Comment by m11a
5 hours ago
Yeah... Given that everyone else seems to make models available either immediately or within days of announcement, idk why Google feels it's competitive or acceptable to do these 'available at some point' releases.
Capabilities are also improving so fast that this fomo doesn't really keep people excited. If I can't run it, I'll sorta just click off. And given how they handled the Argon release, I've not even bothered look at this Carbon one. Fully expected it to not be usable yet.
The other labs do the same process, but they don't announce the model until it is about to be released. For some reason Google is announcing at the start of th process.
Didn't Anthropic also announce Mythos at the start of the process, five months before public release?
People who are already using it (both internally and/or select partners) can speak more freely about it if it's announced.
This is especially true around earnings, not necessarily for some sinister reason, other than it's material information that can influence the market.
My guess is Google knows it is (way) behind the and needs to keep drumming up interest. Although at some point it becomes counterproductive (raising "yet another not available model; is it vaporware" vibes).
Deepmind has over a decade of DNA of not releasing - it's a significant cultural difference.
Creating a false sense of scarcity is essential to get people talking about it. I get almost endless inquiries from peers now that I have access to Mythos.
I'm not sure about this. I myself am curious about this model, but not for my own use. I've already written it off as too expensive. The money won't be flowing their way regardless.
argon was announced to coincide with performance review deadline. carbon was announced to coincide with quarterly earnings release.
they don't really care how end-users will receive these models, they're just announcing for internal targets.
> argon was announced to coincide with performance review deadline. carbon was announced to coincide with quarterly earnings release.
Same as it ever was. Google is really completing their IBM-ification. We need to release these models now because year end reviews are about to hit and I need a win.
I don't think you are their target audience, unless you are in their promotions committee or a large holder of their stock.
The target is to make a celebratory announcement.
It's late in life to learn this, but let me be the one to let you in on a little secret: people often say only some of the things they know, they often selectively tell you things while not revealing everything they know.
You are assuming that Carbon is ready for release, deployed to their datacenters, that all scaling and other issues have been worked out, and they are confident in all of the above. Not to mention additional internal constraints like alignment testing or other safety procedures their own policies and guardrails require.
If they are smart, which they clearly have some smart people if they are making the best frontier model, they would account for the above needs in their timeline, and announce the model when they can prove they have it but also before they are ready to release it. This is so they can be at the top of the frontier model lists, boost their brand for both Gemini and Google, get the bump in stock price and investor confidence, steer adoption decisions for people making decisions for what platform they might adopt, etc.
Eh, maybe I'm too much of an AI safety person, but I'd rather the labs be forced to announce when they are working on large SOTA models like they are a clinical trial. That way if it's never announced they have to say something like "training didn't work out" or "it took over the server farm and we had to burn the hard disks".
goog released it just before the earnings call. anthropic and openai don't have these issues.
What's the betting we see another "dramatic" Anthropic release either shortly before the IPO, or at same time they release their Q3 results which were conveniently omitted from their S-1 filing.