6 ms·

Google has been doing more R&D and internal deployment of AI and less trying to sell it as a product. IMHO that difference in focus makes a huge difference. I u

Google has been doing more R&D and internal deployment of AI and less trying to sell it as a product. IMHO that difference in focus makes a huge difference. I used to think their early work on self-driving cars was primarily to support Street View in thier maps.

AlfredBarnes 8mo ago
It has always felt to me that the LLM chatbots were a surprise to Google, not LLMs, or machine learning in general.
- raphlinus 8mo ago
  Not true at all. I interacted with Meena[1] while I was there, and the publication was almost three years before the release of ChatGPT. It was an unsettling experience, felt very science fiction. [1]: https://research.google/blog/towards-a-conversational-agent-that-can-chat-aboutanything/ https://research.google/blog/towards-a-conversational-agent-...
  - nasretdinov 8mo ago
    Well, I must say ChatGPT felt much more stable than Meena when I first tried it. But, as you said, it was a few years before ChatGPT was publicly announced :)
  - hibikir 8mo ago
    The surprise was not that they existed: There were chatbots in Google way before ChatGPT. What surprised them was the demand, despite all the problems the chatbots have. The pig problem with LLMs was not that they could do nothing, but how to turn them into products that made good money. Even people in openAI were surprised about what happened. In many ways, turning tech into products that are useful, good, and don't make life hell is a more interesting issue of our times than the core research itself. We probably want to avoid the valuing capturing platform problem, as otherwise we'll end up seeing governments using ham fisted tools to punish winners in ways that aren't helpful either
    - diamondage 8mo ago
      The uptake forced the bigger companies to act. With image diffusion models too - no corporate lawyer would let a big company release a product that allowed the customer to create any image...but when stable diffusion et al started to grow like they did...there was a specific price of not acting...and it was high enough to change boardroom decisions
  - bagels 8mo ago
    ChatGPT really innovated on making the chat not say racist things that the press could report on. Other efforts before this failed for that reason.
    - _alternator_ 8mo ago
      Right. The problem was that people under appreciated ‘alignment’ even before the models were big. And as they get bigger and smarter it becomes more of an issue.
- olalonde 8mo ago
  It was a surprise to OpenAI too. ChatGPT was essentially a demo app to showcase their API, it was not meant to be a mass consumer product. When you think about it, ChatGPT is a pretty awkward product name, but they had to stick with it.
brokencode 8mo ago
There was a point in time when basically every well known AI researcher worked at Google. They have been at the forefront of AI research and investing heavily for longer than anybody. It’s kind of crazy that they have been slow to create real products and competitive large scale models from their research. But they are in full gear now that there is real competition, and it’ll be cool to see what they release over the next few years.
- hosh 8mo ago
  I also think the presence of Sergey Brin has been making a difference in this.
  - refulgentis 8mo ago
    Ex-googler: I doubt it, but am curious for rationale (i know there was a round of PR re: him “coming back to help with AI.” but just between you and me, the word on him internally, over years and multiple projects, was having him around caused chaos b/c he was a tourist flitting between teams, just spitting out ideas, but now you have unclear direction and multiple teams hearing the same “you should” and doing it)
    - pstuart 8mo ago
      That makes sense. A "secret shopper" might be a better way to avoid that but wouldn't give him the strokes of being the god in the room.
      - belter 8mo ago
        He was shopping for other strokes from Google employees: https://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/the-exchange/alleged-affair-google-co-founder-brin-raises-ethical-201333813.html https://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/the-exchange/alleged-affair-...
    - LightBug1 8mo ago
      Oh ffs, we have an external investor who behaves like that. Literally set us back a year on pet nonsense projects and ideas.
AbstractH24 8mo ago
Google and OpenAI are both taking very big gambles with AI, with an eye towards 2036 not 2026. As are many others, but them in particular. It'll be interesting to see which pays off and which becomes Quibi
- majormajor 8mo ago
  Quibi would be if someone came in 10 years from now and said "if we put a lot more money behind spitting out content using characters and settings from Hollywood IP than we'll obviously be way more popular than a tech company can be!"
  - sincerely 8mo ago
    Quibi also got extremely unlucky in spending a bunch of money to develop media for people to watch on their commutes right before covid lockdowns hit. Wouldn't be surprised if some other company tries to make video for that market again and does well (maybe working with tiktok/shorts native creators)
aiauthoritydev 8mo ago
Use your own sh*t is one of the best way to build excellent products.

