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The lengthy post boils down to this quote " Google could build the AI to win it all" but it is not guaranteed. I appreciate the context as someone who hasn't ke

by fumar 3y ago

The lengthy post boils down to this quote " Google could build the AI to win it all" but it is not guaranteed. I appreciate the context as someone who hasn't kept a close eye on Google's AI efforts, but Ben doesn't cover why Google has a right to win outside of search data. Interestingly, there is no mention of AWS and Amazon's wider efforts to create AI tools. There is hype around chat bots but what is the likelihood chat functionality is the premier AI gateway in the near future? Edit: I thought about the topic more while wrapping up my work work. I am on the periphery of AI at one of the large US tech companies and we've placed AI bets along many of our existing products. Every day I run into this – "I manage xyz product, we plan to add AI to help with XYZ in 2024" or we added this chat functionality for "manual job to be done." I don't claim to have insight into the future on which of these solutions will be successful for their intended clients. The pattern I see is that AI can be quickly (relative) integrated or coupled onto existing software services. Is that the secret to AI? It will permeate through our digital lives either in small or big ways – but critically it isn't one AI to rule them all. AI micro services will act like intermediaries between humans and some end service. It is like chocolate. Why not pair chocolate with [enter any food stuff]? You could hit a home run like chocolate with peanut butter or chocolate chip cookies. Now we have chocolate everywhere including drinks, but chocolate isn't required for a tasty result. And importantly chocolate isn't always a standalone dish – it can be though.

carlineng 3y ago
The argument is more than that -- namely that in addition to having sophisticated AI, Google also controls the OS (Android) and hardware (Pixel). Being able to integrate best-in-class AI at every level of the stack is a tremendous advantage. OpenAI can't do this because they don't control the OS, and will always need to go through an app. Apple can play since they control OS and hardware, but at the moment they appear pretty far behind in the AI aspect.
- ghayes 3y ago
  Is anyone really that far behind on AI given that the newest open-source models are closing in on GPT4?
  - simion314 3y ago
    I agree, Apple needs to wait and see what team offers a good alternative to OpenAI and buy them, I hope they do not buy and close an open source friendly team.
- poulsbohemian 3y ago
  >Apple can play since they control OS and hardware, but at the moment they appear pretty far behind in the AI aspect. I disagree strongly with this, and it has everything to do with how we conceptualize AI. I get in my car and plug in my iPhone. CarPlay immediately causes the Maps app to pop up and route me to my next meeting. I can say "hey siri, set a reminder to call Mr. Jones at 3:00" and she will gladly comply. If my buddy texts me while I'm driving to the meeting and asks if I'm free for golf tomorrow, she will automatically try to pin that on my calendar. I can throw out lots of examples here, but you get the idea. Now granted, voice recognition in Siri has been pretty bad. She struggles with a lot of basic things, like putting on the music I request. But, there's no question in my mind that these augmented reality moments are where AI is actually making a difference in our lives and represent the actual business opportunity bridgeheads. In Apple's case, they not only already control the hardware (the phone, the watch, the earbuds, the tablet) but they've also figured out how to start bridging this into other hardware like a vehicle.
  - jeffbee 3y ago
    I suggest you try the assistant features on a Pixel 8 Pro. They have all the features you mentioned (except the creepy eavesdropping golf one) and the interaction is miles ahead, especially the text to speech.
    - plufz 3y ago
      I do not have any Android products, I only use Google Assistant through my Sonos speakers. Do you know if that code is different from that on the Pixel? (Because my experience of Google Assistant is long from good/useful, it struggles with basic tasks, I have to overpronounce to be sure it can differentiate “lights on” from “lights off”, etc etc.)
      - jeffbee 3y ago
        I don't know, because I haven't used Sonos for this purpose. But it's easy to imagine that a mobile handset with an array of microphones that you tend to hold near yourself would be more suited at the hardware level.
- lmm 3y ago
