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Google has already done this. Destroyed its existing assistant product -- removed key functionality, de-staffed the team, moved it all under Gemini. I'm in a f
by cmrdporcupine 2y ago
Google has already done this. Destroyed its existing assistant product -- removed key functionality, de-staffed the team, moved it all under Gemini.
I'm in a few Polestar car user groups, and people are pissed that their Android based head units can no longer do basic integration via assistant stuff that the car was initially sold to them able to do. In some cases they are blaming Polestar, in some cases connecting the dots back to Google.
It's beyond foolish. And destroys goodwill with customers. Who they seem to consider there being an infinite supply of. There is not.
Beyond that, there's the fact that stochastic "fuzzy" AIs are maybe not such a great fit when you just need to have the pod bay doors opened. Basic deterministic, symbolic, "AI" makes a lot of sense, especially once people get used to the quirks for the right way to talk to the thing.
- taeric 2y agoI'm a little biased, but I do think "voicexml" probably covered far more use cases than people are willing to admit. Some documents wouldn't have been pretty, I don't think, but would be far preferable to the inability to reason about how things actually work. And, indeed, the messier the document, the more obvious that you were making it too consuming.
- stacktrust 2y agoIs there a modern equivalent?
- taeric 2y agoNot that I know of? But, I have also not been watching that market for a long long time. I am actually somewhat interested on building a small speaker thing that I can load a VXML document on and start adding use cases to it. Especially after considering how much I could save by dropping all of my current subscription stuff.
- esafak 2y agoI bet the people involved in the decision to bork it up don't even use the product. Management by OKRs. The numbers look good, ship it!
- miohtama 2y agoCustomer satisfaction is not a number Google counts
- sbdbdheahhh 2y agoSometimes when I was bored in meetings I would ask how what we were discussing would benefit users. It almost always resulted in uncomfortable silence, then some half-assed attempt to paper over the real answer (no benefit), and proceeding back to enshittifying. Truly soul crushing environment, but it was amusing.
- CamperBob2 2y agoIt most assuredly is... but you're not the customer.
- cromka 2y agoI've been saying this for years, but I am still surprised there was no class action against Google for borking up their Home speakers. Mine literally don't even understand "STOP" anymore when I ask them to stop playing my podcast. I am not kidding, every couple months they lose some basic functionality. If that's not a modern version of planned obsolescence then I don't know what is.