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> Google's Bard got an answer wrong during an ad, which everyone noticed. Now the narrative is 'Google is rushing to catch up to Bing and making mistakes! I th

by chomp 4y ago

> Google's Bard got an answer wrong during an ad, which everyone noticed. Now the narrative is 'Google is rushing to catch up to Bing and making mistakes! I think Brereton is missing the wider narrative. Microsoft has been executing very very well for the last few years. Azure has been on a tear, they've demonstrated great foresight with their first investment in OpenAI many years ago (which is now paying dividends), and they've made strong acquisitions. They've captured the AI lightning in a bottle. Google, has left people wondering if it can execute well. It's had a lot of flops, and a lot of project cancellations. When they announced LaMDA, they let the hype fizzle to nothing. The most we got out of that is some memeable material about a guy who wanted to get legal representation for their language model. People have been positing about ChatGPT for search as soon as it was released. They (Google) have had months to announce _anything_, but waited until the last minute. When they finally had a chance to steal Microsoft's thunder, they flubbed something as simple as an ad. Now people are _really_ wondering if Google can execute anymore. Even I'm starting to wonder. Google is definitely rushing to catch up to Microsoft in a few areas now, and their stock reflects that reality now.

magicalist 4y ago
> I think Brereton is missing the wider narrative Isn't that the point? Looking through the pep rally excitement of Nadella saying "I'm going to make Google dance" and looking at the actual product. Honestly some of the Bing results[1] have me thinking that maybe LLMs are ready for Clippy and Copilot style products, and then maybe a browser extension that summarizes pages, but a generally available search launch has a high chance of Bing memeing themselves (again). [1] beyond just errors: https://twitter.com/MovingToTheSun/status/1625156575202537474 https://twitter.com/MovingToTheSun/status/162515657520253747...
- happymellon 4y ago
  We have had page summerizing engines for a while now and they all have been good enough.
PaulDavisThe1st 4y ago
That's the narrow narrative. The actual wide narrative is that the current language models hallucinate and lie, and there is no coherent plan to avoid this. Google? Microsoft? This is a much less important question than whether or not anyone is going to push this party-trick level technology onto a largely unsuspecting public.
- dpflan 4y ago
  That what I find so funny. Again, UX innovation over LLMs is what makes ChatGPT so hot right now, like Hansel, but I mean, the product is tragically flawed as like all LLMs at the moment.
  - azinman2 4y ago
    I believe that’s because people are using it wrong. Asking for facts is its weakness. Aiding creativity and more narrowly productivity (by way of common sense reasoning) is its greatest strength.
    - allturtles 4y ago
      The product Microsoft is showing off is a fact-finding engine. Just look at the demo, they have built the AI model into the search experience and the demo shows it used exclusively to provide (supposedly) factual information [0]. It's not the users' fault that companies are building the wrong product. [0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FLsr_sUVgrA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FLsr_sUVgrA
      - azinman2 4y ago
        I don’t not include Microsoft here in the audience of “using it wrong.” It’s also very tempting when you get coherent text out to believe it. Hopefully the underlying tech will get better and/or people will understand it’s weaknesses… except the inability to ascertain clear misinformation gives me pause.
      - junofan 4y ago
MisterTea 4y ago
