3 ms·

Completely ignoring the damage GenAI has and will continue to do...

CaptainFever 3y ago
I don't think this is really relevant? The Twitter post is more about Google losing the AI race because they were too blinded by their current business and not realizing that their main business of "helping people research and find information" could be better served with a chat engine rather than a search engine. Essentially, they stopped innovating, and that cost them a ton in terms of opportunity. It doesn't mention AI ethics.
- ChrisMarshallNY 3y ago
  I used to work for a digital camera manufacturer. In the 1990s, I attended a FlashPix conference (look it up), given by Kodak, which, at the time, was highly relevant. I kept running into Kodak digital camera engineers, who were universally complaining that "the film guys" were hamstringing their work; killing budgets, forcing shortsighted, destructive policies, poaching headcount, etc. At the time, Kodak was basically the forerunner of digital imaging. When I heard that, I knew that they were "dead man walking." This reminds me of that discussion, a few days ago, about institutions reinforcing the problems to which they are the solution[0]. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39491863 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39491863
  - silverquiet 3y ago
    I worked in the retail end of the film business as a kid, and I've thought about this a bit since I lived through it. I really don't think the modern world has a place for Kodak as an imaging company anymore no matter what they would have done. In the old days, the medium was film and paper. If you wanted to capture an image, it had to be on film, and distributed on film or paper for people to see. Every film in every theater in the world had to be printed on film and then physically handled. It must have been tens of thousands of miles of film just for the average movie. And I'm given to believe that it was a large margin business. With digital cameras, all that went away; you no longer needed to develop/print things to see them, and it's become a specialized service that you might use to commemorate a special occasion. Every grocery store used to have a lab, but it's been at least a decade since they were taken out in all my local ones. I wonder how many people even own a "camera" anymore? At one point, I carried a film camera everywhere, and then a digital point and shoot, but the iPhone 4 is where I decided that it had crossed a line that the convenience and quality of the built-in camera meant I no longer wanted to carry a specialized device (though the point and shoots of the day where clearly still superior). And the phone cameras today are better still. Now, dedicated cameras are the stuff of hobbyists (I have a few and they are still impressive), but it's a niche thing compared to the world of film and paper. And so I wonder if those old guys at Kodak had some sense of what it would mean to get rid of film and just tried to hold on for as long as they could.
- EchoChamberMan 3y ago
  1) The only problem is that chat engines are garbage - they don't know fact from fiction and invent falsities, so no, people aren't better served by LLMs. "Openai started dumping sewage to make money a long time ago, we've only just started," is not as impressive an argument to me as they might like. 2) The decline of Western civilization is highly relevant. https://www.victorpest.com/articles/what-humans-can-learn-from-calhouns-rodent-utopia https://www.victorpest.com/articles/what-humans-can-learn-fr...
- karmakaze 3y ago
  I liked the post, excluding the closing phrase which implies that what Google did wasn't a mistake but rather a missed opportunity. It was both at the scale of MS missing out on mobile for an analogous faith in its desktop os/software market. I suppose it could be read as 'recent' mistakes. If Google cared about their users they would have recognized it sooner, but they'd long since chose profit over better Search.

I don't think this is really relevant? The Twitter post is more about Google losing the AI race because they were too blinded by their current business and not realizing that their main business of "helping people research and find information" could be better served with a chat engine rather than a search engine. Essentially, they stopped innovating, and that cost them a ton in terms of opportunity. It doesn't mention AI ethics.

ChrisMarshallNY 3y ago
I used to work for a digital camera manufacturer. In the 1990s, I attended a FlashPix conference (look it up), given by Kodak, which, at the time, was highly relevant. I kept running into Kodak digital camera engineers, who were universally complaining that "the film guys" were hamstringing their work; killing budgets, forcing shortsighted, destructive policies, poaching headcount, etc. At the time, Kodak was basically the forerunner of digital imaging. When I heard that, I knew that they were "dead man walking." This reminds me of that discussion, a few days ago, about institutions reinforcing the problems to which they are the solution[0]. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39491863 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39491863
- silverquiet 3y ago
  I worked in the retail end of the film business as a kid, and I've thought about this a bit since I lived through it. I really don't think the modern world has a place for Kodak as an imaging company anymore no matter what they would have done. In the old days, the medium was film and paper. If you wanted to capture an image, it had to be on film, and distributed on film or paper for people to see. Every film in every theater in the world had to be printed on film and then physically handled. It must have been tens of thousands of miles of film just for the average movie. And I'm given to believe that it was a large margin business. With digital cameras, all that went away; you no longer needed to develop/print things to see them, and it's become a specialized service that you might use to commemorate a special occasion. Every grocery store used to have a lab, but it's been at least a decade since they were taken out in all my local ones. I wonder how many people even own a "camera" anymore? At one point, I carried a film camera everywhere, and then a digital point and shoot, but the iPhone 4 is where I decided that it had crossed a line that the convenience and quality of the built-in camera meant I no longer wanted to carry a specialized device (though the point and shoots of the day where clearly still superior). And the phone cameras today are better still. Now, dedicated cameras are the stuff of hobbyists (I have a few and they are still impressive), but it's a niche thing compared to the world of film and paper. And so I wonder if those old guys at Kodak had some sense of what it would mean to get rid of film and just tried to hold on for as long as they could.
EchoChamberMan 3y ago
1) The only problem is that chat engines are garbage - they don't know fact from fiction and invent falsities, so no, people aren't better served by LLMs. "Openai started dumping sewage to make money a long time ago, we've only just started," is not as impressive an argument to me as they might like. 2) The decline of Western civilization is highly relevant. https://www.victorpest.com/articles/what-humans-can-learn-from-calhouns-rodent-utopia https://www.victorpest.com/articles/what-humans-can-learn-fr...
karmakaze 3y ago
I liked the post, excluding the closing phrase which implies that what Google did wasn't a mistake but rather a missed opportunity. It was both at the scale of MS missing out on mobile for an analogous faith in its desktop os/software market. I suppose it could be read as 'recent' mistakes. If Google cared about their users they would have recognized it sooner, but they'd long since chose profit over better Search.