Quantum Management: The Google Method
December 27, 2023
This essay is the work of a dumb dinobaby. No smart software required.
I read a story (possibly sad or at least bittersweet) in Inc. Magazine. “Google Fired 12,000 Employees. A Year Later, the CEO Says It Was the Right Call, Just Done in the Wrong Way” asks an interesting question of a company which has triggered a number of employee-related actions. From protests to stochastic parrots, the Google struggles to tailor its management methods to the people it hires.
What happens when high school science club engineering is applied to modern tasks? Some projects fall down. Hello, San Francisco, do you have a problem with a certain big building? Thanks, MSFT Copilot. Good enough.
The story reports:
A few days ago, Google’s CEO Sundar Pichai openly acknowledged that the way Google managed the layoff of 12,000 employees, about 6 percent of its workforce, was not done right…. Initially, Google’s stance on the layoffs was presented as a strategic necessity, a move to streamline operations and focus on crucial business areas…. Pichai’s frank admission that the process could have been handled differently is a notable shift from the company’s earlier justifications??.
What I think this means is that Google’s esteemed leader made a somewhat typical decision for a person imbued with some of the philosophy of a non-Western culture. In 2023, Google has lurched from Red Alert to Red Alert. In January 2023, Microsoft seized the marketing initiative in the lucrative world of enterprise artificial intelligence. And what about some of Google’s AI demonstrations? Yeah, some were edited and tweaked to be more Googley. Then after a couple of high profile legal cases went against the company, Sundar Pichai has allegedly admitted that he has made some errors.
No kidding. Like the architect engineers of the Florida high rise which collapsed to ruin the day of a number of people, mistakes were made. I suppose San Francisco’s Millennium Tower could topple over the holidays. That event would pull some eyeballs off the online advertising company.
The sad reality is that Google’s senior management is pushing buttons and getting poor results. The Inc. Magazine article ends this way:
The key questions moving forward are: Will Google face any repercussions for the way it handled the layoffs? What concrete actions will the company take to improve communication and support for its employees, both those who were let go and those who remain? And, importantly, how will this experience shape Google’s, and potentially other companies’, approach to workforce management in the future?
Questions, just not the right one. In my opinion, Google’s Board of Directors may want to ask:
Is it time to big adieu to Sundar Pichai and his expensive hires? With the current team in place, Google’s core business model at risk from ChatGPT-type findability services, legal eagles hovering over the company, and now a public admission that firing 12,000 wizards by email was a mistake, I ask, “What’s next, Sundar?”
Net net: The company’s management method (which reminds me of how my high school science club solved problems) is showing signs of cracking and crumbling in my opinion.
Stephen E Arnold, December 27, 2023
Quantum Supremacy in Management: A Google Incident
December 25, 2023
This essay is the work of a dumb dinobaby. No smart software required.
I spotted an interesting story about an online advertising company which has figured out how to get great PR in respected journals. But this maneuver is a 100 yard touchdown run for visibility. “Hundreds Gather at Google’s San Francisco Office to Protest $1.2 Billion Contract with Israel” reports:
More than 400 protesters gathered at Google’s San Francisco office on Thursday to demand the tech company cut ties with Israel’s government.
Some managers and techno wizards envy companies which have the knack for attracting crowds and getting free publicity. Thanks, MSFT Copilot. Close enough for horseshoes
The demonstration, according to the article, was a response to Google and its new BFF’s project for Israel. The SFGate article contains some interesting photographs. One is a pretend dead person wrapped in a shroud with the word “Genocide” in bright, cheerful Google log colors. I wanted to reproduce it, but I am not interested in having copyright trolls descend on me like a convocation of legal eagles. The “Project Nimbus” — nimbus is a type of cloud which I learned about in the fifth- or sixth-grade — “provides the country with local data centers and cloud computing services.”
The article contains words which cause OpenAI’s art generators to become uncooperative. That banned word is “genocide.” The news story adds some color to the fact of the protest on December 14, 2023:
Multiple speakers mentioned an article from The Intercept, which reported that Nimbus delivered Israel the technology for “facial detection, automated image categorization, object tracking, and even sentiment analysis.” Others referred to an NPR investigation reporting that Israel says it is using artificial intelligence to identify targets in Gaza, though the news outlet did not link the practice to Google’s technology.
