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I've been so happy to see Google wake up. Many can point to a long history of killed products and soured opinions but you can't deny theyve been the great bala
by bnchrch 11mo ago
I've been so happy to see Google wake up.
Many can point to a long history of killed products and soured opinions but you can't deny theyve been the great balancing force (often for good) in the industry.
- Gmail vs Outlook
- Drive vs Word
- Android vs iOS
- Worklife balance and high pay vs the low salary grind of before.
Theyve done heaps for the industry. Im glad to see signs of life. Particularly in their P/E which was unjustly low for awhile.
- digbybk 11mo agoIronically, OpenAI was conceived as a way to balance Google's dominance in AI.
- dragonwriter 11mo agoI thought it was a workaround to Google's complete disinterest in productizing the AI research it was doing and publishing, rather than a way to balance their dominance in a market which didn't meaningfully exist.
- mattnewton 11mo agoThat’s how it turned out, but IIRC at the time of OpenAI’s founding, “AI” was search and RL which Google and deep mind were dominating, and self driving, which Waymo was leading. And OpenAI was conceptualized as a research org to compete. A lot has changed and OpenAI has been good at seeing around those corners.
- jpadkins 11mo agoElon Musk specifically gave OAI $150M early on because of the risk of Google being the only Corp that has AGI or super-intelligence. These emails were part of the record in the lawsuit.
- jonny_eh 11mo agoThat was actually Character.ai's founding story. Two researchers at Google that were frustrated by a lack of resources and the inability to launch an LLM based chatbot. The founders are now back at Google. OpenAI was founded based on fears that Google would completely own AI in the future.
- sgt101 11mo agoI think that Google didn't see the business case in that generation of models, and also saw significant safety concerns. If AI had been delayed by... 5 years... would the world really be a worse place? Yes - less exciting! But worse?
- CobrastanJorji 11mo agoPffft. OpenAI was conceived to be Open, too.
- lemoncucumber 11mo agoIt’s a common pattern for upstarts to embrace openness as a way to differentiate and gain a foothold then become progressively less open once they get bigger. Android is a great example.
- bitpush 11mo agoLast I checked, Android is still open source (as AOSP) and people can do whatever-the-f-they-want with the source code. Are we defining open differently?
- ipaddr 11mo agoCore is open source but for a device to be "Android compatible" and access the Google Play Store and other Google services, it must meet specific requirements from Google's Android Compatibility Program. These additional proprietary components are what make the final product closed source. The Android Open Source Project is not Android.
- bitpush 11mo ago> The Android Open Source Project is not Android. Was "Android" the way you define it ever open? Isnt it similar to chromium vs chrome? chromium is the core, and chrome is the product built on top of it - which is what allows Comet, Atlas, Brave to be built on. That's the same thing what GrapheneOS, /e/ OS and others are doing - building on top of AOSP.
- oblio 11mo ago> Was "Android" the way you define it ever open? Yes. Initially all the core OS components were OSS.
- kccqzy 11mo agoBalance is too weak of a word. OpenAI was conceived specifically to prevent Google from getting AGI first. That was its original goal. At the time of its founding Google was the undisputed leader of AI anywhere in the world. Musk was then very worried about AGI being developed behind closed doors particularly Google, which was why he was the driving force behind the founding of OpenAI.
- kranke155 11mo agoThe book Empire of AI describes him as being particularly fixated on Demis as some kind of evil genius. From the book, early OAI employees couldn’t take the entire thing too seriously and just focused on the work.
- wraptile 11mo ago> Musk was then very worried about AGI being developed behind closed doors *closed doors that aren't his
- 63stack 11mo ago- Making money vs general computing
- rvz 11mo agoGoogle always has been there, its just that many didn't realize that DeepMind even existed and I said that they needed to be put to commercial use years ago. [0] and Google AI != DeepMind. You are now seeing their valuation finally adjusting to that fact all thanks to DeepMind finally being put to use. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34713073 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34713073
- ThrowawayR2 11mo agoThey've poisoned the internet with their monopoly on advertising, the air pollution of the online world, which is an transgression that far outweighs any good they might have done. Much of the negative social effects of being online come from the need to drive more screen time, more engagement, more clicks, and more ad impressions firehosed into the faces of users for sweet, sweet, advertiser money. When Google finally defeats ad-blocking, yt-dlp, etc., remember this.
