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Comment by bbor

7 months ago

Totally agree on the overall prognosis of Google - I am (also?) one of said engineers! Here’s a recent update from a tiny corner of the company: the rank and file is still incredibly smart and generally well-intentioned, but are following hollow simulacrums of the original culture - all-hands, dogfooding, internal feedback, and ground-up engineering priorities are all maintained in form, but they are now rendered completely functionless. I am personally convinced that the company is — or was, before ChatGPT really took off - focused on immediate short term stock value above all else. After all, if you were looking down the barrel of multiple federal and EU antritrust suits and dwindling public support for the utility you own and operate, you might do the same…

I guess I’m standing up for the simple idea that terribly inefficient organizations can prevail when they’re the incumbents, at least for significant periods if not forever. We can’t be complacent and assume they’ll fall on their own, esp when AGI threatens social calcification on an unheard of scale.

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bbor

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barfbagginus  7 months ago

Drop your good intentions - towards Google, that is.

Work to sabotage and collapse the organization - do that for the good of humanity.

Thank you for your work, and good luck getting out without harm or reprisal <3

Hit em hard.

  • stavros  7 months ago

    Why would Google's collapse be for the good of humanity? When was a power vacuum ever beneficial?

    "Build a better search engine for the good of humanity", I can understand. "Kill a search engine for the good of humanity" is a reductive, childish take.

    • barfbagginus  7 months ago

      They've already killed it in essence, so that they are hurting billions of humans with it daily. But they can still run it because it creates more revenue in this harmful form than it did in its helpful form. Therefore sabotage against that revenue is justified.

      Sabotaging the revenue of Google search will weaken them against honest incumbents. They are currently well funded enough to kill incumbents. That will start to change as they decline, aided by our boycotts and other forms of sabotage. The decline and sabotage of Google is necessary for a better search engine to have the space to succeed.

      A power vacuum is often good.

      Linux and open source exists in a personal and collective power vacuum that was created by proprietary knowledge and software.

      Sometimes power vacuums are colonized by people with good intentions. And it's neither reductive nor immature to help create those opportunities.

      I never said that someone shouldn't sabotage Google as well as create a better search engine. I myself am working on llm-driven knowledge retrieval systems, at the same time as advocating for the destruction of Google.

      Good luck and do anything in your power that you think will help humanity have good search again.

  • bbor  7 months ago

    Very much appreciate the sentiment and kind words! Reminds me of Yudkowsky’s line[1] about AI: “we should be willing to destroy a rogue datacenter by airstrike.” This kind of talk sounds insane in the Silicon Valley language game, but we’re talking about real people’s lives here and sometimes implied violence needs to be made explicit. And that’s what I see your suggestion as, ultimately —- but that’s probably because I got an American HS education, so the Malcom X vs. MLK Jr. debate was driven into my mind quite thoroughly.

    [1] https://time.com/6266923/ai-eliezer-yudkowsky-open-letter-no...

    Luckily/unluckily I left already due to factors out of my control. Regardless, for all of Google’s faults I will say that they were incredibly serious about data security and respecting consumer data protection laws with strict oversight, so I think “sabotage” in a direct sense would be incredibly hard + risky. The only solution I see is continuing to organize for government regulation. I would include worker organization within Google, but I recently learned they represent less than half a percent of the company…