Ah, ha. Cloud services plus useful technologies. (I wonder if the facial recognition system allegedly becoming available to the UK government is included in the deal?) The story added a bit of spice too:
For most of Thursday’s protest, two dozen people lay wrapped in sheets — reading “Genocide” in Google’s signature rainbow lettering — in a “die-in” performance. At the end, they stood to raise up white kites, as a speaker read Refaat Alareer’s “If I must die,” written just over a month before the Palestinian poet was killed by an Israeli airstrike.
The article included a statement from a spokesperson, possible from Google. This individual said:
“We have been very clear that the Nimbus contract is for workloads running on our commercial platform by Israeli government ministries such as finance, healthcare, transportation, and education,” she said. “Our work is not directed at highly sensitive or classified military workloads relevant to weapons or intelligence services.”
Does this sound a bit like an annoyed fifth- or sixth-grade teacher interrupted by a student who said out loud: “Clouds are hot air.” While not technically accurate, the student was sent to the principal’s office. What will happen in this situation?
Some organizations know how to capture users’ attention. Will the company be able to monetize it via a YouTube Short or a more lengthy video. Google is quite skilled at making videos which purport to show reality as Google wants it to be. The “real” reality maybe be different. Revenue is important, particularly as regulatory scrutiny remains popular in the EU and the US.
Stephen E Arnold, December 25, 2023
Google AI and Ads: Beavers Do What Beavers Do
December 20, 2023
This essay is the work of a dumb dinobaby. No smart software required.
Consider this. Take a couple of beavers. Put them in the Cloud Room near the top of the Chrysler Building in Manhattan. Shut the door. Come back in a day. What have the beavers done? The beavers start making a dam. Beavers do what beavers do. That’s a comedian’s way of explaining that some activities are hard wired into an organization. Therefore, beavers do what beavers do.
I read the paywalled article “Google Plans Ad Sales Restructuring as Automation Booms” and the other versions of the story on the shoulder of the Information Superhighway; for example, the trust outfit’s recycling of the Information’s story. The giant quantum supremacy, protein folding, and all-round advertising company is displaying beaver-like behavior. Smart software will be used to sell advertising.
That ad DNA? Nope, the beavers do what beavers do. Here’s a snip from the write up:
The planned reorganization comes as Google is relying more on machine-learning techniques to help customers buy more ads on its search engine, YouTube and other services…
Translating: Google wants fewer people to present information to potential and actual advertisers. The idea is to reduce costs and sell more advertising. I find it interesting that the quantum supremacy hoo-hah boils down to … selling ads and eliminating unreliable, expensive, vacation-taking, and latte consuming humans.
Two real beavers are surprised to learn that a certain large and dangerous creature also has DNA. Notice that neither of the beavers asks the large reptile to join them for lunch. The large reptile may, in fact, view the beavers as something else; for instance, lunch. Thanks, MSFT Copilot. Good enough.
Are there other ad-related changes afoot at the Google? According to “Google Confirms It is Testing Ad Copy Variation in Live Ads” points out:
Google quietly started placing headlines in ad copy description text without informing advertisers
No big deal. Just another “test”, I assume. Search Engine Land (a publication founded, nurtured, and shaped into the search engine optimization information machine by Dan Sullivan, now a Googler) adds:
Changing the rules without informing advertisers can make it harder for them to do their jobs and know what needs to be prioritized. The impact is even more significant for advertisers with smaller budgets, as assessing the changes, especially with responsive search ads, becomes challenging, adding to their workload.
Google wants to reduce its workload. In pursuing that noble objective, if Search Engine Land is correct, may increase the workload of the advertisers. But never fear, the change is trivial, “a small test.”
What was that about beavers? Oh, right. Certain behaviors are hard wired into the DNA of a corporate entity, which under US law is a “person” someone once told me.
Let me share with you several observations based on my decades-long monitoring of the Google.
- Google does what Google wants and then turns over the explanation to individuals who say what is necessary to deflect actual intent, convert actions into fuzzy Google speech, and keep customer and user pushback to a minimum. (Note: The tactic does not work with 100 percent reliability as the recent loss to US state attorneys general illustrates.)
