We know what’s coming and we are prepared.
Mario Juric
@mjuric
I'm done with
@Google
. I know many good individuals working there, but as a company they've irrevocably lost my trust. I'm "moving out". Here's why:
I've been reading Google's Gemini damage control posts. I think they're simply not telling the truth. For one, their text-only product has the same (if not worse) issues. And second, if you know a bit about how these models are built, you know you don't get these "incorrect" answers through one-off innocent mistakes. Gemini's outputs reflect the many, many, FTE-years of labeling efforts, training, fine-tuning, prompt design, QA/verification -- all iteratively guided by the team who built it. You can also be certain that before releasing it, many people have tried the product internally, that many demos were given to senior PMs and VPs, that they all thought it was fine, and that they all ultimately signed off on the release. With that prior, the balance of probabilities is strongly against the outputs being an innocent bug -- as
@googlepubpolicy
is now trying to spin it: Gemini is a product that functions exactly as designed, and an accurate reflection of the values people who built it.
Those values appear to include a desire to reshape the world in a specific way that is so strong that it allowed the people involved to rationalize to themselves that it's not just acceptable but desirable to train their AI to prioritize ideology ahead of giving user the facts. To revise history, to obfuscate the present, and to outright hide information that doesn't align with the company's (staff's) impression of what is "good". I don't care if some of that ideology may or may not align with your or my thinking about what would make the world a better place: for anyone with a shred of awareness of human history it should be clear how unbelievably irresponsible it is to build a system that aims to become an authoritative compendium of human knowledge (remember Google's mission statement?), but which actually prioritizes ideology over facts. History is littered with many who have tried this sort of moral flexibility "for the greater good"; rather than helping, they typically resulted in decades of setbacks (and tens of millions of victims).
Setting social irresponsibility aside, in a purely business sense, it is beyond stupid to build a product which will explicitly put your company's social agenda before the customer's needs. Think about it: G's Search -- for all its issues -- has been perceived as a good tool, because it focused on providing accurate and useful information. Its mission was aligned with the users' goals ("get me to the correct answer for the stuff I need, and fast!" ). That's why we all use(d) it. I always assumed Google's AI efforts would follow the pattern, which would transfer over the user base & lock in another 1-2 decade of dominance.
But they've done the opposite. After Gemini, rather than as a user-centric company, Google will be perceived as an activist organization first -- ready to lie to the user to advance their (staff's) social agenda. That's huge. Would you hire a personal assistant who openly has an unaligned (and secret -- they hide the system prompts) agenda, who you fundamentally can't trust? Who strongly believes they know better than you? Who you suspect will covertly lie to you (directly or through omission) when your interests diverge? Forget the cookies, ads, privacy issues, or YouTube content moderation; Google just made 50%+ of the population run through this scenario and question the trustworthiness of the core business and the people running it. And not at the typical financial ("they're fleecing me!" ) level, but ideological level ("they hate people like me!" ). That'll be hard to reset, IMHO.
What about the future? Take a look at Google's AI Responsibility Principles (https://ai.google/responsibility/principles/) and ask yourself what would Search look like if the staff who brought you Gemini was tasked to interpret them & rebuild it accordingly? Would you trust that product? Would you use it? Well, with Google's promise to include Gemini everywhere, that's what we'll be getting (https://technologyreview.com/2024/02/08/1087911/googles-gemini-is-now-in-everything-heres-how-you-can-try-it-out/). In this brave new world, every time you run a search you'll be asking yourself "did it tell me the truth, or did it lie, or hide something?". That's lethal for a company built around organizing information.
And that's why, as of this weekend, I've started divorcing my personal life and taking my information out of the Google ecosystem. It will probably take a ~year (having invested in nearly everything, from Search to Pixel to Assistant to more obscure things like Voice), but has to be done. Still, really, really sad...
HOLY CRAP! NAACP lawyer came before the Supreme Court and said the quiet part out loud
Janai Nelson said we need race-based districts because: "white Democrats were not voting for black candidates whether they were Democrats or not!"
This is INSANE.
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📎 Twitter ▪️ Truth Social
BREAKING: In an insane move, Justice Ketanji Jackson declares we need to draw Congressional districts based on race because black people are like disabled people
"They don't have equal access to the voting system. They're DISABLED!"
This is utter madness. How did she get on the Supreme Court?!
"My, kind of, paradigmatic example of this is something like the ADA. Congress passed the ADA against the backdrop of a world generally not accessible to people with disabilities...why is that not what's happening here?!"
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BlackRock CEO Larry Fink says this is only the beginning as the tokenization of everything is underway.
Money, property, and even personal identity will soon exist in digital form.
He calls it a major opportunity for BlackRock, saying the plan is to move beyond traditional financial assets by digitally re-potting them into a new system.
🔗 Shadow of Ezra (@ShadowofEzra)
🤖📱 Between empty promises of a billionaire and a social credit system. The “secret” way your behaviour is ranked on X
What is Tweepcred? It’s a reputation system inherited from the days of Twitter, a social credit mechanism built into X, where every like, comment, retweet, or interaction feeds a hidden score. Post the wrong thing, and your reach is throttled, invisible to followers, blocked from the For You Page, and your voice is confined to a digital coffin. The worst part? X won’t even tell us what we’re doing wrong.
Tweepcred was open-sourced two years ago as part of Elon’s big push for “transparency.” The release confirmed what many suspected for over a decade: the system wasn’t neutral. It could be gamified, and it rewarded those who knew how to play it. Industry insiders and large organizations held a massive advantage over individuals, defeating the very purpose of the internet and the cultural revolution that once challenged mass media.
Content was no longer ...
🇺🇸👨🌾 Meriwether Farms on X:
Dear Trump,
We love you and support you— but your suggestion to buy beef from Argentina to stabilize beef prices would be an absolute betrayal to the American cattle rancher.
We understand there are larger economic and geopolitical dynamics at play, including countering CCP influence in countries in our hemisphere. But the practice of solving problems “over there” before solving problems here on our soil is what contributed to the downfall of our country: Americans always come last.
We understand beef prices are high, and we admire your concern for all Americans, but this is not the fault of the American producer. This is the fault of politicians who have allowed BRICS-aligned entities to dominate the meat industry, that participate in price fixing and who also continually lie to their consumers.
Washington for decades has facilitated the squeezing of our own ranchers while allowing these entities to flood the market with cheaper, ...
