Even before recent "AI improvements" for us tech nerds Google search was broken ad invaded something. But for average Joe up until recently it's was still okay because it served purpose of whatever normal people use search for: find some rumors about their favorite celebs, find some car parts information or just "buy X".
Problem for Google is that for a good chunk of normal non-techy people LLM chats looks like talking to genius super intelligence and they was not burned by it yet. So they trust it.
And now good chunk of non-tech people now go and ask ChatGPT instead of using google search. And they do it simply because it's less enshittified than Google search.
I wonder is Google's AI investment a rational reaction to real competition or something else? My strong suspicion is that it's in fact delusional beliefs held by their management--something to do with "AGI"--that drives this activity, perhaps combined with the effects of information monoculture/social isolation/groupthink. It seems the simpler explanation that a very small group of people are behaving insanely than a very large number.
I'm honestly clueless about reasoning behind bigtech investment into AI. For me it's all just look like another seasonal fad like we had many of during last two decades. Everyone invests into AI because of FOMO.
I know the tech itself is real and people do use it. And it will certainly change the world. Yet I doubt even fraction of money burnt on it will ever be recuperated because race to the bottom.
But yeah - I'm just random tech guy who has not built a big successful company and honestly have very little clue how to make money this way.
> I'm just random tech guy who has not built a big successful company and honestly have very little clue how to make money this way.
Hey, me too :)
I’ve been at this for a couple of decades, though, and from what I’ve seen the key to building a “successful” company is to ride the wave of popular interest to get funding, build an effective team, and then (and only then) try to find a way to make it profitable enough to exit.
I do think “AI” (really, LLMs, and GPTs in particular) are going to have a transformative impact on a scale and at a rate we’ve never seen before - I just have zero confidence that I can accurately predict what it’s going to look like when the dust settles.
Problem for Google is that for a good chunk of normal non-techy people LLM chats looks like talking to genius super intelligence and they was not burned by it yet. So they trust it.
And now good chunk of non-tech people now go and ask ChatGPT instead of using google search. And they do it simply because it's less enshittified than Google search.