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I absolutely agree that comparing Google and apple is silly. But calling Google an "artificial intelligence" company is just feeding another buzzword into the f

by jonesb6 11y ago

I absolutely agree that comparing Google and apple is silly. But calling Google an "artificial intelligence" company is just feeding another buzzword into the fire.

jonknee 11y ago
Why? It's obvious that is where they are going.
- rsp1984 11y ago
  Where they are going yes but not what they are today.
  - Mangalor 11y ago
    AI is basically learning technology, and they already employ AI in search ranking.
  - jonknee 11y ago
    Wall Street values you based on future expectations and Google is being valued in part for its perceived lead in AI and the growth that will bring. Their main product (search) uses plenty of AI so it's not a stretch whatsoever.
- mwfunk 11y ago
  Calling someone an "X company" means that they make their money from X. There are aspects of AI in targeted advertising, but not enough to call them an AI company rather than an advertising company. It doesn't really matter where they're going- that's what they aspire to be, not what they are. If you judge companies based on their aspirations, you end up judging them based on their most positive and idealistic version of themselves, rather than what they are, which is much more meaningful. A much more cynical way to look at it is, judging a company based on its aspirations means judging them based on their marketing rather than their products, services, or actions. Think of how differently Comcast would be perceived if everyone wanted to talk about the company Comcast wishes it was, rather than company that it is. Or any company you don't like for whatever reason.
  - lazaroclapp 11y ago
    How about "Alphabet/Google is trying to position itself as an AI company" instead of "is an AI company". That direction is still important to explain why it is valued like it is: investors are betting that it has good chances of succeeding in becoming an AI company.
  - skybrian 11y ago
    The stock price of a company is based on predicting future earnings, so talking about the future of a company is pretty much unavoidable in this sort of discussion. You can ignore what management says and predict the future in some other way if you prefer, but ignoring the future entirely isn't possible. (Assuming that nothing will change is also a prediction.)
  - dragonwriter 11y ago
    > Calling someone an "X company" means that they make their money from X. Sure, but even so (except for the way some people treat Google), we typically call companies that make their money by placing ads in a service or media offering an "X company" where X describes the service or media offering, not "advertising". From that perspective, Google is an online services company, with AI playing an important role in some of its services.
    - joe_the_user 11y ago
      Google did most of what they do now ten years ago, before their activity had much arguable "intelligence". They have used AI to enhance various existing services but the improvements hardly seem earth shattering to me [insert earth-shattering counter example HERE]. Google's more pure AI product such as the Google Car are so-far vaporware at best. Calling Google an "AI company" seems like calling Ford in 1962 "a streamlining company" - which is does violence to the concept even if Ford in 1962 maybe some money with streamlined cars.
      - dsharlet 11y ago
        I think there's a dramatic difference in search 10 years ago compared to now, due to better natural language understanding, which is very much an "AI" technology IMHO. I've had to un-learn my search query habits from the past. I used to attempt to express queries in ways that I thought would help the search engine (limit it to keywords, suppress keywords that are likely to produce false positives, etc.). Now, it seems better to put in sentence fragments, and the old way of a few specific thought out keywords is actually worse at producing the result I want. The difference is small to the average HN user (most of us are just as capable of expressing queries both ways, and we'll find what we're looking for) but the latter kind of query is far more accessible to the average person.
- jfuhrman 11y ago
