[phi0]

I just want to underscore that. DeepMind's research output within the last month is staggering:

2023-11-14: GraphCast, word leading weather prediction model, published in Science

2023-11-15: Student of Games: unified learning algorithm, major algorithmic breath-through, published in Science

2023-11-16: Music generation model, seemingly SOTA

2023-11-29: GNoME model for material discovery, published in Nature

2023-12-06: Gemini, the most advanced LLM according to own benchmarks

[dragonwriter]

Google is very good at AI research.

Where it has fallen down (compared to its relative performance in relevant research) is public generative AI products [0]. It is trying very hard to catch up at that, and its disadvantage isn't technological, but that doesn't mean it isn't real and durable.

[0] I say "generative AI" because AI is a big an amorphous space, and lots of Google's products have some form of AI that is behind important features, so I'm just talking about products where generative AI is the center of what the product offers, which have become a big deal recently and where Google had definitely been delivering far below its general AI research weight class so far.

[_lvbh]

> Google is very good at AI research. Where it has fallen down (compared to its relative performance in relevant research) is public generative AI products

In such cases, I actually prefer Google over OpenAI. Monetization isn’t everything

[dragonwriter]

> In such cases, I actually prefer Google over OpenAI.

For, what, moral kudos? (to be clear, I'm not saying this is a less important thing in some general sense, I'm saying what is preferred is always dependent on what we are talking about preferences for.)

> Monetization isn’t everything

Providing a user product (monetization is a different issue, though for a for-profit company they tend to be closely connected) is ultimately important for people looking for a product to use.

Other interests favor other things, sure.

[pb7]

>For, what, moral kudos?

For the good of society? Performing and releasing bleeding edge research benefits everyone, because anyone can use it. Case in point: transformers.

There is nothing open about OpenAI and they wouldn't exist in their current form without years of research funded by Google.

[lmm]

> For the good of society? Performing and releasing bleeding edge research benefits everyone, because anyone can use it.

OK, but that only works if you actually do the part that lets people actually use the research for something socially beneficial. A research paper doesn't have social benefit in itself, the social benefit comes when you do something with that research, as OpenAI has.

> There is nothing open about OpenAI and they wouldn't exist in their current form without years of research funded by Google.

True enough. But the fact remains that they're the ones delivering something we can actually use.

[magicalist]

But you can use several of those right now?

https://charts.ecmwf.int/products/graphcast_medium-mslp-wind...

[jaredsohn]

>There is nothing open about OpenAI

I personally think of it as open in the sense that they provide an API to allow anyone to use it (if they pay) and take advantage of the training they did. Is in contrast to large companies like Google which have lots of data and historically just use AI for their own products.

Edit:

I define it as having some level of being open beyond 'nothing'. The name doesn't scale well over time based on business considerations and the business environment changing and was named poorly when 'open source' is a common usage of open within tech. They should have used AI products to help them in naming the company and be aware of such potential controversies.

From chatgpt today (which wasn't an option at the time but they maybe could have gotten similar information or just thought about it more):

What are the drawbacks to calling an AI company 'open'?

...

"1. Expectations of Open Source: Using the term "open" might lead people to expect that the company's AI technology or software is open source. If this is not the case, it could create confusion and disappointment among users and developers who anticipate access to source code and the ability to modify and distribute the software freely.

2. Transparency Concerns: If an AI company claims to be "open," there may be heightened expectations regarding the transparency of their algorithms, decision-making processes, and data usage. Failure to meet these expectations could lead to skepticism or distrust among users and the broader public."

...

[leshow]

You define "open" as selling a service?

[gtirloni]

Bakeries should be called OpenBakeries by that logic.

[aantix]

They publish but don't share. Who cares about your cool tech if we can't experience it ourselves? I don't care about your blog writeup or research paper.

Google is locked behind research bubbles, legal reviews and safety checks.

Mean while OpenAI is eating their lunch.

[robotresearcher]

The researchers at all the other companies care about the blog write-ups and research papers. The Transformer architecture, for example, came from Google.

Sharing fundamental work is more impactful than sharing individual models.

[yellow_postit]

Depends on which impact and horizon you’re talking about. Advancing fundamental research — I’ll give that to Google and Microsoft Research

Advancing products that use AI and getting a consumer/public conversation started? That’s clearly (to me) in OpenAIs court

They’re both impactful, interlinked, and I’m not sure there’s some real stack ranking methodology.

[ethbr1]

Depends on ones relative valuing of "able to use the state of the art" vs "improving state of the art."

[aantix]

Because of Google’s walled research strategy, they now appear to be an antiquated company.

Gemini does nothing. Even if it were comparable to GPT-4, they’re late to the party.

OpenAI is blazing the path now.

[behnamoh]

this. google is like academia; you publish a lot but others who implement your work are the ones making money off of it.

[xnx]

To take an example from the past month, billions of users are now benefiting from more accurate weather forecasts from their new model. Is there another company making more money from AI-powered products than Google right now?

[ethbr1]

> Is there another company making more money from AI-powered products than Google right now?

Microsoft? In the sense that OpenAI is "paying" them... through MS's own investment.

[xnx]

It's a very fuzzy question I posed. For pure customer-pays-for-AI-service it could be Microsoft. I'm kind of thinking of it as: Google's core products (search, ads, YouTube, Gmail) would not be possible with AI and they are huge cash cows.

[shard]

Are there people paying for Google's weather predictions?

[xnx]

Only indirectly, but I wanted to point out that there are a lot of interesting research innovations that get implemented by Google and not some other company.

[fennecbutt]

Or, well, like many companies; all the peons doing the actual work, creation etc and the executives and investors profiting at the top. All it takes is to be lucky to be born into generational wealth apparently.