> Microsoft has been executing very very well for the last few years. Indeed. ~13 years ago I'd have said MS would be mostly irrelevant by the mid-late 2020's as they missed the mobile bus in the 00's which Google and Apple have on lock down. But MS knows one thing well: developers (Thanks Ballmer). Azure, Github, vscode - a full stack of tools developers can use to deploy software - without Windows! Very smart move as they can't fight Apple or Google on the front end, so go after the back end - the engines that keep the lights on and money flowing. They're continuing this tooling trend with AI which they can integrate into their existing tools to accelerate development (copilot, etc.) Honestly, with all this tooling in place I would not be surprised if we see a Windows mobile/phone OS make a comeback.
- ipaddr 4y ago
  If there is one thing Microsoft doesn't know or understand it's the open source developer. Buying github then stealing ip to bundle in co-pilot. Developers don't love Azure but large governmental orgs cto's do.
  - lovich 4y ago
    Well open source developers seem allergic to making profit and Microsoft is a for profit business, so I don’t think it’s a big surprises which market they are targeting.
    - ipaddr 4y ago
      Most developers work with open source languages / products. The market for closed source Microsoft sponsored languages gets smaller each year. I remember when many paid thousands for msdn subscriptions.
      - strbean 4y ago
        I think most open source developers who would boycott Microsoft products because of their (abusive?) approach to training Copilot were probably already boycotting Microsoft products. Not much point chasing a market with a lifelong grudge against you.
PartiallyTyped 4y ago
I think the issue with LaMDA was the engineer who claimed sentience. The consequence of that is that everything released would be underwhelming due to over promising. By the time that fizzled out, it may have been deemed “too late” for it.
radicaldreamer 4y ago
Azure, Bing, Office & Windows... while Microsoft has been executing, the quality of all of those products is pretty low and support is also hit-and-miss. It's like they brought startup shipping mentality to products where users don't want fast updates and the priority is stability, quality, and performance.
- fphhotchips 4y ago
  I'm not sure I'd call Office or Windows "low quality". You might have different preferences, or things you don't like about them, but Windows is a highly polished OS at this point, and Office is head, shoulders, knees and toes the best office suite in the world. I think the other two are a stretch also, but I can see where you're coming from.
thih9 4y ago
> It's had a lot of flops, and a lot of project cancellations I stopped perceiving this as a negative thing and started to consider it a part of google's culture. I suppose projects like https://killedbygoogle.com https://killedbygoogle.com helped. Now I'm realising the obvious, i.e. that at the end of the day each discontinued product means sunken cost and if the product was public then also loss of trust.
FridgeSeal 4y ago
> Azure has been on a tear The only “tear” I’d put Azure on, is “tear inducing” in the context of “being forced to use this disaster brings tears to my eyes”. Most of my friends and peers who’ve had to use Azure feel the same way. > Microsoft's thunder, they flubbed something as simple as an ad. Have you seen bingGPT? It’s not exactly doing much better. > Now people are _really_ wondering if Google can execute anymore Google has done this to themselves. Endlessly launching and axing products inevitably erodes people’s confidence, long before a marketing whiff with a language model.
JustLurking2022 4y ago
They've been executing so well that they had to buy their way into the the AI space? Don't get me wrong, Azure has been quite successful but I don't see their investment into ChatGPT as reflecting any noteworthy change in Microsoft's own internal capabilities.