  How much of Google's profit(or even revenue) is not from tracking user data and advertising? Search, Gmail, Android, Chromebooks, Nexus, Pixel, Youtube, Maps etc. everything is about selling advertisements after scanning user provided data. The rest are either loss leaders or moats, or ones with unclear monetization scenarios like Fiber. One exception is GCE and GAE, but I don't know how much profit/revenue they're making. I would count Google Apps, but until recently they were scanning even paid Google Apps for Business accounts for ad tracking purposes.
  - stvswn 11y ago
    Your question is answered explicitly in the press release, if you wanted to Google it. But are you instead making a point about how that's bad or something? The business model is to give away services for free and then show ads to monetize, that's no secret. Do you contend this is a poor business model, or somehow immoral or something?
    - jfuhrman 11y ago
      If you follow the thread, it's about calling Google an AI company.
  - jonknee 11y ago
    They use AI to sell advertising and services (be it search relevancy, contextual awareness, filter out spam, etc)... The reason why it's not incorrect to call Google an AI company is that Wall Street thinks they'll be able to shake out ever more cash from their machines in the future because of their position in ML and AI. It's their competitive edge and one that becomes more and more valuable as software continues to eat the world.
  - krakensden 11y ago
    Eric Schmidt has been claiming that fiber is making good money. Which doesn't seem impossible.
shimon 11y ago
Google's flagship product is a box that you can type words into, and get relevant texts/references/facts in response. It seems like a textbook example of AI.
- rimantas 11y ago
  AI with quickly advancing dementia.
- drewrv 11y ago
  AI is whatever hasn't been done yet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AI_effect#AI_is_whatever_hasn.27t_been_done_yet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AI_effect#AI_is_whatever_hasn....
  - taneq 11y ago
    Precisely. The image recognition and natural language processing that's "just a deep learning algorithm" today would have blown the socks off anyone ten years ago. Chess playing programs were AI until they could decisively beat all humans, and then we decided that chess doesn't require intelligence. Self-driving cars were AI until they got close to market and now apparently driving a car doesn't require intelligence. It would seem that only True Scotsmen are intelligent.
    - dhimes 11y ago
      Don't forget that Facebook is going to be a big player in this game as well- especially facial recognition, where everybody is helping them by tagging people in their photos.
      - tajen 11y ago
        If we characterize companies as strongly as "Apple, a consumer product company" and "Google an AI company", then Facebook is a worldwide identity tracking agency. They could pivot and be in charge of delivering birth certificates, DNA groups, ethnicity mapping, insurance-bank-police profiling... In fact I expect it to play a very major role in wars to determine targets.
abraham6464 11y ago
“Larry, I still don’t get it. There are so many search companies. Web search, for free? Where does that get you?” “Oh, we’re really making an AI.” -Larry Page [0] [0] http://www.wired.com/2014/10/future-of-artificial-intelligence/ http://www.wired.com/2014/10/future-of-artificial-intelligen...
deciplex 11y ago
They mostly use the AI to try to convince you to buy shit. It may be an uninspired use of artificial intelligence, but it's still artificial intelligence.
osoti 11y ago
Cutest Exotic Animals you can Legally have as Pets http://goo.gl/tlx5LD http://goo.gl/tlx5LD
turingbook 11y ago
Actually, Larry Page himself thought from very early beginning that Google is an AI company: AROUND 2002 I attended a small party for Google—before its IPO, when it only focused on search. I struck up a conversation with Larry Page, Google’s brilliant cofounder, who became the company’s CEO in 2011. “Larry, I still don’t get it. There are so many search companies. Web search, for free? Where does that get you?”… But Page’s reply has always stuck with me: “Oh, we’re really making an AI.” http://www.wired.com/2014/10/future-of-artificial-intelligence/ http://www.wired.com/2014/10/future-of-artificial-intelligen...

