4 ms·

Man, Microsoft is kicking ass at AI. Maybe the others have great AI models too but haven’t seen any large company release product after product with AI.

by spaceman_2020 4y ago

ksd482 4y ago
Yes. It's their strategy that makes them stand out. Ever since Satya took over, they have really turned the company around and reinvented themselves in terms of community involvement when it comes to software; embracing open source and .NET Core are just a few examples.
Kibae 4y ago
I think it's largely due to Sam Altman bringing the YC ethos to OpenAI. Building something people want, releasing products quickly, etc.
- muzani 4y ago
  It's not a uniquely YC thing. Every major company did this well at some point. Microsoft is in that sweet spot where they're big enough to fund whatever they want, but not FAANG-tier, which tends to attract political types.
  - DoctorOW 4y ago
    Microsoft is the same size as the biggest companies in FAANG and the office politics are notoriously pretty competitive.
    - Der_Einzige 4y ago
      They also pay better than Amazon and have (or had based on recent blind reviews) excellent WLB
  - tester756 4y ago
    MSFT is second biggest FAANG right after Apple and significantly ahead of #3, wtf?
eastof 4y ago
Depends on how you define AI. Aren't Youtube, TikTok, etc. serving content based on ML recommendation?
- Lucasoato 4y ago
  Those are products with AI... but that's not enough to make them AI products. I wouldn't have bet on Microsoft, but on this side they are one step beyond everyone else.
- fumblebee 4y ago
  This feels different. In the case of recommendation systems, the unconscious consumer is wholly unaware of the witchcraft occurring on the backend. OpenAI's ChatGPT, Midjourney, HuggingFace, and their kin, are commoditising a technology that was historically resigned to hidden artefacts, whose input was limited to system calls, not user calls.
  - Gigachad 4y ago
    I suspect google actually is using their LLM tech behind the scenes to summarise pages to show better results. I’ve noticed the on search snipits seem to know the exact bit of text on the page that answers my question. But they don’t directly show you generated text because it’s still kind of whack.
    - adem 4y ago
      > I’ve noticed the on search snipits seem to know the exact bit of text on the page that answers my question. This must be new, right? I noticed this too and to be honest, it immediately improved my search experience, which had gotten very bad.
      - Gigachad 4y ago
        Yeah I had noticed it a few days ago and realised there was something special going on.
lionkor 4y ago
Correct me if im wrong, but their AI is not AGI (or even anywhere close), so most of their products that use it simply use it as a halfassed replacement for a proper algorithm (to solve the problem). Its basically fancy statistics. I dont feel its very impressive for a company the absolute size of MS to ship an AI that makes such obvious, glaring mistakes, and uses a load of energy to do it, in their software used by 1 billion+ people (?). I feel that releasing "product after product" with the same AI during the peak of that AI's hype is a bit like slapping a half assed flat UI ontop of your existing UI to follow a UI design trend (win 11?). Its not like any of this is likely to be thought through very much.
- curiousgal 4y ago
  > to solve the problem What problem? AGI? lol The only problem companies solve is how to maximize $$$.
  - brookst 4y ago
    Turns out you maximize $$$ by solving customer problems that customers are willing to pay for. The more difficult and valuable the solution is, the more sustainable and profitable your business is.
- raincole 4y ago
  > Correct me if im wrong, but their AI is not AGI (or even anywhere close), so most of their products that use it simply use it as a halfassed replacement for a proper algorithm (to solve the problem). Its basically fancy statistics. What does "a proper algorithm" even mean? The best algorithm so far to implement a chatbot is ML, no? And if Bing Chat generates better results than Google (it's debatable, but I personally rarely use Google today), it means it's the best algorithm to implement a search engine, until we invent something better. Why are ML and a proper algorithm are mutally exclusive? > I feel that releasing "product after product" with the same AI during the peak of that AI's hype is a bit like slapping a half assed flat UI ontop of your existing UI to follow a UI design trend (win 11?). Really weird analogy. There were plenty good software with flat UI when win 11 came out. There is no chatbot as good as ChatGPT.
robertlagrant 4y ago
> Man, Microsoft is kicking ass at AI. Maybe the others have great AI models too but haven’t seen any large company release product after product with AI. They invested in OpenAI, which was a smart move.

