebru), consideration must be defined in a unique Alphabet which I don’t understand.
Trait 4. The actions of [a Googley] manager show that the full time equivalent values the perspective and employee brings to his/her team, even if it is different from his/her own. Wowza. See the Dr. Timnit Gebru reference above or consider the snapshots of Googlers protesting.
Trait 5. [The Googley manager] keeps the team focused on our priority results/deliverables. How about those killed projects, the weird dead end help pages, and the mysteries swirling around ad click fraud allegations?
Trait 6. [The Googley] manager regularly shares relevant information from his/her manager and senior leaders. Yeah, those Friday all-hands meetings now take place when?
Trait 7. [The Googley] manager has had a “meaningful discussion” with me about career development? In my view, terminating people via email when a senior manager gets a $200 million bonus is an outstanding way to stimulate a “meaningful discussion.”
Trait 8. [The Googley] manager communicates clear goals for our team. Absolutely. A good example is the existence of multiple chat apps, cancelation of some moon shots like solving death, and the fertility of the company’s legal department.
Trait 9. [The Googley manager] has technical expertise to manage a professional. Of course, that’s why a Google professional admitted that the AI software was alive and needed a lawyer. The management move of genius was to terminate the wizard. Mental health counseling? Ho ho ho.
Trait 10. [A Googler] recommends a super duper Googley manager to friends? Certainly. That’s what Glassdoor reviews permit. Also, there are posts on social media and oodles of praise opportunities on LinkedIn. The “secret” photographs at an off site? Those are perfect for a Telegram group.
Trait 11. [A true Googler] sees only greatness in Googley managers. Period.
Trait 12. [A Googler] loves Googley managers who are Googley. There is no such thing as too much Googley goodness.
Trait 13. [A Googley manager] does not change, including such actions as overdosing on a yacht with a “special services contractor” or dodging legal documents from a representative of a court or comparable entity from a non US nation state.
This article appears to be a recycling of either a Google science fiction story or a glitch in the matrix.
What’s remarkable is that a well known publication presents the information as substantive. Amazing. I wonder if this “content” is a product of an early version of smart software.
Stephen E Arnold, May 8, 2023
Google AI Thrashing: A Fresh Sundar & Prabhakar Comedy Script?
May 5, 2023
I love anonymous information from a Discord group. How about those Discord app interfaces? Aren’t they superior to the DEC PDP 8 command line? Plus, the folks publishing this internal document (allegedly from the Google control room) do not agree with the contents of the allegedly leaked and not stolen document. That’s reassuring to some I assume. So let’s look at this glimpse of the sausage being made.
I read “We Have No Moat and Neither does OpenAI” on the SemiAnalysis.com web page. The write up is, like most “real news” arrives with a soupçon of mystery. The subject of the information is that Google is addled by OpenAI and the zippiness with which some online users are innovating, applying, and de-Googling certain of their activities.
I noted this statement:
Things we [presumably the happy band of unified Google smart software wizards] consider “major open problems” are solved and in people’s hands today.
And this assertion:
Open-source models are faster, more customizable, more private, and pound-for-pound more capable. They are doing things with $100 and 13B params that we struggle with at $10M and 540B. And they are doing so in weeks, not months.
I think this means old and slow, not young and snappy. The force in the green fuse at what may well be the Google is mired in the Mountain View digital La Brea Tar Pit. Not good for Googzillas young and vibrant or old and arthritic I would suggest.
I liked this statement which seems a bit un-Googley to be frank:
The barrier to entry for training and experimentation has dropped from the total output of a major research organization to one person, an evening, and a beefy laptop.
Beefy laptop? What? No Chromebook?
But aside from jargon, what’s Google big advantage? The write up notes:
All this talk of open source can feel unfair given OpenAI’s current closed policy. Why do we have to share, if they won’t? But the fact of the matter is, we are already sharing everything with them in the form of the steady flow of poached senior researchers. Until we stem that tide, secrecy is a moot point. And in the end, OpenAI doesn’t matter. They are making the same mistakes we are in their posture relative to open source, and their ability to maintain an edge is necessarily in question. Open source alternatives can and will eventually eclipse them unless they change their stance. In this respect, at least, we can make the first move.
This is an interesting “upside” to the analysis. Look OpenAI will die, but possibly an outfit like Google can get a win with an open source approach. I am not sure I can agree when many people are happily embracing Microsoft’s crowd-pleasing approach to smart software. Hey, it’s Windows. Edge makes life easy. Outlook and Teams will be even more wonderfulest with Microsoft’s smart software.