by jonesb6 11y ago

I absolutely agree that comparing Google and apple is silly. But calling Google an "artificial intelligence" company is just feeding another buzzword into the fire.

jonknee 11y ago

Why? It's obvious that is where they are going.

rsp1984 11y ago
Where they are going yes but not what they are today.
- Mangalor 11y ago
  AI is basically learning technology, and they already employ AI in search ranking.
- jonknee 11y ago
  Wall Street values you based on future expectations and Google is being valued in part for its perceived lead in AI and the growth that will bring. Their main product (search) uses plenty of AI so it's not a stretch whatsoever.
mwfunk 11y ago
Calling someone an "X company" means that they make their money from X. There are aspects of AI in targeted advertising, but not enough to call them an AI company rather than an advertising company. It doesn't really matter where they're going- that's what they aspire to be, not what they are. If you judge companies based on their aspirations, you end up judging them based on their most positive and idealistic version of themselves, rather than what they are, which is much more meaningful. A much more cynical way to look at it is, judging a company based on its aspirations means judging them based on their marketing rather than their products, services, or actions. Think of how differently Comcast would be perceived if everyone wanted to talk about the company Comcast wishes it was, rather than company that it is. Or any company you don't like for whatever reason.
- lazaroclapp 11y ago
  How about "Alphabet/Google is trying to position itself as an AI company" instead of "is an AI company". That direction is still important to explain why it is valued like it is: investors are betting that it has good chances of succeeding in becoming an AI company.
- skybrian 11y ago
  The stock price of a company is based on predicting future earnings, so talking about the future of a company is pretty much unavoidable in this sort of discussion. You can ignore what management says and predict the future in some other way if you prefer, but ignoring the future entirely isn't possible. (Assuming that nothing will change is also a prediction.)
- dragonwriter 11y ago
  > Calling someone an "X company" means that they make their money from X. Sure, but even so (except for the way some people treat Google), we typically call companies that make their money by placing ads in a service or media offering an "X company" where X describes the service or media offering, not "advertising". From that perspective, Google is an online services company, with AI playing an important role in some of its services.
  - joe_the_user 11y ago
    Google did most of what they do now ten years ago, before their activity had much arguable "intelligence". They have used AI to enhance various existing services but the improvements hardly seem earth shattering to me [insert earth-shattering counter example HERE]. Google's more pure AI product such as the Google Car are so-far vaporware at best. Calling Google an "AI company" seems like calling Ford in 1962 "a streamlining company" - which is does violence to the concept even if Ford in 1962 maybe some money with streamlined cars.
    - dsharlet 11y ago
      I think there's a dramatic difference in search 10 years ago compared to now, due to better natural language understanding, which is very much an "AI" technology IMHO. I've had to un-learn my search query habits from the past. I used to attempt to express queries in ways that I thought would help the search engine (limit it to keywords, suppress keywords that are likely to produce false positives, etc.). Now, it seems better to put in sentence fragments, and the old way of a few specific thought out keywords is actually worse at producing the result I want. The difference is small to the average HN user (most of us are just as capable of expressing queries both ways, and we'll find what we're looking for) but the latter kind of query is far more accessible to the average person.
jfuhrman 11y ago
How much of Google's profit(or even revenue) is not from tracking user data and advertising? Search, Gmail, Android, Chromebooks, Nexus, Pixel, Youtube, Maps etc. everything is about selling advertisements after scanning user provided data. The rest are either loss leaders or moats, or ones with unclear monetization scenarios like Fiber. One exception is GCE and GAE, but I don't know how much profit/revenue they're making. I would count Google Apps, but until recently they were scanning even paid Google Apps for Business accounts for ad tracking purposes.
- stvswn 11y ago
  Your question is answered explicitly in the press release, if you wanted to Google it. But are you instead making a point about how that's bad or something? The business model is to give away services for free and then show ads to monetize, that's no secret. Do you contend this is a poor business model, or somehow immoral or something?
  - jfuhrman 11y ago
    If you follow the thread, it's about calling Google an AI company.
- jonknee 11y ago
  They use AI to sell advertising and services (be it search relevancy, contextual awareness, filter out spam, etc)... The reason why it's not incorrect to call Google an AI company is that Wall Street thinks they'll be able to shake out ever more cash from their machines in the future because of their position in ML and AI. It's their competitive edge and one that becomes more and more valuable as software continues to eat the world.
- krakensden 11y ago
  Eric Schmidt has been claiming that fiber is making good money. Which doesn't seem impossible.

shimon 11y ago

Google's flagship product is a box that you can type words into, and get relevant texts/references/facts in response. It seems like a textbook example of AI.

rimantas 11y ago
AI with quickly advancing dementia.
drewrv 11y ago
AI is whatever hasn't been done yet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AI_effect#AI_is_whatever_hasn.27t_been_done_yet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AI_effect#AI_is_whatever_hasn....
- taneq 11y ago
  Precisely. The image recognition and natural language processing that's "just a deep learning algorithm" today would have blown the socks off anyone ten years ago. Chess playing programs were AI until they could decisively beat all humans, and then we decided that chess doesn't require intelligence. Self-driving cars were AI until they got close to market and now apparently driving a car doesn't require intelligence. It would seem that only True Scotsmen are intelligent.
  - dhimes 11y ago
    Don't forget that Facebook is going to be a big player in this game as well- especially facial recognition, where everybody is helping them by tagging people in their photos.
    - tajen 11y ago
      If we characterize companies as strongly as "Apple, a consumer product company" and "Google an AI company", then Facebook is a worldwide identity tracking agency. They could pivot and be in charge of delivering birth certificates, DNA groups, ethnicity mapping, insurance-bank-police profiling... In fact I expect it to play a very major role in wars to determine targets.

abraham6464 11y ago

“Larry, I still don’t get it. There are so many search companies. Web search, for free? Where does that get you?” “Oh, we’re really making an AI.” -Larry Page [0] [0] http://www.wired.com/2014/10/future-of-artificial-intelligence/ http://www.wired.com/2014/10/future-of-artificial-intelligen...

deciplex 11y ago

They mostly use the AI to try to convince you to buy shit. It may be an uninspired use of artificial intelligence, but it's still artificial intelligence.

osoti 11y ago

Cutest Exotic Animals you can Legally have as Pets http://goo.gl/tlx5LD http://goo.gl/tlx5LD

turingbook 11y ago

Actually, Larry Page himself thought from very early beginning that Google is an AI company: AROUND 2002 I attended a small party for Google—before its IPO, when it only focused on search. I struck up a conversation with Larry Page, Google’s brilliant cofounder, who became the company’s CEO in 2011. “Larry, I still don’t get it. There are so many search companies. Web search, for free? Where does that get you?”… But Page’s reply has always stuck with me: “Oh, we’re really making an AI.” http://www.wired.com/2014/10/future-of-artificial-intelligence/ http://www.wired.com/2014/10/future-of-artificial-intelligen...