by chomp 4y ago

magicalist 4y ago

> I think Brereton is missing the wider narrative Isn't that the point? Looking through the pep rally excitement of Nadella saying "I'm going to make Google dance" and looking at the actual product. Honestly some of the Bing results[1] have me thinking that maybe LLMs are ready for Clippy and Copilot style products, and then maybe a browser extension that summarizes pages, but a generally available search launch has a high chance of Bing memeing themselves (again). [1] beyond just errors: https://twitter.com/MovingToTheSun/status/1625156575202537474 https://twitter.com/MovingToTheSun/status/162515657520253747...

happymellon 4y ago
We have had page summerizing engines for a while now and they all have been good enough.

PaulDavisThe1st 4y ago

That's the narrow narrative. The actual wide narrative is that the current language models hallucinate and lie, and there is no coherent plan to avoid this. Google? Microsoft? This is a much less important question than whether or not anyone is going to push this party-trick level technology onto a largely unsuspecting public.

dpflan 4y ago
That what I find so funny. Again, UX innovation over LLMs is what makes ChatGPT so hot right now, like Hansel, but I mean, the product is tragically flawed as like all LLMs at the moment.
- azinman2 4y ago
  I believe that’s because people are using it wrong. Asking for facts is its weakness. Aiding creativity and more narrowly productivity (by way of common sense reasoning) is its greatest strength.
  - allturtles 4y ago
    The product Microsoft is showing off is a fact-finding engine. Just look at the demo, they have built the AI model into the search experience and the demo shows it used exclusively to provide (supposedly) factual information [0]. It's not the users' fault that companies are building the wrong product. [0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FLsr_sUVgrA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FLsr_sUVgrA
    - azinman2 4y ago
      I don’t not include Microsoft here in the audience of “using it wrong.” It’s also very tempting when you get coherent text out to believe it. Hopefully the underlying tech will get better and/or people will understand it’s weaknesses… except the inability to ascertain clear misinformation gives me pause.
    - junofan 4y ago

MisterTea 4y ago

> Microsoft has been executing very very well for the last few years. Indeed. ~13 years ago I'd have said MS would be mostly irrelevant by the mid-late 2020's as they missed the mobile bus in the 00's which Google and Apple have on lock down. But MS knows one thing well: developers (Thanks Ballmer). Azure, Github, vscode - a full stack of tools developers can use to deploy software - without Windows! Very smart move as they can't fight Apple or Google on the front end, so go after the back end - the engines that keep the lights on and money flowing. They're continuing this tooling trend with AI which they can integrate into their existing tools to accelerate development (copilot, etc.) Honestly, with all this tooling in place I would not be surprised if we see a Windows mobile/phone OS make a comeback.

ipaddr 4y ago
If there is one thing Microsoft doesn't know or understand it's the open source developer. Buying github then stealing ip to bundle in co-pilot. Developers don't love Azure but large governmental orgs cto's do.
- lovich 4y ago
  Well open source developers seem allergic to making profit and Microsoft is a for profit business, so I don’t think it’s a big surprises which market they are targeting.
  - ipaddr 4y ago
    Most developers work with open source languages / products. The market for closed source Microsoft sponsored languages gets smaller each year. I remember when many paid thousands for msdn subscriptions.
    - strbean 4y ago
      I think most open source developers who would boycott Microsoft products because of their (abusive?) approach to training Copilot were probably already boycotting Microsoft products. Not much point chasing a market with a lifelong grudge against you.

PartiallyTyped 4y ago

I think the issue with LaMDA was the engineer who claimed sentience. The consequence of that is that everything released would be underwhelming due to over promising. By the time that fizzled out, it may have been deemed “too late” for it.

radicaldreamer 4y ago

Azure, Bing, Office & Windows... while Microsoft has been executing, the quality of all of those products is pretty low and support is also hit-and-miss. It's like they brought startup shipping mentality to products where users don't want fast updates and the priority is stability, quality, and performance.

fphhotchips 4y ago
I'm not sure I'd call Office or Windows "low quality". You might have different preferences, or things you don't like about them, but Windows is a highly polished OS at this point, and Office is head, shoulders, knees and toes the best office suite in the world. I think the other two are a stretch also, but I can see where you're coming from.

thih9 4y ago

> It's had a lot of flops, and a lot of project cancellations I stopped perceiving this as a negative thing and started to consider it a part of google's culture. I suppose projects like https://killedbygoogle.com https://killedbygoogle.com helped. Now I'm realising the obvious, i.e. that at the end of the day each discontinued product means sunken cost and if the product was public then also loss of trust.

FridgeSeal 4y ago

> Azure has been on a tear The only “tear” I’d put Azure on, is “tear inducing” in the context of “being forced to use this disaster brings tears to my eyes”. Most of my friends and peers who’ve had to use Azure feel the same way. > Microsoft's thunder, they flubbed something as simple as an ad. Have you seen bingGPT? It’s not exactly doing much better. > Now people are _really_ wondering if Google can execute anymore Google has done this to themselves. Endlessly launching and axing products inevitably erodes people’s confidence, long before a marketing whiff with a language model.

JustLurking2022 4y ago

They've been executing so well that they had to buy their way into the the AI space? Don't get me wrong, Azure has been quite successful but I don't see their investment into ChatGPT as reflecting any noteworthy change in Microsoft's own internal capabilities.