The open source angle is interesting, but I am not sure it will resonate in the current hot house of smart software where genetic diversity is increasing with each karyotype mash up. This is not elephant gestation. Think swamp critters on a warm spring day.
Am I citing information from what is allegedly a leaked Google document? I don’t know.
The write up is not Googley as documents from the era of Messrs. Brin and Page (where is that wizard because some in a judicial system have a document for him), and that adds to the comedic vibe. Nope, the essay not ready for the Sundar & Prabhakar Comedy Show on YouTube this weekend. It’s a good start though, just behind schedule.
Stephen E Arnold, May 5, 2023
More Fake Drake and a Google Angle
May 5, 2023
Note: This essay is the work of a real and still-alive dinobaby. No smart software involved, just a dumb humanoid.
Copyright law was never designed to address algorithms that can flawlessly mimic artists and writers based on what it learns from the Internet. Absent any more relevant litigation, however, it may be up to the courts to resolve this thorny and rapidly escalating issue. And poor Google, possessor of both YouTube and lofty AI ambitions, is stuck between a rock and a hard place. The Verge reports, “AI Drake Just Set an Impossible Legal Trap for Google.”
To make a winding story short, someone used AI to create a song that sounded eerily like Drake and The Weekend and post it in TikTok. From there it made its way to Apple Music, Spotify, and YouTube. While Apple and Spotify could and did pull the track from their platforms right away, user-generated-content platforms TikTok and Google are bound by established takedown processes that rest on copyright law. And new content generated by AI that mimics humans is not protected by copyright. Yet.
The track was eventually removed on TikTok and YouTube based on an unauthorized sample of a producer tag at the beginning. But what if the song were re-released without that snippet? Publishers now assert that training AI on bodies of artists’ work is itself copyright infringement, and a fake Drake (or Taylor Swift or Tim McGraw) song is therefore a derivative work. Sounds logical to me. But for Google, both agreeing and disagreeing pose problems. Writer Nilay Patel explains:
“So now imagine that you are Google, which on the one hand operates YouTube, and on the other hand is racing to build generative AI products like Bard, which is… trained by scraping tons of data from the internet under a permissive interpretation of fair use that will definitely get challenged in a wave of lawsuits. AI Drake comes along, and Universal Music Group, one of the largest labels in the world, releases a strongly worded statement about generative AI and how its streaming partners need to respect its copyrights and artists. What do you do?
*If Google agrees with Universal that AI-generated music is an impermissible derivative work based on the unauthorized copying of training data, and that YouTube should pull down songs that labels flag for sounding like their artists, it undercuts its own fair use argument for Bard and every other generative AI product it makes — it undercuts the future of the company itself.
*If Google disagrees with Universal and says AI-generated music should stay up because merely training an AI with existing works is fair use, it protects its own AI efforts and the future of the company, but probably triggers a bunch of future lawsuits from Universal and potentially other labels, and certainly risks losing access to Universal’s music on YouTube, which puts YouTube at risk.”
Quite the conundrum. And of course, it is not just music. YouTube is bound to face similar issues with movies, TV shows, news, podcasts, and other content. Patel notes creators and their publishers are highly motivated to wage this fight because, for them, it is a fight to the potential death of their industries. Will Google sacrifice the currently lucrative YouTube or its potentially more profitable AI aspirations?
Cynthia Murrell, May 5, 2023
What a Difference a Format Makes. 24 Little Bytes
May 5, 2023
Note: This essay is the work of a real and still-alive dinobaby. No smart software involved, just a dumb humanoid.
Lawyer Carl Oppedahl has strong feelings about the Patent Office’s push to shift applications from PDF format to the DOCX format. In his most recent blog post on the subject he considers, “How Successful Have USPTO;s DOCX Training Webinars Been?” His answer, in short, is not very.
Oppendahl recently conducted two webinars for law offices that regularly file clients’ patent applications. He polled his attendees and reports the vast majority of them felt the Patent Office has not done a good job of communicating the pros and cons of DOCX filing. More significant, though, may be the majority of attendees who say they will not or might not submit filings in DOCX in the future, despite the $200 – $400 fee for stubbornly sticking with PDFs. In our experience PDFs are a PITA, so why is there such a strong resistance to change?
I sat through a recording of Oppendahl’s first webinar on the subject, and if you believe his account there are actually some very good reasons. It is all about protecting one’s client. Oh, and protecting oneself from a malpractice claim. That could be worth a few hundred bucks (which one might pass on to the client anyway.) His executive-summary slide specifies:
“DOCX filing puts you more at risk than PDF filing
PDF filing:
*You can protect yourself tomorrow or next month or TYFNIL [ten years from now in litigation].