  OpenAI has close ties to Microsoft and we've already seen them integrate AI into Bing; MS may not be a player in phones but they make a major OS and some of the best hardware money can buy. I'm really not convinced vertical integration matters all that much, but if it does, they can do it.
  - wayfinder 3y ago
    Unsurprisingly, they already integrated OpenAI into Windows. You can ask it questions and pass it files.
- willvarfar 3y ago
  I'm expecting: * Microsoft to do it for business users * Google pixie does it first for personal use. Android phones might even momentarily be more desirable than iphone * Apple eventually get there, for their walled garden * Amazon etc fall totally behind * And, years later, users of google docs are still waiting for basic AI help writing docs whilst google completely doesn't try in that space
  - hef19898 3y ago
    I know that I'm part of a minority, but I'll avoid touching an "AI" enabled smartphone as long as possible. All privacy issues and tech issues aside, so far I have simply not found a single use case in which AI-tools would make my life easier.
    - willvarfar 3y ago
      AI would be much better at code _review_ than code generation. AI would be much better at auto-completing whole sentences and paragraphs and suggesting rephrasing etc in docs and presentations, than at answering questions about the world. But the race seems to be to answer questions about the world based on a 2021 dump of the internet, so ... :)
      - hef19898 3y ago
        Oh, as a tool I see a ton of use: personally for image processing (sharpening, noise reduction) even if I can perfectly live without it, professionally I see a ton of potential use in optimizing planning (supply chain, production, scheduling, netwrok planning...) by proposing scenarios and supporting the people doing said planning. I don't need AI to search the internet for me, summarize a book (if it is worth or important enough for me, I just read it) or all the other stuff AI currently is doing.
    - kolinko 3y ago
      As for privacy - Apple does most, if not all AI processing on-device. E.g. Siri understands voice commands when offline (although may work worse then I think). A good on-device assistant would be super useful: - instead of searching for a setting, you just tell it to change a device setting - decent appointment/reminder setting ("remind me to invite joe to my next birthday party" -> and it knows who Joe is, and how to set up such a reminder) - all kinds of search ("what was that book about startups that someone recommended to me a year ago?", "open up a tracking page for that thing I ordered last week", "show me a photo of XX I took last summer") - managing e-mails the way old-school secretaries did - "any important messages?", or "reply to everyone I'm out of office, unless it's related to X"
emschwartz 3y ago
I understood the crux of the argument to be that the holy grail UX is having an always-on AI assistant you can have a spoken conversation with. He says that Google’s combination of hardware, Android, loads of data on the user, and good enough AI chops might be a combination that makes an assistant so helpful that it would get people to switch away from iOS to use it.
nextworddev 3y ago
AwS is just a reseller of 3p LLMs at this point (via Bedrock). If you don’t believe me try their 1p LLM (Titan)
- acdha 3y ago
  That may be true but consider that AWS was “just” a reseller of Intel servers a decade and a half ago (remember people saying S3 was too expensive and hard to use with tons of competition, too?). Integration matters and if they do a good job of making it easy to build into applications I’d easily believe that the path for a lot of businesses will involve a partner they already have extensive relationships and experience with.
  - nextworddev 3y ago
    S3 was actual innovation that AWS led the market in. Apples to oranges comparison.
    - acdha 3y ago
      EC2 was innovation, but many people didn’t see it. S3 was more distinctly new although still not the first object store or even object store over HTTP as a service, but if you were there a LOT of people did not share that perception and said it cost too much, would never scale, or required too much software to be modified. I’m not saying that to diminish the importance of S3 but simply that we often wildly overstate the importance of being first to ship an idea versus easy to work with, low-drama for operations, etc.
      - nextworddev 3y ago
        Ok we can both agree tho that AWS isn’t the platform leading LLM innovation. That said I’m not disputing that AWS will make money with Bedrock and enterprise contracts
semi-extrinsic 3y ago
I like your chocolate argument and will steal it for future use.
keenmaster 3y ago
Intelligence makes almost everything better, so maybe salt is a better analogy than chocolate (especially once the hallucination rate of LLMs becomes more acceptable).

