4 ms·

From Google: Why we focus on AI (and to what end)

39 points by pissedgenes 4y ago

pissedgenes 4y ago
Interesting response from Google, signed off by all the top dogs, including Sundar — hard to not read between the lines as this being a rebuke to OpenAI and StabilityAI for letting the public have relatively unfettered access.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- ronsor 4y ago
  Google has chosen to designate itself as the moral guardian and insists that other companies do similar.
- causalmodels 4y ago
  It is a lot easier to issue rebukes than it is to actually ship products.
RigelKentaurus 4y ago
Purely reactive response to ChatGPT dominating the AI conversation lately. However, I'm excited to see what Google will release in AI this year.
belval 4y ago
Nice PR/buzzword soup they got there, the article is almost entirely devoid of substance. The part on "Responsible AI" reminds me of the "Tethics" episode of Silicon Valley, brought to you by the people who own ~30% on the online ad market.
- dokein 4y ago
  Usually, if it's a letter that's signed by the C-suite and reviewed by 5 layers of internal and external PR, it won't say anything interesting. This is because, to be interesting, it has to be something unexpected. But the job of the PR is to minimize disagreeableness. It's rare to that something is both unexpected and minimally disagreeable. A sudden advance in medicine resulting in a cure for cancer would be both (but even then, if it were e.g. an mRNA vector some people might find it disagreeable). But a company's position on a technological advance almost never meets both [Google PR: "Google also supports cures for cancer!" Yawn.]
mark_l_watson 4y ago
If you read past the public relations material, that is interesting stuff. I was invited to work at Google in 2013 and it is an interesting place. I ran a deep learning team at Capital One and I believe DL truly is transformative. Anyway I appreciate Google, Microsoft, etc. for what they do.
vagabund 4y ago
You'd think the experience of ChatGPT would have taught them that the average person isn't blindly worshipping the output of LLMs, and has the requisite critical thinking skills to keep the useful bits and discard the rest. Instead we get this belittling rebuttal highlighting the immense danger of letting the public use a service that may, occasionally, be wrong, as though humans don't encounter and discriminate incorrect information throughout every day of their lives (not least on google's own existing services). Instead of pontificating about "earning the public trust", maybe stop positioning yourself as the unassailable source of truth and give people tools that will materially improve their lives today, if you really want to follow through on your mission.
- darreninthenet 4y ago
  I do think they sort of have a point... (lay) people are used to engaging critical thinking when using computers for interactions with other people. They aren't used to thinking about computers own output in this sort of fuzzy way as it's not been a problem until recently... I can't see how my parents could suddenly conceptualise the whole idea that their computer may be lying to them or is confidently confused and wrong.
  - zcw100 4y ago
    Maybe this article was written by a Google AI. I don’t see an author listed.
  - antipotoad 4y ago
    I submit that people could learn, provided the model output is framed appropriately. It does come across as rather patronizing from Google. Little wonder given the company’s DNA. Also just very risk averse, which goes without saying.
- amf12 4y ago
  > You'd think the experience of ChatGPT would have taught them that the average person isn't blindly worshipping the output of LLMs They aren't wrong though. Imagine Google had released LLM based chatbot first. There'd be a lot of negative coverage when (not just if) things went wrong: biases, inaccuracy, misinformation, dangerous information. With Google, people would expect to see "correct" information, and for it to not be biased, and safe. for example, imagine if Google's bot give the recipe to make meth [1]. Every big publisher would be talking about dangers of AI, and how Google is being irresponsible. It's not just Google, you could replace Google with Microsoft and it would still apply. With ChatGPT, it is a beta service, so users understand it can be wrong. Turn it into a product from another company and it becomes a liability issue. [1] https://techreport.com/software/3488894/chatgpt-breaks-bad-and-teaches-us-how-to-make-meth/ https://techreport.com/software/3488894/chatgpt-breaks-bad-a...
nh23423fefe 4y ago
This means nothing. AI will invade any space it can. Any use case found by any company will immediately be x-copied, and the mvp mass deployed, by competitors. The idea of responsible profit maximization is absurd. This is a shitty attempt to explain the lack of progress. > We are so focused on safety/diversity/risk/equity/wtf that we forgot to make cool profitable stuff.
- dougmwne 4y ago
  To me it looks like Google never intended to turn its AI research into products. It probably sees these LLMs, that it itself was instrumental in inventing as a competitor to search and nothing that could ever get green lit as a product due to internal politics. I see OpenAI as an intentional effort to free this tech from the smothering of Google led by SV insiders in the know on what Google was sitting on.
  - narrator 4y ago
    The classic innovators dilemma. I think you're on to something. They just couldn't stand the ethical headache of this whole thing. I think this is the first really upfront case of highly useful technology being repressed. Sure, there have been rumors of all sorts of things being repressed, but this is the first time it's really out in the open publicly.
    - dougmwne 4y ago
      I think it is quite similar to EVs. No established player in the auto industry had any interest in developing them because it was seen as a risk to established business and partnerships. The EV1 was a great early start from 1996 that was literally crushed (see the documentary, Who Killed The Electric Car). Dealerships fight against EVs to this day. Wyoming just called for EV sales to be banned by 2035. Without Tesla sending the whole industry into a panic I just don’t think there would be any practical cars on the market today.
oars 4y ago
Let's see what actions they take in the coming years, instead of just words.
foolproofplan 4y ago
"Google orkspace"? So many eyes and no QA?
ddmma 4y ago
The elephant in the room have a press release
zone411 4y ago
I hope Google/Deepmind don't become Bell Labs or Xerox PARC of the 2020s. I'm seeing very strong research papers but no commercial execution.