*The Ack Receipt Message Digest allows you to prove the PDF file you preserved is the same PDF file that was uploaded to the PTO.
*You get an audit trail.
DOCX filing:
*You cannot prove what DOCX file you actually uploaded.
*The PTO throws away the DOCX file you uploaded (D1) and only keeps their manipulated version (D2).
*There is no Ack Receipt Message Digest available to prove the DOCX file you preserved is the same DOCX file that you uploaded to the USPTO.
*The USPTO destroys the audit trail.
*There is an Ack Receipt Message Digest relating to DOCX. It does not match the file you uploaded (D1) so you cannot use it to prove what you filed. It does match the file D2 that became authoritative the instant that you clicked ‘submit,’ so TYFNIL it permits the infringer to prove that you must have clicked ‘submit’ and you agreed that your uploaded DOCX file D1 was not controlling.
*In other words TYFNIL if you try to point to what you say you uploaded, and you try to say that this is what should have issued in the patent the Message Digest will serve to say that you agreed that what you uploaded was irrelevant to what should have issued in the patent. The Message Digest serves to say that you agreed that the patent should issue based on what was in that manipulated version D2.
*In the DOCX filing system, the Message Digest has been repurposed to protect the USPTO and to protect infringers, and no longer protects you, the applicant or practitioner.”
Like I said, strong feelings. For details on each of these points, one really just needs to listen to the first 45 minutes of the webinar, not all one-and-a-half hours. A key point lies in that D1 versus D2 issue. The D2, which submitters are required to verify, is what emerges from the other side of the PTO’s proprietary docx validator software. According to Oppendahl, that software has been proven to introduce errors, like changing a mu to a u or a square root sign to a smiley face for example. For patents that involve formulas or the like, that can be a huge issue. To avoid such errors being set in stone, filers (or their paralegals) must check the submitted document against the new one character by character while the midnight EST deadline looms. Not ideal.
Another important issue is the value of the Ack Receipt Message Digest facilitated by PDFs but not DOCX documents. The technology involves hash functions and is an interesting math tangent if you’re into that kind of thing.
So why is the Patent Office pushing so hard? Apparently it is so they can automate their approval process. Automation is often a good thing, and we understand why they are eager to speed up the process and reduce their backlog. But the Patent Office may be jumping the gun if applicants’ legitimate legal standing is falling through the cracks.
Cynthia Murrell, May 5, 2023
Digital Tech Journalism Killed by a Digital Elephant
May 4, 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 labored explanation, analysis, and rhetorical howl from Slate.com. The article is “Digital Media’s Original Sin: The Big Tech Bubble Burst and the News Industry Got Splattered with Shrapnel.” The article states:
For years, the tech industry has propped up digital journalism with advertising revenue, venture capital injections, and far-reaching social platforms.
My view is that the reason for the problem in digital tech journalism is the elephant. When electronic information flows, it acts in a way similar to water eroding soil. In short, flows of electronic information have what I call a “deconstructive element.” The “information business” once consisted of discrete platforms, essentially isolated by choice and by accident. Who in your immediate locale pays attention to the information published in the American Journal of Mathematics? Who reads Craigslist for listings of low-ball vacation rentals near Alex Murdaugh’s “estate”?
Convert this content to digital form and dump the physical form of the data. Then live in a dream world in which those who want the information will flock to a specific digital destination and pay big money for the one story or the privilege of browsing information which may or may not be accurate. Slate points out that it did not work out.
But what’s the elephant? Digital information to people today is like water to the goldfish in a bowl. It is just there.
The elephant was spawned by a few outfits which figured out that paying money to put content in front of eyeballs. The elephant grew and developed new capabilities; for example, the “pay to play” model of GoTo.com morphed into Overture.com and became something Yahoo.com thought would be super duper. However, the Google was inspired by “pay to play” and had the technical ability to create a system for creating a market from traffic, charging people to put content in front of the eyeballs, and charge anyone in the enabling chain money to use the Google system.
The combination of digital flows’ deconstructive operation plus the quasi-monopolization of online advertising death lethal blows to the crowd Slate addresses. Now the elephant has morphed again, and it is stomping around in the space defined by TikTok. A visual medium with advertising poses a threat to the remaining information producers as well as to Google itself.