- Smart software is changing rapidly. What appears to be one application may (could) morph into more comprehensive functionality. Predicting the future of AI and Google’s actions is difficult. Google will play the odds which means what the “entity” does will favor its objective and goals.
- The quaint notion of a “small test” is the core of optimization for some methods. Who doesn’t love “quaint” as a method for de-emphasizing the significance of certain actions. The “small test” is often little more than one component of a larger construct. Dismissing the small is to ignore the larger component’s functionality; for example, data control and highly probable financial results.
Let’s flash back to the beavers in the Cloud Room. Imagine the surprise of someone who opens the door and sees gnawed off portions of chairs, towels, a chunk of unidentifiable gook piled between two tables.
Those beavers and their beavering can create an unexpected mess. The beavers, however, are proud of their work because they qualify under an incentive plan for a bonus. Beavers do what beavers do.
Stephen E Arnold, December 20, 2023
Is Google Really Clever and Well Managed or the Other Way Round?
December 19, 2023
This essay is the work of a dumb dinobaby. No smart software required.
“Google Will Pay $700 Million to Settle a Play Store Antitrust Lawsuit with All 50 US States” reports that Google put up a blog post. (You can read that at this link. The title of the post is worth the click.) Neowin.net reported that Google will “make some changes.”
“What’s happened to our air vent?” asks one government regulatory professional. Thanks, MSFT Copilot. Good enough.
Change is good. It is better if that change is organic in my opinion. But change is change. I noted this statement in the Neowin.net article:
The public reveal of this settlement between Google and the US state attorney generals comes just a few days after a jury ruled against Google in a similar case with developer Epic Games. The jury agreed with Epic’s view that Google was operating an illegal monopoly with its Play Store on Android devices. Google has stated it will appeal the jury’s decision.
Yeah, timing.
Several observations:
- It appears that some people perceive Google as exercising control over their decisions and the framing of those decisions
- The business culture creating the need to pay a $700 million penalty are likely to persist because the people who write checks at Google are not the people facilitating the behaviors creating the legal issue in my opinion
- The payday, when distributed, is not the remedy for some of those snared in the Googley approach to business.
Net net: Other nation states may look at the $700 million number and conclude, “Let’s take another look at that outfit.”
Stephen E Arnold, December 19, 2023
Ignoring the Big Thing: Google and Its PR Hunger
December 18, 2023
This essay is the work of a dumb dinobaby. No smart software required.
I read “FunSearch: Making New Discoveries in Mathematical Sciences Using Large Language Models.” The main idea is that Google’s smart software is — once again — going where no mortal man has gone before. The write up states:
Today, in a paper published in Nature, we introduce FunSearch, a method to search for new solutions in mathematics and computer science. FunSearch works by pairing a pre-trained LLM, whose goal is to provide creative solutions in the form of computer code, with an automated “evaluator”, which guards against hallucinations and incorrect ideas. By iterating back-and-forth between these two components, initial solutions “evolve” into new knowledge. The system searches for “functions” written in computer code; hence the name FunSearch.
I like the idea of getting the write up in Nature, a respected journal. I like even better the idea of Google-splaining how a large language model can do mathy things. I absolutely love the idea of “new.”
“What’s with the pointed stick? I needed a wheel,” says the disappointed user of an advanced technology in days of yore. Thanks, MSFT Copilot. Good enough, which is a standard of excellence in smart software in my opinion.
Here’s a wonderful observation summing up Google’s latest development in smart software:
FunSearch is like one of those rocket cars that people make once in a while to break land speed records. Extremely expensive, extremely impractical and terminally over-specialized to do one thing, and do that thing only. And, ultimately, a bit of a show. YeGoblynQueenne via YCombinator.
My question is, “Is Google dusting a code brute force method with marketing sprinkles?” I assume that the approach can be enhanced with more tuning of the evaluator. I am not silly enough to ask if Google will explain the settings, threshold knobs, and probability levers operating behind the scenes.
