Google‘s AI Problems

16/8/2024,

Former CEO Says Working From Home Is to Blame for Google‘s AI Problems, Then Immediately Apologises He “misspoke.”

Eyes Will Roll: Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt is retracting his dubious assertion that Google‘s decline in the ongoing AI competition in Silicon Valley is due to remote employment.

A recent address by Schmidt at Stanford institution’s School of Engineering was posted on YouTube on Tuesday by the institution. In response to a question about why Google was lagging behind other AI companies during that discussion, Schmidt said that Google’s AI shortcomings are the result of its choice to allow its employees to work remotely and, thus, have some “work-life balance.”

The former employee of Google informed the students, “Google decided that work-life balance and going home early and working from home was more important than winning.” “And the reason startups work is because people work like hell.”

https://www.google.com/

It makes sense that the remark provoked criticism. After all, Google is not a startup and work-life balance is crucial.

Schmidt quickly began to regret what he had said.

In an email, Schmidt said, “I misspoke about Google and their work hours,” to The Wall Street Journal. “I regret my error.”

As one of the most powerful tech companies in the world in 2024, Google was granted monopolistic control over the online search market this week by a federal judge in Washington, DC. It can compete in the talent war in the sector and commit absurd amounts of cash to its AI projects because of its extraordinarily big funds.

It did not, however, release a chatbot to the public ahead of OpenAI. Google has been playing catch-up ever since OpenAI, which isn’t exactly a startup anymore either, was the first to unlock that Pandora’s box.

Put another way, the issue here isn’t so much with sleeping on the floors of Google‘s opulent buildings as with doing so.

Put another way, the issue here isn’t so much with sleeping on the floors of Google‘s opulent buildings as with doing so.

The Alphabet Workers Union responded to Schmidt’s remarks on Wednesday by stating on X, the previous Twitter platform, that “flexible work arrangements don’t slow down our work.”

“Understaffing, shifting priorities, constant layoffs, stagnant wages and lack of follow-through from management on projects,” the release said, “these factors slow Google workers down every day.”

The Verge reported later on Wednesday that at the billionaire’s request, Stanford took down the video of Schmidt’s address from YouTube.