Just a couple of months ago, a leaked memo said to be from a Google researcher cast doubt on the company’s future in AI, stating that it has “no moat” in the industry — and now, we seemingly have confirmation that it was real. In an interview with Decoder, Demis Hassabis, the CEO of Google’s DeepMind, told The Verge that although he believes the memo was legitimate, he disagrees with its conclusions.
Nice to have confirmation on the authenticity of that memo, but this article is very short on further detail.
But Hassabis is less pessimistic about Google’s future in the AI industry. He believes that the competitive nature of the company’s researchers will help push Google to the forefront of AI, adding that the newly merged Google Brain and Google DeepMind teams, which Hassabis was asked to lead, will likely result in more breakthroughs.
“Executive in charge of a division thinks that the division he’s in charge of is doing well” isn’t really that surprising a statement. IMO “making breakthroughs” is useful, but not really the most important thing here; the question is whether Google can take advantage of those breakthroughs and make a business out of them.
And make a business without undercutting it’s own money printer in targeted ads. You’re right, jury is still out on how these models will make money.
It was well known that the memo was legitimate.
But the message was not that google will lose the AI battle, but it will lose it with the current closed source business model. The memo is about moving to an open source business model for AI
Read his quotes and it sounds like he thinks that they can continue with the closed source path, despite of the memo (which I believed had plenty of important points).
You think we’ll see them make a fully open source model?
The memo clearly highlight the importance of the “ecosystem” built from open source models, the research done by 3rd parties that can be directly useful, such of what is happening with stable diffusion.
Truth is that google is in a tricky position at the moment. Open source would be the best choice for everyone, google researcher, engineers, public, but it might put google business at risk.
They have to guess what is the less risk… And they’ll clearly go for the closed source path, as it is closer to the mindset of business people in Google
Does that include their business services? I’m not sure companies would be ok with that.
