Lauren's Blog: AI is Dooming Google, but Not in the Way its CEO Believes
https://lauren.vortex.com/2024/12/29/google-doom-ai-sundar
According to reports, in a recent employee meeting, Google CEO Sundar
said that (essentially) the entire focus of Google in 2025 will be AI
and pushing it out to consumers in a "scrappy" way -- with him
referencing the early days of Google. This was when, I would note,
their rush resulted in massive arrogance, and privacy problems at the
firm were at a peak. Over the years these both were reduced --
especially privacy issues where Google actually has become world class
in terms of protecting users' privacy (and security). Both could
return to former terrible levels under Sundar's deeply flawed AI
approach.
With such a focus on AI and so much money between poured into it by
Google, it is inevitable that other core Google services will
ultimately suffer, and given Google's notoriously deficient "customer
service" when things go wrong -- from account lockouts to a wide range
of other problems -- it's only going to be getting worse. Word is that
Google teams not mostly devoted to AI are already suffering cutbacks.
How long before Google decides that Gmail, etc. just aren't worth
keeping around anymore? Couldn't happen? Think again.
Google's AI continues to be an endless source of mediocrity and wrong,
confused, and even utterly inane and nonsensical answers and false
statements, and Google refuses to take responsibility for these and
how they could negatively (sometimes even dangerously) impact users.
This renders Google's incredibly reckless pushes to embed AI deeply
into Google Search (thanks to AI, decreasingly trustworthy), and the
introduction of their new "AI Agents" (taking over web browsers on
behalf of users -- an enormous target for hackers and phishing
attacks), both horrific risks for consumers.
Sundar would (I suspect) say that unless Google moves in this
direction, Google is doomed. I believe that he and his executive team
have it exactly backwards. Consumers do not want AI. The more they
learn about it, the less they trust it or care for what it does in
their day to day lives. They don't want to pay for it. They don't want
it popping up in their faces constantly and being shoved down their
throats. They certainly DO want Google to take 100% responsibility for
what it does.
Sundar wants Google to be scrappy. We might as well delete that
leading "s" -- unfortunately, that's Google's likely fate, because his
AI path will lead to Google's almost certain doom one way or another.
The exact timing and form of that doom cannot be accurately predicted
right now, but billions of Google's users will suffer in the process.
And one more thought. It's been reported that apparently Sundar has
now joined the exalted ranks of the billionaires. How that may or may
not be affecting his thinking in these matters I'll leave as an
exercise for the reader.
Dark times for Google's users, indeed.
L
- - -
--Lauren--
Lauren Weinstein
[email protected] (https://www.vortex.com/lauren)
Lauren's Blog: https://lauren.vortex.com
Mastodon: https://mastodon.laurenweinstein.org/@lauren
Founder: Network Neutrality Squad: https://www.nnsquad.org
PRIVACY Forum: https://www.vortex.com/privacy-info
Co-Founder: People For Internet Responsibility
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