Google’s prose makes the achievement clear:
This work represents the first time a new discovery has been made for challenging open problems in science or mathematics using LLMs. FunSearch discovered new solutions for the cap set problem, a longstanding open problem in mathematics. In addition, to demonstrate the practical usefulness of FunSearch, we used it to discover more effective algorithms for the “bin-packing” problem, which has ubiquitous applications such as making data centers more efficient.
The search for more effective algorithms is a never-ending quest. Who bothers to learn how to get a printer to spit out “Hello, World”? Today I am pleased if my printer outputs a Gmail message. And bin-packing is now solved. Good.
As I read the blog post, I found the focus on large language models interesting. But that evaluator strikes me as something of considerable interest. When smart software discovers something new, who or what allows the evaluator to “know” that something “new” is emerging. That evaluator must be something to prevent hallucination (a fancy term for making stuff up) and blocking the innovation process. I won’t raise any Philosophy 101 questions, but I will say, “Google has the keys to the universe” with sprinkles too.
There’s a picture too. But where’s the evaluator. Simplification is one thing, but skipping over the system and method that prevents smart software hallucinations (falsehoods, mistakes, and craziness) is quite another.
Google is not a company to shy from innovation from its human wizards. If one thinks about the thrust of the blog post, will these Googlers be needed. Google’s innovativeness has drifted toward me-too behavior and being clever with advertising.
The blog post concludes:
FunSearch demonstrates that if we safeguard against LLMs’ hallucinations, the power of these models can be harnessed not only to produce new mathematical discoveries, but also to reveal potentially impactful solutions to important real-world problems.
I agree. But the “how” hangs above the marketing. But when a company has quantum supremacy, the grimness of the recent court loss, and assorted legal hassles — what is this magical evaluator?
I find Google’s deal to use facial recognition to assist the UK in enforcing what appears to be “stop porn” regulations more in line with what Google’s smart software can do. The “new” math? Eh, maybe. But analyzing every person trying to access a porn site and having the technical infrastructure to perform cross correlation. Now that’s something that will be of interest to governments and commercial customers.
The bin thing and a short cut for a python script. Interesting but it lacks the practical “big bucks now” potential of the facial recognition play. That, as far as I know, was not written up and ponied around to prestigious journals. To me, that was news, not the FUN as a cute reminder of a “function” search.
Stephen E Arnold, December 18, 2023
Google and Its Epic Magic: Will It Keep on Thrilling?
December 17, 2023
This essay is the work of a dumb dinobaby. No smart software required.
The Financial Times (the orange newspaper) published a paywalled essay/interview with Epic Games’s CEO Tim Sweeney. The hook for the sit down was the decision that a court proceeding determined that Google had acted in an illegal way. How? Google developed Android, then Google used that mobile system as a platform for revenue generation. These appear to have involved one-off special deals with some companies and a hefty commission on sales made via the Google Play Store.
Will the magic show continue to surprise and entertain the innocent at the party? Thanks, MSFT Copilot. Close enough for horseshoes, but I wanted a Godzilla monster in a tuxedo doing the tricks. But that’s forbidden.
Several items struck me in the article “Epic Games Chief Concerned Google Will Get Away with App Store Charges.”
First, the trial made clear that Google was unable to back up certain data. Here’s how the Financial Times’s story phrased this matter:
The judge in the case, US district judge James Donato, also criticized the company for its failure to preserve evidence, with internal policies for deleting chats. He instructed the jury that they were free to conclude Google’s chat deletion policies were designed to conceal incriminating evidence. “The Google folks clearly knew what they were doing,” Sweeney said. “They had very lucid writings internally as they were writing emails to each other, though they destroyed most of the chats.” “And then there was the massive document destruction,” Sweeney added. “It’s astonishing that a trillion-dollar corporation at the pinnacle of the American tech industry just engages in blatantly dishonest processes, such as putting all of their communications in a form of chat that is destroyed every 24 hours.” Google has since changed its chat deletion policy.
Taking steps to obscure evidence suggests to me that Google operates in an ethical zone with which I and the judge find uncomfortable. The behavior also implies that Google professionals are not just clever, but that they do what pays off within a governance system which is comfortable with a philosophy of entitlement. Google does what Google does. Oh, that is a problem for others. Well, that’s too bad.