- visarga 11mo agoYes, this is correct, and it happens everywhere. App Store, Play Store, YouTube, Meta, X, Amazon and even Uber - they all play in two-sided markets exploiting both its users and providers at the same time.
- notepad0x90 11mo agoThey're not a moral entity. corporations aren't people. I think a lot of the harms you mentioned are real, but they're a natural consequence of capitalistic profit chasing. Governments are supposed to regulate monopolies and anti-consumer behavior like that. Instead of regulating surveillance capitalism, governments are using it to bypass laws restricting their power. If I were a google investor, I would absolutely want them to defeat ad-blocking, ban yt-dlp, dominate the ad-market and all the rest of what you said. In capitalism, everyone looks out for their own interests, and governments ensure the public isn't harmed in the process. But any time a government tries to regulate things, the same crowd that decries this oppose government overreach. Voters are people and they are moral entities, direct any moral outrage at us.
- layer8 11mo agoWhy should the collective of voters be any more of a moral entity than the collective of people who make up a corporation (which you may include its shareholders in if you want)? It’s perfectly valid to criticize corporations for their actions, regardless of the regulatory environment.
- 11mo ago
- qweiopqweiop 11mo agoForgot to mention absolutely milking every ounce of their users attention with Youtube, plus forcing Shorts!
- polotics 11mo agofrankly when compared against TikTok, Insta, etc, YouTube is a force for good. Just script the shorts away...
- bitpush 11mo agoWhy stop at YouTube? Blame Apple for creating an additive gadget that has single handedly wasted billions of hours of collective human intelligence. Life was so much better before iPhones. But I hear you say - you can use iPhones for productive things and not just mindless brainrot. And that's the same with YouTube as well. Many waste time on YouTube, but many learn and do productive things. Dont paint everything with a single, large, coarse brush stroke.
- drewda 11mo agoFor what it's worth, most of those examples are acquisitions. That's not a hit against Google in particular. That's the way all big tech co's grow. But it's not necessarily representative of "innovation."
- charcircuit 11mo ago>most of those examples are acquisitions Taking those products from where there were to the juggernauts they are today was not guaranteed to succeed, nor was it easy. And yes plenty of innovation happened with these products post aquisition.
- hvb2 11mo agoBut there's also plenty that fail, it's just that you won't know about those. I don't think what you're saying proves that the companies that were acquired couldn't have done that themselves.
- redbell 11mo ago> Drive vs Word You mean Drive vs OneDrive or, maybe Docs vs Word?
- lemoncucumber 11mo agoWorkspace vs Office
- BHSPitMonkey 11mo agoSurely they meant Writely vs Word
- stephc_int13 11mo agoGoogle is using the typical monopoly playbook as most other large orgs, and the world would be a "better place" if they are kept in check. But at least this company is not run by a narcissistic sociopath.
- kevstev 11mo agoAll those examples date back to the 2000s. Android has seen some significant improvements, but everything else has stagnated if not enshittified- remember when google told us not to ever worry about deleting anything?- and then started backing up my photos without me asking and are now constantly nagging me to pay them a monthly fee? They have done a lot, but most of it was in the "don't be evil" days and they are a fading memory.
- storus 11mo agoIf you consider surveillance capitalism and dark pattern nudges a good thing, then sure. Gemini has the potential to obliterate their current business model completely so I wouldn't consider that "waking up".
- IlikeKitties 11mo agoSomething about bringing balance to the force not destroying it.
- epolanski 11mo agoOutlook is much better than Gmail and so is the office suite. It's good there's competition in the space though.
- brailsafe 11mo agoOutlook is not better in ways that email or gmail users necessarily care about, and in my experience gets in the way more than it helps with productivity or anything it tries to be good at. I've used it in office settings because it's the default, but never in my life have I considered using it by choice. If it's better, it might not matter.
- vanillax 11mo agoI couldn't disagree more
- samdoesnothing 11mo agoSeriously? Google is an incredibly evil company whose net contribution to society is probably only barely positive thanks to their original product (search). Since completely de-googling I've felt a lot better about myself.