Man, Microsoft is kicking ass at AI. Maybe the others have great AI models too but haven’t seen any large company release product after product with AI.

ksd482 4y ago

Yes. It's their strategy that makes them stand out. Ever since Satya took over, they have really turned the company around and reinvented themselves in terms of community involvement when it comes to software; embracing open source and .NET Core are just a few examples.

Kibae 4y ago

I think it's largely due to Sam Altman bringing the YC ethos to OpenAI. Building something people want, releasing products quickly, etc.

muzani 4y ago
It's not a uniquely YC thing. Every major company did this well at some point. Microsoft is in that sweet spot where they're big enough to fund whatever they want, but not FAANG-tier, which tends to attract political types.
- DoctorOW 4y ago
  Microsoft is the same size as the biggest companies in FAANG and the office politics are notoriously pretty competitive.
  - Der_Einzige 4y ago
    They also pay better than Amazon and have (or had based on recent blind reviews) excellent WLB
- tester756 4y ago
  MSFT is second biggest FAANG right after Apple and significantly ahead of #3, wtf?

eastof 4y ago

Depends on how you define AI. Aren't Youtube, TikTok, etc. serving content based on ML recommendation?

Lucasoato 4y ago
Those are products with AI... but that's not enough to make them AI products. I wouldn't have bet on Microsoft, but on this side they are one step beyond everyone else.
fumblebee 4y ago
This feels different. In the case of recommendation systems, the unconscious consumer is wholly unaware of the witchcraft occurring on the backend. OpenAI's ChatGPT, Midjourney, HuggingFace, and their kin, are commoditising a technology that was historically resigned to hidden artefacts, whose input was limited to system calls, not user calls.
- Gigachad 4y ago
  I suspect google actually is using their LLM tech behind the scenes to summarise pages to show better results. I’ve noticed the on search snipits seem to know the exact bit of text on the page that answers my question. But they don’t directly show you generated text because it’s still kind of whack.
  - adem 4y ago
    > I’ve noticed the on search snipits seem to know the exact bit of text on the page that answers my question. This must be new, right? I noticed this too and to be honest, it immediately improved my search experience, which had gotten very bad.
    - Gigachad 4y ago
      Yeah I had noticed it a few days ago and realised there was something special going on.

lionkor 4y ago

Correct me if im wrong, but their AI is not AGI (or even anywhere close), so most of their products that use it simply use it as a halfassed replacement for a proper algorithm (to solve the problem). Its basically fancy statistics. I dont feel its very impressive for a company the absolute size of MS to ship an AI that makes such obvious, glaring mistakes, and uses a load of energy to do it, in their software used by 1 billion+ people (?). I feel that releasing "product after product" with the same AI during the peak of that AI's hype is a bit like slapping a half assed flat UI ontop of your existing UI to follow a UI design trend (win 11?). Its not like any of this is likely to be thought through very much.

curiousgal 4y ago
> to solve the problem What problem? AGI? lol The only problem companies solve is how to maximize $$$.
- brookst 4y ago
  Turns out you maximize $$$ by solving customer problems that customers are willing to pay for. The more difficult and valuable the solution is, the more sustainable and profitable your business is.
raincole 4y ago
> Correct me if im wrong, but their AI is not AGI (or even anywhere close), so most of their products that use it simply use it as a halfassed replacement for a proper algorithm (to solve the problem). Its basically fancy statistics. What does "a proper algorithm" even mean? The best algorithm so far to implement a chatbot is ML, no? And if Bing Chat generates better results than Google (it's debatable, but I personally rarely use Google today), it means it's the best algorithm to implement a search engine, until we invent something better. Why are ML and a proper algorithm are mutally exclusive? > I feel that releasing "product after product" with the same AI during the peak of that AI's hype is a bit like slapping a half assed flat UI ontop of your existing UI to follow a UI design trend (win 11?). Really weird analogy. There were plenty good software with flat UI when win 11 came out. There is no chatbot as good as ChatGPT.

robertlagrant 4y ago

> Man, Microsoft is kicking ass at AI. Maybe the others have great AI models too but haven’t seen any large company release product after product with AI. They invested in OpenAI, which was a smart move.