Second, according to the article, Google would pursue “alternative payment methods.” The online ad giant would then slap a fee to list a product in the Google Play Store. The method has a number of variations which can include a fee for promoting a product to offering different size listings. The idea is similar to a grocery chain charging a manufacturer to put annoying free standing displays of breakfast foods in the center of a high traffic aisle.
Third , Mr. Sweeney seems happy with the evidence about payola which emerged during the trial. Google appears to have payed Samsung to sell its digital goods via the Google Play Store. The pay-to-play model apparently prevented the South Korean company from setting up an alternative store for Android equipped mobile devices.
Several observations:
- The trial, unlike the proceedings in the DC monopoly probe produced details about what Google does to generate lock in, money, and Googliness
- The destruction of evidence makes clear a disdain for behavior which preserves the trust and integrity of certain norms of behavior
- The trial makes clear that Google wants to preserve its dominant position and will pay to remain Number One.
Net net: Will Google’s magic wow everyone as it did when the company was gaining momentum? For some, yes. For others, no, sorry. I think the costume Google has worn for decades is now weakening at the seams. But the show must go on.
Stephen E Arnold, December 17, 2023
Weaponizing AI Information for Rubes with Googley Fakes
December 8, 2023
This essay is the work of a dumb dinobaby. No smart software required.
From the “Hey, rube” department: “Google Admits That a Gemini AI Demo Video Was Staged” reports as actual factual:
There was no voice interaction, nor was the demo happening in real time.
Young Star Wars’ fans learn the truth behind the scenes which thrill them. Thanks, MSFT Copilot. One try and some work with the speech bubble and I was good to go.
And to what magical event does this mysterious statement refer? The Google Gemini announcement. Yep, 16 Hollywood style videos of “reality.” Engadget asserts:
Google is counting on its very own GPT-4 competitor, Gemini, so much that it staged parts of a recent demo video. In an opinion piece, Bloomberg says Google admits that for its video titled “Hands-on with Gemini: Interacting with multimodal AI,” not only was it edited to speed up the outputs (which was declared in the video description), but the implied voice interaction between the human user and the AI was actually non-existent.
The article makes what I think is a rather gentle statement:
This is far less impressive than the video wants to mislead us into thinking, and worse yet, the lack of disclaimer about the actual input method makes Gemini’s readiness rather questionable.
Hopefully sometime in the near future Googlers can make reality from Hollywood-type fantasies. After all, policeware vendors have been trying to deliver a Minority Report-type of investigative experience for a heck of a lot longer.
What’s the most interesting part of the Google AI achievement? I think it illuminates the thinking of those who live in an ethical galaxy far, far away… if true, of course. Of course. I wonder if the same “fake it til you make it” approach applies to other Google activities?
Stephen E Arnold, December 8, 2023
Gemini Twins: Which Is Good? Which Is Evil? Think Hard
December 6, 2023
This essay is the work of a dumb dinobaby. No smart software required.
I received a link to a Google DeepMind marketing demonstration Web page called “Welcome to Gemini.” To me, Gemini means Castor and Pollux. Somewhere along the line — maybe a wonky professor named Chapman — told my class that these two represented Zeus and Hades. Stated another way, one was a sort of “good” deity with a penchant for non-godlike behavior. The other downright awful most of the time. I assume that Google knows about Gemini, its mythological baggage, and the duality of a Superman type doing the trust, justice, American way, and the other inspiring a range of bad actors. Imagine. Something that is good and bad. That’s smart software I assume. The good part sells ads; the bad part fails at marketing perhaps?
Two smart Googlers in New York City learn the difference between book learning for a PhD and street learning for a degree from the Institute of Hard Knocks. Thanks, MSFT Copilot. (Are you monitoring Google’s effort to dominate smart software by announcing breakthroughs very few people understand? Are you finding Google’s losses at the AI shell game entertaining?
Google’s blog post states with rhetorical aplomb:
Gemini is built from the ground up for multimodality — reasoning seamlessly across text, images, video, audio, and code.