39 points by pissedgenes 4y ago

Interesting response from Google, signed off by all the top dogs, including Sundar — hard to not read between the lines as this being a rebuke to OpenAI and StabilityAI for letting the public have relatively unfettered access.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
ronsor 4y ago
Google has chosen to designate itself as the moral guardian and insists that other companies do similar.
causalmodels 4y ago
It is a lot easier to issue rebukes than it is to actually ship products.

RigelKentaurus 4y ago

Purely reactive response to ChatGPT dominating the AI conversation lately. However, I'm excited to see what Google will release in AI this year.

belval 4y ago

Nice PR/buzzword soup they got there, the article is almost entirely devoid of substance. The part on "Responsible AI" reminds me of the "Tethics" episode of Silicon Valley, brought to you by the people who own ~30% on the online ad market.

dokein 4y ago
Usually, if it's a letter that's signed by the C-suite and reviewed by 5 layers of internal and external PR, it won't say anything interesting. This is because, to be interesting, it has to be something unexpected. But the job of the PR is to minimize disagreeableness. It's rare to that something is both unexpected and minimally disagreeable. A sudden advance in medicine resulting in a cure for cancer would be both (but even then, if it were e.g. an mRNA vector some people might find it disagreeable). But a company's position on a technological advance almost never meets both [Google PR: "Google also supports cures for cancer!" Yawn.]

mark_l_watson 4y ago

If you read past the public relations material, that is interesting stuff. I was invited to work at Google in 2013 and it is an interesting place. I ran a deep learning team at Capital One and I believe DL truly is transformative. Anyway I appreciate Google, Microsoft, etc. for what they do.

vagabund 4y ago

You'd think the experience of ChatGPT would have taught them that the average person isn't blindly worshipping the output of LLMs, and has the requisite critical thinking skills to keep the useful bits and discard the rest. Instead we get this belittling rebuttal highlighting the immense danger of letting the public use a service that may, occasionally, be wrong, as though humans don't encounter and discriminate incorrect information throughout every day of their lives (not least on google's own existing services). Instead of pontificating about "earning the public trust", maybe stop positioning yourself as the unassailable source of truth and give people tools that will materially improve their lives today, if you really want to follow through on your mission.

darreninthenet 4y ago
I do think they sort of have a point... (lay) people are used to engaging critical thinking when using computers for interactions with other people. They aren't used to thinking about computers own output in this sort of fuzzy way as it's not been a problem until recently... I can't see how my parents could suddenly conceptualise the whole idea that their computer may be lying to them or is confidently confused and wrong.
- zcw100 4y ago
  Maybe this article was written by a Google AI. I don’t see an author listed.
- antipotoad 4y ago
  I submit that people could learn, provided the model output is framed appropriately. It does come across as rather patronizing from Google. Little wonder given the company’s DNA. Also just very risk averse, which goes without saying.
amf12 4y ago
> You'd think the experience of ChatGPT would have taught them that the average person isn't blindly worshipping the output of LLMs They aren't wrong though. Imagine Google had released LLM based chatbot first. There'd be a lot of negative coverage when (not just if) things went wrong: biases, inaccuracy, misinformation, dangerous information. With Google, people would expect to see "correct" information, and for it to not be biased, and safe. for example, imagine if Google's bot give the recipe to make meth [1]. Every big publisher would be talking about dangers of AI, and how Google is being irresponsible. It's not just Google, you could replace Google with Microsoft and it would still apply. With ChatGPT, it is a beta service, so users understand it can be wrong. Turn it into a product from another company and it becomes a liability issue. [1] https://techreport.com/software/3488894/chatgpt-breaks-bad-and-teaches-us-how-to-make-meth/ https://techreport.com/software/3488894/chatgpt-breaks-bad-a...

nh23423fefe 4y ago

This means nothing. AI will invade any space it can. Any use case found by any company will immediately be x-copied, and the mvp mass deployed, by competitors. The idea of responsible profit maximization is absurd. This is a shitty attempt to explain the lack of progress. > We are so focused on safety/diversity/risk/equity/wtf that we forgot to make cool profitable stuff.

dougmwne 4y ago
To me it looks like Google never intended to turn its AI research into products. It probably sees these LLMs, that it itself was instrumental in inventing as a competitor to search and nothing that could ever get green lit as a product due to internal politics. I see OpenAI as an intentional effort to free this tech from the smothering of Google led by SV insiders in the know on what Google was sitting on.
- narrator 4y ago
  The classic innovators dilemma. I think you're on to something. They just couldn't stand the ethical headache of this whole thing. I think this is the first really upfront case of highly useful technology being repressed. Sure, there have been rumors of all sorts of things being repressed, but this is the first time it's really out in the open publicly.
  - dougmwne 4y ago
    I think it is quite similar to EVs. No established player in the auto industry had any interest in developing them because it was seen as a risk to established business and partnerships. The EV1 was a great early start from 1996 that was literally crushed (see the documentary, Who Killed The Electric Car). Dealerships fight against EVs to this day. Wyoming just called for EV sales to be banned by 2035. Without Tesla sending the whole industry into a panic I just don’t think there would be any practical cars on the market today.

oars 4y ago

Let's see what actions they take in the coming years, instead of just words.

foolproofplan 4y ago

"Google orkspace"? So many eyes and no QA?

ddmma 4y ago

The elephant in the room have a press release

zone411 4y ago

I hope Google/Deepmind don't become Bell Labs or Xerox PARC of the 2020s. I'm seeing very strong research papers but no commercial execution.