by fumar 3y ago

carlineng 3y ago

The argument is more than that -- namely that in addition to having sophisticated AI, Google also controls the OS (Android) and hardware (Pixel). Being able to integrate best-in-class AI at every level of the stack is a tremendous advantage. OpenAI can't do this because they don't control the OS, and will always need to go through an app. Apple can play since they control OS and hardware, but at the moment they appear pretty far behind in the AI aspect.

ghayes 3y ago
Is anyone really that far behind on AI given that the newest open-source models are closing in on GPT4?
- simion314 3y ago
  I agree, Apple needs to wait and see what team offers a good alternative to OpenAI and buy them, I hope they do not buy and close an open source friendly team.
poulsbohemian 3y ago
>Apple can play since they control OS and hardware, but at the moment they appear pretty far behind in the AI aspect. I disagree strongly with this, and it has everything to do with how we conceptualize AI. I get in my car and plug in my iPhone. CarPlay immediately causes the Maps app to pop up and route me to my next meeting. I can say "hey siri, set a reminder to call Mr. Jones at 3:00" and she will gladly comply. If my buddy texts me while I'm driving to the meeting and asks if I'm free for golf tomorrow, she will automatically try to pin that on my calendar. I can throw out lots of examples here, but you get the idea. Now granted, voice recognition in Siri has been pretty bad. She struggles with a lot of basic things, like putting on the music I request. But, there's no question in my mind that these augmented reality moments are where AI is actually making a difference in our lives and represent the actual business opportunity bridgeheads. In Apple's case, they not only already control the hardware (the phone, the watch, the earbuds, the tablet) but they've also figured out how to start bridging this into other hardware like a vehicle.
- jeffbee 3y ago
  I suggest you try the assistant features on a Pixel 8 Pro. They have all the features you mentioned (except the creepy eavesdropping golf one) and the interaction is miles ahead, especially the text to speech.
  - plufz 3y ago
    I do not have any Android products, I only use Google Assistant through my Sonos speakers. Do you know if that code is different from that on the Pixel? (Because my experience of Google Assistant is long from good/useful, it struggles with basic tasks, I have to overpronounce to be sure it can differentiate “lights on” from “lights off”, etc etc.)
    - jeffbee 3y ago
      I don't know, because I haven't used Sonos for this purpose. But it's easy to imagine that a mobile handset with an array of microphones that you tend to hold near yourself would be more suited at the hardware level.
lmm 3y ago
OpenAI has close ties to Microsoft and we've already seen them integrate AI into Bing; MS may not be a player in phones but they make a major OS and some of the best hardware money can buy. I'm really not convinced vertical integration matters all that much, but if it does, they can do it.
- wayfinder 3y ago
  Unsurprisingly, they already integrated OpenAI into Windows. You can ask it questions and pass it files.
willvarfar 3y ago
I'm expecting: * Microsoft to do it for business users * Google pixie does it first for personal use. Android phones might even momentarily be more desirable than iphone * Apple eventually get there, for their walled garden * Amazon etc fall totally behind * And, years later, users of google docs are still waiting for basic AI help writing docs whilst google completely doesn't try in that space
- hef19898 3y ago
  I know that I'm part of a minority, but I'll avoid touching an "AI" enabled smartphone as long as possible. All privacy issues and tech issues aside, so far I have simply not found a single use case in which AI-tools would make my life easier.
  - willvarfar 3y ago
    AI would be much better at code _review_ than code generation. AI would be much better at auto-completing whole sentences and paragraphs and suggesting rephrasing etc in docs and presentations, than at answering questions about the world. But the race seems to be to answer questions about the world based on a 2021 dump of the internet, so ... :)
    - hef19898 3y ago
      Oh, as a tool I see a ton of use: personally for image processing (sharpening, noise reduction) even if I can perfectly live without it, professionally I see a ton of potential use in optimizing planning (supply chain, production, scheduling, netwrok planning...) by proposing scenarios and supporting the people doing said planning. I don't need AI to search the internet for me, summarize a book (if it is worth or important enough for me, I just read it) or all the other stuff AI currently is doing.
  - kolinko 3y ago
    As for privacy - Apple does most, if not all AI processing on-device. E.g. Siri understands voice commands when offline (although may work worse then I think). A good on-device assistant would be super useful: - instead of searching for a setting, you just tell it to change a device setting - decent appointment/reminder setting ("remind me to invite joe to my next birthday party" -> and it knows who Joe is, and how to set up such a reminder) - all kinds of search ("what was that book about startups that someone recommended to me a year ago?", "open up a tracking page for that thing I ordered last week", "show me a photo of XX I took last summer") - managing e-mails the way old-school secretaries did - "any important messages?", or "reply to everyone I'm out of office, unless it's related to X"

emschwartz 3y ago

I understood the crux of the argument to be that the holy grail UX is having an always-on AI assistant you can have a spoken conversation with. He says that Google’s combination of hardware, Android, loads of data on the user, and good enough AI chops might be a combination that makes an assistant so helpful that it would get people to switch away from iOS to use it.

nextworddev 3y ago

AwS is just a reseller of 3p LLMs at this point (via Bedrock). If you don’t believe me try their 1p LLM (Titan)

acdha 3y ago
That may be true but consider that AWS was “just” a reseller of Intel servers a decade and a half ago (remember people saying S3 was too expensive and hard to use with tons of competition, too?). Integration matters and if they do a good job of making it easy to build into applications I’d easily believe that the path for a lot of businesses will involve a partner they already have extensive relationships and experience with.
- nextworddev 3y ago
  S3 was actual innovation that AWS led the market in. Apples to oranges comparison.
  - acdha 3y ago
    EC2 was innovation, but many people didn’t see it. S3 was more distinctly new although still not the first object store or even object store over HTTP as a service, but if you were there a LOT of people did not share that perception and said it cost too much, would never scale, or required too much software to be modified. I’m not saying that to diminish the importance of S3 but simply that we often wildly overstate the importance of being first to ship an idea versus easy to work with, low-drama for operations, etc.
    - nextworddev 3y ago
      Ok we can both agree tho that AWS isn’t the platform leading LLM innovation. That said I’m not disputing that AWS will make money with Bedrock and enterprise contracts

semi-extrinsic 3y ago

I like your chocolate argument and will steal it for future use.

keenmaster 3y ago

Intelligence makes almost everything better, so maybe salt is a better analogy than chocolate (especially once the hallucination rate of LLMs becomes more acceptable).