geeky_username t1_j7chxwk wrote on February 5, 2023 at 7:52 PM

Reply to comment by Freed4ever in [N] "I got access to Google LaMDA, the Chatbot that was so realistic that one Google engineer thought it was conscious. First impressions" by That_Violinist_18

>the fact that they invented it, but didn't release it, it means that they thought the technology would be a threat to them

I slightly disagree with this.

Imo, from what I know of Google from people that do or used to work there - they likely didn't care or didn't think of it.

Inside Google is a researcher's playground and there's little to no pressure to ever go to market. I've seen things that are extremely impressive that's never been published or put into a product. Asking why - they just don't care to do so.

The higher-ups lack imagination now, and unless something can directly obviously improve ads, they don't care.

So for years you've had engineers not caring to make something marketable, and leadership not caring but still throwing money at it. My impression is that leadership was looking for something that was so obviously a home run they didn't want to bother with releasing and iterating.

Freed4ever t1_j7cr91y wrote on February 5, 2023 at 8:54 PM

I don't work at Google, but I can see there are truths in it. Look at Waymo, they were the leader but now what? Their science might still be the best, but without taking the risk, and iterating (the engineering part), they will fall behind. ChatGPT might be the wake up call that they need. How they re-act in the next couple of years will define Google as a company.