The elephant is not immortal. But right now no group is armed with Mossberg Patriot Laminate Marinecotes and the skill to kill the elephant. Electronic information gulping advertising revenue may prove to be harder to kill than a cockroach. Maybe that’s why most people ask, “What elephant?”
Stephen E Arnold, May 4, 2023
An AI Detector: Programming Cats Chase Digital Mouse
May 4, 2023
Note: This essay is the work of a real and still-alive dinobaby. No smart software involved, just a dumb humanoid.
In the cyber security game, good people create smart tools to identify threats before these occur. Sounds great, right? The reality is a bit different. A prolific identifier of threats on Twitter like LockBit’s new play, a resurgence of Cobalt Strike beacons, and Node.js issues. The question I ask is: “Why are bad actors enjoying the successes they do? Isn’t smart cyber security supposed to head these black hat riders off at the pass?”
We have the cat-and-mouse game for security professionals and ne’er do wells.
I thought about cats and mice when I read “AI Detector and ChatGPT Checker Proven Tool: New Release.” The idea is that software can spot content produced by less smart software. I noted this passage:
The newly released version of a plagiarism scanner with a percentage has advanced capabilities to detect content written by AI. The effectiveness of this innovative software confirms 97% verified accuracy.
I interpret this statement to mean that the previous version of the ChatGPT detector failed at detecting smart software generated text. Thus, the most recent version has nailed the problem. Sounds good, maybe sounds great.
I want to point out that the pace of smart software morphing is zipping along. In fact, there are more people tugging at these “zippers”, getting new ideas, and experimenting with ways to extract more useful outputs. The AI bandwagon is like a hot rod. There are people who want to tweak, tune, and customize their vehicles. One can buy a Volkswagen with an electric motor or build a Tesla with an internal combustion engine. stamp out such abnormalities. What’s a Tesla dealer going to do? Oh, right, there are no Tesla dealers.
I urge you to try the PlagiarismCheck.org software. Keep in mind the cat-and-mouse game the group is playing. Like the cyber security outfits, reacting to threats is necessary because there are more innovative bad actors than defense systems know about. The plagiarism checker may work today, but tomorrow?
Stephen E Arnold, May 4, 2023
Social Media: Phoenix or Dead Duck?
May 3, 2023
Note: This essay is the work of a real and still-alive dinobaby. No smart software involved, just a dumb humanoid.
Even as he declares “Social Media Is Doomed to Die,” Verge reporter and Snapchat veteran Elis Hamburger seems to maintain a sliver of hope for the original social-media vision: to facilitate user-driven human connection. This shiny shard may be all that remains of the faith that led him to work at Snapchat. Hamburger writes:
“From its earliest days, Snap wanted to be a healthier, more ethical social media platform. A place where popularity wasn’t always king and where monetization would be through creative tools that supported users — not ads that burdened them.”
Alas, those good intentions paved a road leading the same direction as the competitions’. Apparently, the pull of add revenue becomes too strong even for companies with the best of intentions. Especially when users are uninterested in ever footing the bill themselves. The article continues:
“When a company submits to digital advertising, there’s no avoiding the tradeoffs that come with it. And users get put in the back seat. … More ads appear in your feed, forever. ‘It won’t happen to us,’ we said, and then it did. Today, the product evolution of social media apps has led to a point where I’m not sure you can even call them social anymore — at least not in the way we always knew it. They each seem to have spontaneously discovered that short form videos from strangers are simply more compelling than the posts and messages from friends that made up traditional social media. Call it the carcinization of social media, an inevitable outcome for feeds built only around engagement and popularity. So one day — it’s hard to say exactly when — a switch was flipped. Away from news, away from followers, away from real friends — toward the final answer to earning more time from users: highly addictive short form videos that magically appear to numb a chaotic, crowded brain.”
The piece asserts users also have themselves to blame, both by seeking greater and greater social validation and by embracing new, ad-boosting features that offer an endorphin boost. They could also express more willingness to pay for social media’s services, we suppose, and Hamburger imagines a scenario where they would do so. However, that would mean completely tearing down and rebuilding the social media landscape since existing platforms rest on the lucrative users-as-products model. Is it possible? There may be a shred of hope.
Cynthia Murrell, May 3, 2023
Libraries: Who Needs Them? Perhaps Everyone
May 3, 2023
Note: This essay is the work of a real and still-alive dinobaby. No smart software involved, just a dumb humanoid.
