5 ms·

It's pretty crazy to think that Google is not OpenAI today, they had deep mind and an army of PHDs early on.

by Thaxll 3y ago

dpflan 3y ago
What is OpenAI today? Can you elaborate? Google is a varied $trillion company. OpenAI sells access to large generative models.
- bitcharmer 3y ago
  Sure, Google is worth more but they essentially reduced themselves to an ad business. They aren't focused on innovation as much as before. Shareholder value is the new god.
  - dpflan 3y ago
    Agreed that Friedman cursed the market with "shareholder theory", and it is a totally subversive and corrupting concept because whatever will increase value is accepted because it's the doctrine.
    - glial 3y ago
      Economic "theories" have an annoying way of being self-fulfilling.
  - ripe 3y ago
    An ad business is all Google ever was. But they made 20 billion in profits last quarter. Why mess with a good thing? Innovator’s Dilemma. Also, to be fair, OpenAI’s huge valuation is only a promise right now. Hopefully they will eventually turn profitable…
  - codethatwerks 3y ago
    Shareholder value is fine. Share seller value is what is targeted.
- bevekspldnw 3y ago
  Where would most people want to work is the question. This is all a talent game.
password54321 3y ago
Well at the time before Microsoft got involved it was sort of an unspoken rule among the AI community to be open and not release certain models to the public.
- sharemywin 3y ago
  I think that was because it become a product that point.
- pests 3y ago
  To be open and not release? Isn't that at odds?
cgearhart 3y ago
I think it’s evidence that timing is everything. In the 2010s deep learning was still figuring out how to leverage GPUs. The scale of compute required for everything after GPT-2 would have been nearly impossible in 2017/2018–our courses at Udacity used a few hours of time on K80 GPUs. By 2020 it was becoming possible to get unbelievable amounts of compute to throw at these models to test the scale hypothesis. The rise of LLMs is stark proof of the Bitter Lesson because it’s at least as much the story of GPU advancement as it is about algorithms.
empath-nirvana 3y ago
The problem is that chatting with an LLM is extremely disruptive to their business model and it's difficult for them to productize without killing the golden goose.
- yobbo 3y ago
  Yes, but Google's search volume would make it impossible either way. But they are probably using various techniques in analyses, embeddings, "canned" answers to queries, and so on.
- crowcroft 3y ago
  I know everyone cites this as the innovators dilemma, but so far the evidence suggests this isn't true. ChatGPT has been around for a while now, and it hasn't led to a collapse in Google's search revenue, and in fact now Google is rushing to roll out their version instead of trying to entrench search. A famous example is the iPhone killing the iPod, and it took around 3 and a half years for the iPod to really collapse, so chat and co-pilots might be early still. On the other hand handheld consumer electronics have much longer buying cycles than software tools.
  - autokad 3y ago
    maybe its too early. I almost never google search anymore, a lot of my friends do the same. Kind of like after I was using google for years, lots and lots of people were still using sites like ask jeaves, but the writing was on the wall
    - flamedoge 3y ago
      Maybe. I can't be the only one who gets irked by the slow, typing-out response from copilot/gpt when google gets me instant results. Near instant or a lot faster result might convince me to use whatever gpt search
      - autokad 3y ago
        honestly I use the free version and the text is really fast. Lets take a look at a typical question I may send to chat gpt: >I have some tasks, some of them maintenance, some of them relaxation that I do >before bed. For example, maintenance: >brush teeth, floss, water floss, put on nose strips, take prylosec. >For relaxation: >stretch, massage gun, ASMR, music, tiger balm, salt bath, movie, tea, nasal >clean, moisturize. >can you suggest some others tasks? Google can't even handle this. if you try, the entire page is filled with Videos: ... with 4 video thumbnails from youtube on how to use a water pic. So I scroll off down (by now chat gpt already has a response) half a page on 'people also ask' with 4 questions about water pics, keep scrolling, finally search results, and all of them are about ... water pics/flossers.
scottyah 3y ago
They'd have to fall pretty far to be OpenAI.

