Google Goes Googley in Paris Over AI … Again
February 10, 2025
Google does some interesting things in Paris. The City of Light was the scene of a Googler’s demonstration of its AI complete with hallucinations about two years ago. On Monday, February 10, 2025, Google’s “leadership” Sundar Pichai alleged leaked his speech or shared some memorable comments with journalists. These were reported in AAWSAT.com, an online information service in the story “AI Is ‘Biggest Shift of Our Lifetimes’, Says Google Boss.”
I like the shift; it reminds me of the word “shifty.”
One of the passages catching my attention was this one, although I am not sure of the accuracy of the version in the cited article. The gist seems on point with Google’s posture during Code Red and its subsequent reorganization of the firm’s smart software unit. The context, however, does not seem to include the impact of Deepseek’s bargain basement approach to AI. Google is into big money for big AI. One wins big in a horse race bet by plopping big bucks on a favorite nag. AI is doing the big bet on AI, about $75 billion in capital expenditures in the next 10 months.
Here’s the quote:
Artificial intelligence (AI) is a "fundamental rewiring of technology" that will act as an "accelerant of human ingenuity." We’re still in the early days of the AI platform shift, and yet we know it will be the biggest of our lifetimes… With AI, we have the chance to democratize access (to a new technology) from the start, and to ensure that the digital divide doesn’t become an AI divide….
The statement exudes confidence. With billions riding on Mr. Pichai gambler’s instinct, stakeholders and employees not terminated for cost savings hope he is correct. Those already terminated may be rooting for a different horse.
Google’s head of smart software (sorry, Jeff Dean) allegedly offered this sentiment:
“Material science, mathematics, fusion, there is almost no area of science that won’t benefit from these AI tools," the Nobel chemistry laureate said.
Are categorical statements part of the mental equipment that makes a Nobel prize winner. He did include an “almost,” but I think the hope is that many technical disciplines will reap the fruits of smart software. Some smart software may just reap fruits from users of smart software’s inputs.
A statement which I found more remarkable was:
Every generation worries that the new technology will change the lives of the next generation for the worse — and yet it’s almost always the opposite.
Another hedged categorical affirmative: “Almost always”. The only issue is that as Jacques Ellul asserted in The Technological Bluff, technology creates problems which invoke more technology to address old problems while simultaneously creating a new technology. I think Father Ellul was on the beam.
How about this for a concluding statement:
We must not let our own bias for the present get in the way of the future. We have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to improve lives at the scale of AI.
Scale. Isn’t that what Deepseek demonstrated may be a less logical approach to smart software? Paris has quite an impact on Google thought processes in my opinion. Did Google miss the Deepseek China foray? Did the company fail to interpret it in the context of wide adoption of AI? On the other hand, maybe if one does not talk about something, one can pretend that something does not exist. Like the Super Bowl ad with misinformation about cheese. Yes, cheese, again.
Stephen E Arnold, February 10, 2025
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