AlfredBarnes 8mo ago

It has always felt to me that the LLM chatbots were a surprise to Google, not LLMs, or machine learning in general.

raphlinus 8mo ago
Not true at all. I interacted with Meena[1] while I was there, and the publication was almost three years before the release of ChatGPT. It was an unsettling experience, felt very science fiction. [1]: https://research.google/blog/towards-a-conversational-agent-that-can-chat-aboutanything/ https://research.google/blog/towards-a-conversational-agent-...
- nasretdinov 8mo ago
  Well, I must say ChatGPT felt much more stable than Meena when I first tried it. But, as you said, it was a few years before ChatGPT was publicly announced :)
- hibikir 8mo ago
  The surprise was not that they existed: There were chatbots in Google way before ChatGPT. What surprised them was the demand, despite all the problems the chatbots have. The pig problem with LLMs was not that they could do nothing, but how to turn them into products that made good money. Even people in openAI were surprised about what happened. In many ways, turning tech into products that are useful, good, and don't make life hell is a more interesting issue of our times than the core research itself. We probably want to avoid the valuing capturing platform problem, as otherwise we'll end up seeing governments using ham fisted tools to punish winners in ways that aren't helpful either
  - diamondage 8mo ago
    The uptake forced the bigger companies to act. With image diffusion models too - no corporate lawyer would let a big company release a product that allowed the customer to create any image...but when stable diffusion et al started to grow like they did...there was a specific price of not acting...and it was high enough to change boardroom decisions
- bagels 8mo ago
  ChatGPT really innovated on making the chat not say racist things that the press could report on. Other efforts before this failed for that reason.
  - _alternator_ 8mo ago
    Right. The problem was that people under appreciated ‘alignment’ even before the models were big. And as they get bigger and smarter it becomes more of an issue.
olalonde 8mo ago
It was a surprise to OpenAI too. ChatGPT was essentially a demo app to showcase their API, it was not meant to be a mass consumer product. When you think about it, ChatGPT is a pretty awkward product name, but they had to stick with it.

brokencode 8mo ago

There was a point in time when basically every well known AI researcher worked at Google. They have been at the forefront of AI research and investing heavily for longer than anybody. It’s kind of crazy that they have been slow to create real products and competitive large scale models from their research. But they are in full gear now that there is real competition, and it’ll be cool to see what they release over the next few years.

hosh 8mo ago
I also think the presence of Sergey Brin has been making a difference in this.
- refulgentis 8mo ago
  Ex-googler: I doubt it, but am curious for rationale (i know there was a round of PR re: him “coming back to help with AI.” but just between you and me, the word on him internally, over years and multiple projects, was having him around caused chaos b/c he was a tourist flitting between teams, just spitting out ideas, but now you have unclear direction and multiple teams hearing the same “you should” and doing it)
  - pstuart 8mo ago
    That makes sense. A "secret shopper" might be a better way to avoid that but wouldn't give him the strokes of being the god in the room.
    - belter 8mo ago
      He was shopping for other strokes from Google employees: https://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/the-exchange/alleged-affair-google-co-founder-brin-raises-ethical-201333813.html https://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/the-exchange/alleged-affair-...
  - LightBug1 8mo ago
    Oh ffs, we have an external investor who behaves like that. Literally set us back a year on pet nonsense projects and ideas.

AbstractH24 8mo ago

Google and OpenAI are both taking very big gambles with AI, with an eye towards 2036 not 2026. As are many others, but them in particular. It'll be interesting to see which pays off and which becomes Quibi

majormajor 8mo ago
Quibi would be if someone came in 10 years from now and said "if we put a lot more money behind spitting out content using characters and settings from Hollywood IP than we'll obviously be way more popular than a tech company can be!"
- sincerely 8mo ago
  Quibi also got extremely unlucky in spending a bunch of money to develop media for people to watch on their commutes right before covid lockdowns hit. Wouldn't be surprised if some other company tries to make video for that market again and does well (maybe working with tiktok/shorts native creators)

aiauthoritydev 8mo ago

Use your own sh*t is one of the best way to build excellent products.