It's pretty crazy to think that Google is not OpenAI today, they had deep mind and an army of PHDs early on.

by Thaxll 3y ago

It's pretty crazy to think that Google is not OpenAI today, they had deep mind and an army of PHDs early on.

What is OpenAI today? Can you elaborate? Google is a varied $trillion company. OpenAI sells access to large generative models.

bitcharmer 3y ago
Sure, Google is worth more but they essentially reduced themselves to an ad business. They aren't focused on innovation as much as before. Shareholder value is the new god.
- dpflan 3y ago
  Agreed that Friedman cursed the market with "shareholder theory", and it is a totally subversive and corrupting concept because whatever will increase value is accepted because it's the doctrine.
  - glial 3y ago
    Economic "theories" have an annoying way of being self-fulfilling.
- ripe 3y ago
  An ad business is all Google ever was. But they made 20 billion in profits last quarter. Why mess with a good thing? Innovator’s Dilemma. Also, to be fair, OpenAI’s huge valuation is only a promise right now. Hopefully they will eventually turn profitable…
- codethatwerks 3y ago
  Shareholder value is fine. Share seller value is what is targeted.
bevekspldnw 3y ago
Where would most people want to work is the question. This is all a talent game.

password54321 3y ago

Well at the time before Microsoft got involved it was sort of an unspoken rule among the AI community to be open and not release certain models to the public.

sharemywin 3y ago
I think that was because it become a product that point.
pests 3y ago
To be open and not release? Isn't that at odds?

cgearhart 3y ago

I think it’s evidence that timing is everything. In the 2010s deep learning was still figuring out how to leverage GPUs. The scale of compute required for everything after GPT-2 would have been nearly impossible in 2017/2018–our courses at Udacity used a few hours of time on K80 GPUs. By 2020 it was becoming possible to get unbelievable amounts of compute to throw at these models to test the scale hypothesis. The rise of LLMs is stark proof of the Bitter Lesson because it’s at least as much the story of GPU advancement as it is about algorithms.

empath-nirvana 3y ago

The problem is that chatting with an LLM is extremely disruptive to their business model and it's difficult for them to productize without killing the golden goose.

yobbo 3y ago
Yes, but Google's search volume would make it impossible either way. But they are probably using various techniques in analyses, embeddings, "canned" answers to queries, and so on.
crowcroft 3y ago
I know everyone cites this as the innovators dilemma, but so far the evidence suggests this isn't true. ChatGPT has been around for a while now, and it hasn't led to a collapse in Google's search revenue, and in fact now Google is rushing to roll out their version instead of trying to entrench search. A famous example is the iPhone killing the iPod, and it took around 3 and a half years for the iPod to really collapse, so chat and co-pilots might be early still. On the other hand handheld consumer electronics have much longer buying cycles than software tools.
- autokad 3y ago
  maybe its too early. I almost never google search anymore, a lot of my friends do the same. Kind of like after I was using google for years, lots and lots of people were still using sites like ask jeaves, but the writing was on the wall
  - flamedoge 3y ago
    Maybe. I can't be the only one who gets irked by the slow, typing-out response from copilot/gpt when google gets me instant results. Near instant or a lot faster result might convince me to use whatever gpt search
    - autokad 3y ago
      honestly I use the free version and the text is really fast. Lets take a look at a typical question I may send to chat gpt: >I have some tasks, some of them maintenance, some of them relaxation that I do >before bed. For example, maintenance: >brush teeth, floss, water floss, put on nose strips, take prylosec. >For relaxation: >stretch, massage gun, ASMR, music, tiger balm, salt bath, movie, tea, nasal >clean, moisturize. >can you suggest some others tasks? Google can't even handle this. if you try, the entire page is filled with Videos: ... with 4 video thumbnails from youtube on how to use a water pic. So I scroll off down (by now chat gpt already has a response) half a page on 'people also ask' with 4 questions about water pics, keep scrolling, finally search results, and all of them are about ... water pics/flossers.

scottyah 3y ago

They'd have to fall pretty far to be OpenAI.