[SimianSci]

Google looks to be caught in an innovator dilemma. They can’t roll out a good chat system comparable to its competitors because it directly competes with their core revenue stream of search.

From my angle, LLM’s are the next big step in search. If the company whose core business revolves around search can’t update their product to meaningfully compete with their competitors who view search as a side business, it should terrify anyone with invested time or money in Google.

This is an incredibly strong signal that the company is about to face some very difficult times ahead. I fully expect their next public showing of poor execution to be followed by investor uproar.

[PaulWaldman]

>Google looks to be caught in an innovator dilemma. They can’t roll out a good chat system comparable to its competitors because it directly competes with their core revenue stream of search.

That's one way to look at it. The other is the immense advertising opportunity these systems can provide. You no longer need to perform multiple queries and various results to get your answer. You're now essentially in a walled garden. The search/LLM platform has your complete and undivided attention.

After providing an answer, the follow-up can be a relevant ad. It is important for their credibility to not make it seem like the ad is impacting the integrity of the result.

They already have a moat being an established player with existing agrements. Google was able to pull this off with traditional search. They are probably best currently positioned to do it again.

Edit: Something else to consider, does Google have the same DNA that they did in the early 2000s?

[ryandvm]

> That's one way to look at it. The other is the immense advertising opportunity these systems can provide. You no longer need to perform multiple queries and various results to get your answer. You're now essentially in a walled garden. The search/LLM platform has your complete and undivided attention.

Yup. We are entering the age of Advertising God Mode.

Google and Facebook are both going to train these LLMs directly at individual users. They're going to feed it all your email, texts, posts, comments, and page views and these systems are going to fill your feeds with bespoke advertising content that is lovingly crafted by the AI to appeal to you. No longer just product->user matching, but actual ad copy and images will be AI-tailored to wedge its way into your psyche. We have no chance against this kind of commercial psy-ops.

[foldedcornice]

This observation made me re-interpret the motivation behind Zuckerberg's attempt to start the "metaverse."

If Meta's core business of advertising on social media becomes irrelevant, his company is in trouble. But if the company is already the leader of the technology that replaces social media—e.g. connections over VR—the company can remain a leader and keep growing.

Zuckerberg might be wrong that the "metaverse" is the next step (it absolutely feels more manufactured than a natural next step like with ChatGPT), but I see why he might want to get ahead of his core business losing its value to a new innovation—such as by releasing VR headsets and encouraging people like journalists to consider VR meetings.

In contrast, the Bard release is more reactive, rather than a release that takes the initiative to introduce a new technology.

[pxtail]

In addition to what you wrote above we are entering phase where written content will not be trusted (or perceived as produced by real human being) and there will be absolute, massive flood of it. Tightly walled gardens with ability to verify that participants are humans may strongly benefit from this development. I'm wondering if Apple is going to use this angle for their advantage if they have any concept for tech which could help to differentiate human generated content from bots.

[mv4]

Google needs to re-invent search, or someone will do it for them.