How dare libraries try to make the works they purchase more easily accessible to their patrons! The Nation ponders, “When You Buy a Book, You Can Loan It to Anyone. This Judge Says Libraries Can’t. Why Not?” The case was brought before the U.S. District Court in Manhattan by four publishers unhappy with the Internet Archive’s (IA) controlled digital lending (CDL) program. We learn the IA does plan to appeal the decision. Writer Michelle M. Wu explains:
“At issue was whether a library could legally digitize the books it already owned and lend the digital copies in place of the print. The IA maintained that it could, as long as it lent only the same number of copies it owned and locked down the digital copies so that a borrower could not copy or redistribute them. It would be doing what libraries had always done, lend books—just in a different format. The publishers, on the other hand, asserted that CDL infringed on authors’ copyrights, making unauthorized copies and sharing these with libraries and borrowers, thereby depriving the authors and publishers of rightful e-book sales. They viewed CDL as piracy. While Judge John G. Koeltl’s opinion addressed many issues, all his reasoning was based on one assumption: that copyright primarily is about authors’ and publishers’ right to profit. Despite the pervasiveness of this belief, the history of copyright tells us something different.”
Wu recounts copyright’s evolution from a means to promote the sharing of knowledge to a way for publishers to rake in every possible dime. The shift was driven by a series of developments in technology. In the 1980s, the new ability to record content to video tape upset Hollywood studios. Apparently, being able to (re)watch a show after its initial broadcast was so beyond the pale a lawsuit was required. Later, Internet-based innovations prompted more legal proceedings. On the other hand, tools evolved that enabled publishers to enforce their interpretation of copyright, no judicial review required. Wu asserts:
“Increasing the impact on the end user, publishers—not booksellers or authors—now control prices and access. They can charge libraries multiple times what they charge an individual and bill them repeatedly for the same content. They can limit the number of copies a library buys, or even refuse to sell e-books to libraries at all. Such actions ultimately reduce the amount of content that libraries can provide to their readers.”
So that is how the original intention of copyright law has been turned on its head. And how publishers are undermining the whole purpose of libraries, which are valiantly trying to keep pace with technology. Perhaps the IA will win it’s appeal and the valuable CDL program will be allowed to continue. Either way, their litigious history suggests publishers will keep fighting for control over content.
Cynthia Murrell, May 3, 2023
Google AI Reorganization: Hinton Bails Out
May 2, 2023
Note: This essay is the work of a real and still-alive dinobaby. No smart software involved, just a dumb humanoid.
I saw a number of pointers to a New York Times’ story about an AI wizard bailing out of the smooth riding Google AI operation. “‘The Godfather of A.I.’ Leaves Google and Warns of Danger Ahead” states that the AI expert “worries it will cause serious harm.” I liked this statement because it displays the Times’s penchant for adding opinions to information provided by an expert. I love psycho-journalism!
Dr. Hinton’s journey from A.I. groundbreaker to doomsayer marks a remarkable moment for the technology industry at perhaps its most important inflection point in decades. Industry leaders believe the new A.I. systems could be as important as the introduction of the web browser in the early 1990s and could lead to breakthroughs in areas ranging from drug research to education. But gnawing at many industry insiders is a fear that they are releasing something dangerous into the wild. Generative A.I. can already be a tool for misinformation. Soon, it could be a risk to jobs. Somewhere down the line, tech’s biggest worriers say, it could be a risk to humanity.
Remember the halcyon days of “objective” Google search results? What about the excitement of sending short messages for free and harmlessly capturing followers with a pithy bon mot? Has the warm flush of Facebook’s ability to build communities among users and predators faded? Each of these looked benign. Entertaining curiosities.
Now smart software is viewed with some skepticism. Gee. It only took a quarter century for people to figure out that flowing information is sometimes good and many times a bit like water blasted from a nozzle at great speed.
I found this comment interesting:
Until last year, he [Hinton] said, Google acted as a “proper steward” for the technology, careful not to release something that might cause harm. But now that Microsoft has augmented its Bing search engine with a chatbot — challenging Google’s core business — Google is racing to deploy the same kind of technology. The tech giants are locked in a competition that might be impossible to stop, Dr. Hinton said. His immediate concern is that the internet will be flooded with false photos, videos and text, and the average person will “not be able to know what is true anymore.”
I wonder if the OSINT cheerleaders have considered that what may be a multi-billion dollar industry could be facing a bit of a challenge. Mixing up Ukrainian field survey tags with Russian targeting devices will be small potatoes if Mr. Hinton is correct.
The photograph of the wizard captures a person who is not a 20 something Googler. The expression seems to suggest a growing awareness of a rework of the Information Superhighway and some other furniture of the modern world.
Stephen E Arnold, May 2, 2023
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