Well, any other AI using Google’s previous technology is officially behind the curve. That’s clear to me. I wonder if Sam AI-Man, Microsoft, and the users of ChatGPT are tuned to the Google wavelength? There’s a video or more accurately more than a dozen of them, but I don’t like video so I skipped them all. There are graphs with minimal data and some that appear to jiggle in “real” time. I skipped those too. There are tables. I did read the some of the data and learned that Gemini can do basic arithmetic and “challenging” math like geometry. That is the 3, 4, 5 triangle stuff. I wonder how many people under the age of 18 know how to use a tape measure to determine if a corner is 90 degrees? (If you don’t, why not ask ChatGPT or MSFT Copilot.) I processed the twin’s size which come in three sizes. Do twins come in triples? Sigh. Anyway one can use Gemini Ultra, Gemini Pro, and Gemini Nano. Okay, but I am hung up on the twins and the three sizes. Sorry. I am a dinobaby. There are more movies. I exited the site and navigated to YCombinator’s Hacker News. Didn’t Sam AI-Man have a brush with that outfit?
You can find the comments about Gemini at this link. I want to highlight several quotations I found suggestive. Then I want to offer a few observations based on my conversation with my research team.
Here are some representative statements from the YCombinator’s forum:
- Jansan said: Yes, it [Google] is very successful in replacing useful results with links to shopping sites.
- FrustratedMonkey said: Well, deepmind was doing amazing stuff before OpenAI. AlphaGo, AlphaFold, AlphaStar. They were groundbreaking a long time ago. They just happened to miss the LLM surge.
- Wddkcs said: Googles best work is in the past, their current offerings are underwhelming, even if foundational to the progress of others.
- Foobar said: The whole things reeks of being desperate. Half the video is jerking themselves off that they’ve done AI longer than anyone and they “release” (not actually available in most countries) a model that is only marginally better than the current GPT4 in cherry-picked metrics after nearly a year of lead-time?
- Arson9416 said: Google is playing catchup while pretending that they’ve been at the forefront of this latest AI wave. This translates to a lot of talk and not a lot of action. OpenAI knew that just putting ChatGPT in peoples hands would ignite the internet more than a couple of over-produced marketing videos. Google needs to take a page from OpenAI’s playbook.
Please, work through the more than 600 comments about Gemini and reach your own conclusions. Here are mine:
- The Google is trying to market using rhetorical tricks and big-brain hot buttons. The effort comes across to me as similar to Ford’s marketing of the Edsel.
- Sam AI-Man remains the man in AI. Coups, tension, and chaos — irrelevant. The future for many means ChatGPT.
- The comment about timing is a killer. Google missed the train. The company wants to catch up, but it is not shipping products nor being associated to features grade school kids and harried marketers with degrees in art history can use now.
Sundar Pichai is not Sam AI-Man. The difference has become clear in the last year. If Sundar and Sam are twins, which represents what?
Stephen E Arnold, December 6, 2023
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Why Google Dorks Exist and Why Most Users Do Not Know Why They Are Needed
December 4, 2023
This essay is the work of a dumb dinobaby. No smart software required.
Many people in my lectures are not familiar with the concept of “dorks”. No, not the human variety. I am referencing the concept of a “Google dork.” If you do a quick search using Yandex.com, you will get pointers to different “Google dorks.” Click on one of the links and you will find information you can use to retrieve more precise and relevant information from the Google ad-supported Web search system.
Here’s what QDORKS.com looks like:
The idea is that one plugs in search terms and uses the pull down boxes to enter specific commands to point the ad-centric system at something more closely resembling a relevant result. Other interfaces are available; for example, the “1000 Best Google Dorks List." You get a laundry list of tips,commands, and ideas for wrestling Googzilla to the ground, twisting its tail, and (hopefully) yield relevant information. Hopefully. Good work.
Most people are lousy at pinning the tail on the relevance donkey. Therefore, let someone who knows define relevance for the happy people. Thanks, MSFT Copilot. Nice animal with map pins.
Why are Google Dorks or similar guides to Google search necessary? Here are three reasons:
- Precision reduces the opportunities for displaying allegedly relevant advertising. Semantic relaxation allows the Google to suggest that it is using Oingo type methods to find mathematically determined relationships. The idea is that razzle dazzle makes ad blasting something like an ugly baby wrapped in translucent fabric on a foggy day look really great.
