Google at I/O 2023 Weve been doing AI since before it was cool

News Summary

  • It seems like it was conceived when the Assistant was a viable product at Google and then shipped as leftover hardware when Assistant had fallen out of favor.The Google Assistant team has reportedly been asked to stop working on its own product and focus on improving Bard.
  • The AI directive led to ridiculous situations, like Android's head of engineering going on stage to talk only about an AI-powered poop emoji wallpaper generator rather than any meaningful OS improvements.Wall Street investors were apparently one group excited by Google I/O—the company's stock jumped 4 percent after the show.
  • The Assistant hasn't really ever made money in its seven years; the hardware is all sold at cost, voice recognition servers are expensive to run, and Assistant doesn't have any viable post-sale revenue streams like ads.
  • Anecdotally, it seems like the power for those voice recognition servers is being turned way down, as Assistant commands seem to take several seconds to process lately.
  • Google has been trying to get consumers excited about AI for years, but people only seemed to start caring once someone other than Google took a swing at it.Even more embarrassing is that the rise of ChatGPT was built on Google's technology.
  • "Google's avoidance of Google Assistant at I/O seemed like a further deprioritization of what used to be its primary AI product.
Enlarge/ Google CEO Sundar Pichai explains some of the companys many new AI models. 0 with That Google I/O show sure was something, wasnt it? It was a riproaring two hours of nonstop AI talk w [+5033 chars]