4 ms·

The article makes it sound like Google's bet failed because of ageism. Google hires young kids. Like all kids, they are interested in fun. The moment something

by danjoc 9y ago

The article makes it sound like Google's bet failed because of ageism. Google hires young kids. Like all kids, they are interested in fun. The moment something is not fun anymore, kids lose interest. Acqhiring some smart old farts in robotics, then teaming them up with a bunch of kids just slowed the old ones down. Held back industry for 4 years. Not a flattering narrative for Google's public image.

doomlaser 9y ago
It's more likely related to the cooldown in Google's expensive moonshot efforts since hiring a new CFO, Ruth Porat. Bloomberg wrote a feature story about this last year: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2016-12-08/google-makes-so-much-money-it-never-had-to-worry-about-financial-discipline https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2016-12-08/google-ma...
Tenoke 9y ago
This sounds ridiculously simplistic though.
Idontknowmyuser 9y ago
what you're saying is ageism. I don't fucking understand what the fuck is going on? every group who complains about some of form "ism" ends up doing it.
skj 9y ago
How about: Rubin left the company, no one picked up the robotics org in the way it needed, and now the vesting schedules are seeing people leave? I don't know why ageism is the most likely theory.
tanilama 9y ago
Maybe they finally found they cannot really push robotics to mass markets just yet, so they give up.
icebraining 9y ago
The moment something is not fun anymore, kids lose interest. That's the ageist statement. Google doesn't hire three year olds.
- sidlls 9y ago
  It's true, though, in my experience. But it's also ageist: I've seen plenty of people who are old enough to be on the second half of their life engage in this chasing the new shiny behavior. I refer to them as kids because they act like it.
  - skj 9y ago
    So perhaps "kids" is not the right word to use? Maybe some term that doesn't try to draw non existent lines based on age.
webreac 9y ago
Making young kids work with old farts may be very effective. Young people learn fast and old ones are chalenged to prove they are not outdated and can work with young kids. If both groups are open minded, the result can be great.
palisade 9y ago
Alphabet held back robotics by purchasing a military industrial complex corp that produced excellent terminators and then couldn't handle the backlash from the public when videos started coming out of scary bipedal robots that could bring about the apocalypse. They proceeded to tell their engineers to "cut it out" and started creating parameters like, "no more bipedal robots" and "stop scaring the public." And, actually, their engineers ignored them and kept doing it, which annoyed Alphabet further so they put additional pressure to stop work in that direction. Though, the irony is that this led to a pretty awesome terminator bot that uses wheels, moves ridiculously fast, can jump and balance better than their bipedal robots and therefore become your friend faster. I don't personally feel they've held back robotics as an actual field, because the progress continued internally in spite of Alphabet's mismanagement and fear. However, Alphabet suppressed those robots from becoming mainstream products because they weren't the products they wanted and they were very sensitive about the impact on their public image. That division fully had the capability to release robots that could help people or industries in various ways; military (pack bots, soldiers), police (peacekeepers), steal your job bots, medical (bots that help lift people out of bed, or keep old people from wandering out of their prisons), pets (pet dogs, cheetahs that can hunt down your ex with speed and accuracy, a spider that can climb in bed with you and inject you with life saving chemicals that extends your life before giving you a hug goodnight), companions (definitely think sexual here, perhaps even combined with some of those pet ideas), and so on. It might have begat the dystopian future that keeps many of us, or just Elon Musk, awake at night. And, if that's the case be thankful Alphabet couldn't manage to get much into production. The only real way they've held back robotics is by never releasing anything, beyond previous commitments of course.

by danjoc 9y ago

doomlaser 9y ago

It's more likely related to the cooldown in Google's expensive moonshot efforts since hiring a new CFO, Ruth Porat. Bloomberg wrote a feature story about this last year: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2016-12-08/google-makes-so-much-money-it-never-had-to-worry-about-financial-discipline https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2016-12-08/google-ma...

Tenoke 9y ago

This sounds ridiculously simplistic though.

Idontknowmyuser 9y ago

what you're saying is ageism. I don't fucking understand what the fuck is going on? every group who complains about some of form "ism" ends up doing it.

skj 9y ago

How about: Rubin left the company, no one picked up the robotics org in the way it needed, and now the vesting schedules are seeing people leave? I don't know why ageism is the most likely theory.

tanilama 9y ago

Maybe they finally found they cannot really push robotics to mass markets just yet, so they give up.

icebraining 9y ago

The moment something is not fun anymore, kids lose interest. That's the ageist statement. Google doesn't hire three year olds.

sidlls 9y ago
It's true, though, in my experience. But it's also ageist: I've seen plenty of people who are old enough to be on the second half of their life engage in this chasing the new shiny behavior. I refer to them as kids because they act like it.
- skj 9y ago
  So perhaps "kids" is not the right word to use? Maybe some term that doesn't try to draw non existent lines based on age.

webreac 9y ago

Making young kids work with old farts may be very effective. Young people learn fast and old ones are chalenged to prove they are not outdated and can work with young kids. If both groups are open minded, the result can be great.

palisade 9y ago

Alphabet held back robotics by purchasing a military industrial complex corp that produced excellent terminators and then couldn't handle the backlash from the public when videos started coming out of scary bipedal robots that could bring about the apocalypse. They proceeded to tell their engineers to "cut it out" and started creating parameters like, "no more bipedal robots" and "stop scaring the public." And, actually, their engineers ignored them and kept doing it, which annoyed Alphabet further so they put additional pressure to stop work in that direction. Though, the irony is that this led to a pretty awesome terminator bot that uses wheels, moves ridiculously fast, can jump and balance better than their bipedal robots and therefore become your friend faster. I don't personally feel they've held back robotics as an actual field, because the progress continued internally in spite of Alphabet's mismanagement and fear. However, Alphabet suppressed those robots from becoming mainstream products because they weren't the products they wanted and they were very sensitive about the impact on their public image. That division fully had the capability to release robots that could help people or industries in various ways; military (pack bots, soldiers), police (peacekeepers), steal your job bots, medical (bots that help lift people out of bed, or keep old people from wandering out of their prisons), pets (pet dogs, cheetahs that can hunt down your ex with speed and accuracy, a spider that can climb in bed with you and inject you with life saving chemicals that extends your life before giving you a hug goodnight), companions (definitely think sexual here, perhaps even combined with some of those pet ideas), and so on. It might have begat the dystopian future that keeps many of us, or just Elon Musk, awake at night. And, if that's the case be thankful Alphabet couldn't manage to get much into production. The only real way they've held back robotics is by never releasing anything, beyond previous commitments of course.