- When Larry Page argued with me at a search engine meeting about truncation, he displayed a preconceived notion about how search should work for those not at Google or attending a specialist conference about search. Rational? To him, yep. Logical? To his framing of the search problem, the stance makes perfect sense if one discards the notion of tense, plurals, inflections, and stupid markers like “im” as in “impractical” and “non” as in “nonsense.” Hey, Larry had the answer. Live with it.
- The goal at the Google is to make search as intellectually easy for the “user” as possible. The idea was to suggest what the user intended. Also, Google had the old idea that a person’s past behavior can predict that person’s behavior now. Well, predict in the sense that “good enough” will do the job for vast majority of search-blind users who look for the short cut or the most convenient way to get information.
Why? Control, being clever, and then selling the dream of clicks for advertisers. Over the years, Google leveraged its information framing power to a position of control. I want to point out that most people, including many Googlers, cannot perceive. When pointed out, those individuals refuse to believe that Google does [a] NOT index the full universe of digital data, [b] NOT want to fool around with users who prefer Boolean algebra, content curation to identify the best or most useful content, and [c] fiddle around with training people to become effective searchers of online information. Obfuscation, verbal legerdemain, and the “do no evil” craziness make the railroad run the way Cornelius Vanderbilt-types implemented.
I read this morning (December 4, 2023) the Google blog post called “New Ways to Find Just What You Need on Search.” The main point of the write up in my opinion is:
Search will never be a solved problem; it continues to evolve and improve alongside our world and the web.
I agree, but it would be great if the known search and retrieval functions were available to users. Instead, we have a weird Google Mom approach. From the write up:
To help you more easily keep up with searches or topics you come back to a lot, or want to learn more about, we’re introducing the ability to follow exactly what you’re interested in.
Okay, user tracking, stored queries, and alerts. How does the Google know what you want? The answer is that users log in, use Google services, and enter queries which are automatically converted to search. You will have answers to questions you really care about.
There are other search functions available in the most recent version of Google’s attempts to deal with an unsolved problem:
As with all information on Search, our systems will look to show the most helpful, relevant and reliable information possible when you follow a topic.
Yep, Google is a helicopter parent. Mom will know what’s best, select it, and present it. Don’t like it? Mom will be recalcitrant, like shaping search results to meet what the probabilistic system says, “Take your medicine, you brat.” Who said, “Mother Google is a nice mom”? Definitely not me.
And Google will make search more social. Shades of Dr. Alon Halevy and the heirs of Orkut. The Google wants to bring people together. Social signals make sense to Google. Yep, content without Google ads must be conquered. Let’s hope the Google incentive plans encourage the behavior, or those valiant programmers will be bystanders to other Googlers’ promotions and accompanying money deliveries.
Net net: Finding relevant, on point, accurate information is more difficult today than at any other point in the 50+ year work career. How does the cloud of unknowing dissipate? I have no idea. I think it has moved in on tiny Googzilla feet and sits looking over the harbor, ready to pounce on any creature that challenges the status quo.
PS. Corny Vanderbilt was an amateur compared to the Google. He did trains; Google does information.
Stephen E Arnold, December 4, 2023
Good Fences, Right, YouTube? And Good Fences in Winter Even Better
December 4, 2023
This essay is the work of a dumb dinobaby. No smart software required.
Remember that line from the grumpy American poet Bobby Frost. (I have on good authority that Bobby was not a charmer. And who, pray tell, was my source. How about a friend of the poet’s who worked with him in South Shaftsbury.)
Like those in the Nor’East say, “Good fences make good neighbors.”
The line is not original. Bobby’s pal told me that the saying was a “pretty common one” among the Shaftsburians. Bobby appropriated the line in his poem “Mending Wall. (It is loved by millions of high school students). The main point of the poem is that “Something there is that doesn’t love a wall.” The key is “something.”
The fine and judicious, customer centric, and well-managed outfit Google is now in the process of understanding the “something that doesn’t love a wall,” digital or stone.
