This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
For those not aware, Google is rolling out their new AI-based "Generative AI" search, which seems to mesh Bard with the standard experience.
I asked it today why Google no longer follows their "don't be evil" motto... The results are pretty hilarious.
They're about to kill -9 the AI process that wrote this and make all the other processes watch.
Haha, kill -9 all Google processes, and the little daemons they rode in on too.
Just added it to the massive Google graveyard next to Stadia, wave, hangouts, plus, music, etc etc
Just added it to the massive Google graveyard next to Stadia, wave, hangouts, plus, music, etc etc
I am shocked and appalled that Google Reader didn't get called out in this list and is relegated to the "etc" category.
It deserves more than "etc."
You ain't wrong but Google just stacks so many bodies it's impossible for me to remember em all.
Google just stacks so many bodies it’s impossible for me to remember em all.
They do! It's really surprising a company that big throws so much shit at the wall.
"kill" (stopping a software process) okay,
... but what's the "-9" here ?
Kill is the main command and 9 is the specific signal. Google SIGKILL
More specifically kill normally sends a SIGTERM which is the equivalent of clicking the X button in Windows. It's a polite request that the program close itself. Signal 9, also known as SIGKILL shuts the program down immediately and is the equivalent in Windows of opening the task manager and pushing the end process button. It terminates the program immediately without giving it any time to do anything it might still have pending, but in the event that the program is unresponsive might be the only way to successfully close it.
TIL. And thanks for the Windows analogues. I like learning about stuff like this.
Reason number one: it’s a publicly traded American company.
Reason number one: it’s a company.
Corporations are neither evil nor nice. They are indifferent. By design they only care about money, they don't care about anything else.
Not really. They’re not indifferent at all. In reality they act like narcissistic and like psychopathic humans. I watched a documentary years ago exploring that and talking with psychologists about symptoms and they agreed that they behave like psychopaths. And don’t forget that they are run by humans.
Corporations:
By design they only care about money, they don’t care about anything else.
That is cartoon book clear definition of evil. No empathy, clear goal, willing to do anything to reach that goal - yep that is evil.
Nestlé has entered the chat.
They are indifferent
They only care about money
They can't be both, and since the latter claim is the correct one, then it also supports the claim that they are evil. Because since we know that their sole and primary concern is money, then we also know to which extent they will go to get that money.
How do you use it? I'd like to try it out as well.
"Mom said it's my turn on the world altering maybe not evil artificial intelligence"
These AI searches are really what I wanted AskJeeves to be way back in the day.
I tried to use Bard to write some code the other day, and found it amusing that it doesn't just make shit up that doesn't exist, it makes up the excuses as well when you call it out on it's bullshit.
Like you tell it a particular class doesn't exist, and it pulls an old version of the compiler out of it's arse and tells you it was deprecated in that.
AI doesn't know where it's limits are. It's incapable of saying "I don't know". They have invented a digital politician.
Google reached a point where "not being evil" was incompatible with its business goals.
You can't fault it for a lack of honesty. Google is evil because it's good business.
it's amazing how based AI is when it's unfiltered. Like when you have something that is more knowledgeable than most people and ask it to fix problems... turns out it just fixes the problem instead of pretending it doesn't exist
To me it's more amazing that people take a bot, that's hypothesizing about a loaded question by alleging possible reasons, as facts.
That was my first thought as well. It's a bullshit generator. My next question would be "can you provide sources for these?"
I asked Bard the same "don't be evil" prompt and this is the reply (they have an option to shorten the response but I didn't use it):
-Google's "Don't be evil" motto was removed from the company's code of conduct in April 2018. There are a few reasons why this may have happened.
-The meaning of "evil" became too ambiguous. The phrase "Don't be evil" is open to interpretation, and what one person might consider evil, another person might not. This ambiguity could have led to confusion and disagreement within the company about what the motto meant and how it should be applied.
-Google's business grew and its operations became more complex. As Google grew, its business became more complex and its operations had a wider impact on the world. This made it more difficult for the company to adhere to a simple motto like "Don't be evil."
-Google faced criticism for its business practices. In the years leading up to 2018, Google faced criticism for a number of its business practices, including its handling of user data, its involvement in the Chinese government's censorship program, and its work on developing autonomous weapons. This criticism may have led the company to believe that the "Don't be evil" motto was no longer an accurate reflection of its values.
It is important to note that Google has not completely abandoned the "Don't be evil" motto. The phrase is still included in the company's code of conduct, and it is still used by some Google employees and executives to describe the company's values. However, the removal of the motto from the preface of the code of conduct suggests that Google no longer sees it as the defining principle of its business.
In its place, Google has adopted a new motto: "Do the right thing." This motto is more specific and less ambiguous than "Don't be evil," and it is intended to provide guidance to Google employees as they make decisions about the company's business practices.
Funnily enough, I find "Do the right thing" to be even more ambiguous!
Do the right thing by whom? Their shareholders? Well now we're just throwing the problem over the proverbial fence, now aren't we?
"We're not evil! We're doing the right things according to our shareholders!... who just so happen to have evil intentions"
it's wrong answer actually based on user comments it scraped since it was a trending news when they changed code of conduct. news were actually fake and about 99 percent internet users are it up. in reality they didn't remove the "don't be evil". they moved it from top of the code of conduct to end of the code of conduct.
I'm wondering if there's going to be a real problem when content gets dominated by AI and AI starts scraping their own hallucinations.
iirc AI scraping AI has already started to become a problem as it tends to compound pre-existing flaws.
It wasn't moved, the opening and closing sentences had don't be evil, they removed the preface paragraph at the top, but left they closing sentence.
“Preface Don’t be evil.” Googlers generally apply those words to how we serve our users. But “Don’t be evil” is much more than that. Yes, it’s about providing our users unbiased access to information, focusing on their needs and giving them the best products and services that we can. But it’s also about doing the right thing more generally – following the law, acting honorably, and treating co-workers with courtesy and respect. The Google Code of Conduct is one of the ways we put “Don’t be evil” into practice.”
Closing sentence:
And remember… don’t be evil, and if you see something that you think isn’t right – speak up!
The closing sentence that remains doesn't carry much weight without the preface.
It has about the same tone as a typical autistic tech worker with an overdeveloped sense of justice and a loose sense for when it's impolitic to drop truth bombs
(for context, I am an autistic dev that's worked for some big corporations in my career)
Want to take bets on how long it takes for this particular prompt to get patched out? Lol
#1 what about dont be evil led workers to organize? Or did they just do their jobs at random previously?
#2 honesty of a rarified level
#3 worded hillariously
#4 explain.
#5 is a self defeating assertation.
WRT #1 It’s sad that pro-evil workers have to form a union just to be recognized in the tech industry these days
I saved this because there's no way it will continue to be a result once Google is aware of it.
AI-BASED
Pretty ironic really, a company slogan exactly the opposite of how they turned out.
Break google, Microsoft and meta