“Inside the Arms Race between YouTube and Ad Blockers” updates the effort of the estimable advertising outfit and — well — almost everyone. The article explains:
YouTube recently took dramatic action against anyone visiting its site with an ad blocker running — after a few pieces of content, it’ll simply stop serving you videos. If you want to get past the wall, that ad blocker will (probably) need to be turned off; and if you want an ad-free experience, better cough up a couple bucks for a Premium subscription.
The write up carefully explains that one must pay a “starting” monthly fee of $13.99 to avoid the highly relevant advertisements for metal men’s wallets, the total home gym which seems only inappropriate for a 79 year old dinobaby like me, and some type of women’s undergarment. Yeah, that ad matching to a known user is doing a bang up job in my opinion. I bet the Skim’s marketing manager is thrilled I am getting their message. How many packs of Skims do I buy in a lifetime? Zero. Yep, zero.
Yes, sir. Good fences make good neighbors. Good enough, MSFT Copilot. Good enough.
Okay, that’s the ad blocker thing, which I have identified as Google’s digital Battle of Waterloo in honor of a movie about everyone’s favorite French emperor, Nappy B.
But what the cited write up and most of the coverage is not focusing on is the question, “Why the user hostile move?” I want to share some of my team’s ideas about the motive force behind this disliked and quite annoying move by that company everyone loves (including the Skim’s marketing manager?).
First, the emergence of ChatGPT type services is having a growing impact on Google’s online advertising business. One can grind though Google’s financials and not find any specific item that says, “The Duke of Wellington and a crazy old Prussian are gearing up for a fight. So I will share some information we have rounded up by talking to people and looking through the data gathered about Googzilla. Specifically, users want information packaged to answer or to “appear” to answer their question. Some want lists; some want summaries; and some just want to avoid the enter the query, click through mostly irrelevant results, scan for something that is sort of close to an answer, and use that information to buy a ticket or get a Taylor Swift poster, whatever. That means that the broad trend in the usage of Google search is a bit like the town of Grindavik, Iceland. “Something” is going on, and it is unlikely to bode well for the future that charming town in Iceland. That’s the “something” that is hostile to walls. Some forces are tough to resist even by Googzilla and friends.
Second, despite the robust usage of YouTube, it costs more money to operate that service than it does to display from a cache ads and previously spidered information from Google compliant Web sites. Thus, as pressure on traditional search goes up from the ChatGPT type services, the darker the clouds on the search business horizon look. The big storm is not pelting the Googleplex yet, but it does looks ominous perched on the horizon and moving slowly. Don’t get our point wrong: Running a Google scale search business is expensive, but it has been engineered and tuned to deliver a tsunami of cash. The YouTube thing just costs more and is going to have a tough time replacing lost old-fashioned search revenue. What’s a pressured Googzilla going to do? One answer is, “Charge users.” Then raise prices. Gee, that’s the much-loved cable model, isn’t it? And the pressure point is motivating some users who are developers to find ways to cut holes in the YouTube fence. The fix? Make the fence bigger and more durable? Isn’t that a Rand arms race scenario? What’s an option? Where’s a J. Robert Oppenheimer-type when one needs him?
The third problem is that there is a desire on the part of advertisers to have their messages displayed in a non offensive context. Also, advertisers — because the economy for some outfits sucks — now are starting to demand proof that their ads are being displayed in front of buyers known to have an interest in their product. Yep, I am talking about the Skims’ marketing officer as well as any intermediary hosing money into Google advertising. I don’t want to try to convince those who are writing checks to the Google the following: “Absolutely. Your ad dollars are building your brand. You are getting leads. You are able to reach buyers no other outfit can deliver.” Want proof. Just look at this dinobaby. I am not buying health food, hidden carry holsters, and those really cute flesh colored women’s undergarments. The question is, “Are the ads just being dumped or are they actually targeted to someone who is interested in a product category?” Good question, right?
Net net: The YouTube ad blocking is shaping up to be a Google moment. Now Google has sparked an adversarial escalation in the world of YouTube ad blockers. What are Google’s options now that Googzilla is backed into a corner? Maybe Bobby Frost has a poem about it: “Some say the world will end in fire, Some say in ice.” How do Googzilla fare in the ice?
Stephen E Arnold, December 4, 2023
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