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UX strategist Scott Jenson, who left Google last month, criticizes the company's AI projects as poorly motivated and driven by panic.

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Google's goal, according to Jenson, is to create a Jarvis-like assistant that keeps users locked into Google's ecosystem. The company is driven by the fear that someone else might get there first.

Jenson compares the situation to the Google+ fiasco 13 years ago, which was a knee-jerk reaction to Facebook, according to Jenson, who worked for the company at the time. He says that AI has potential, but that Google's ambition is "just not well motivated."

Apple is pursuing a similar AI lock-in strategy with Siri, Jenson believes. Apple is reportedly planning a collaboration with OpenAI, and an announcement is expected at Apple's upcoming WWDC developer conference in June.

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Image: Scott Jenson via LinkedIn

Google revealed a ton of AI projects at I/O 2024. But most of these projects are still in the experimental stage, are only available to a few users, or won't be available until later this year.

It's not yet clear how much value these projects will bring to users or if they will be useful. Even with features like handwriting recognition in Gmail or Google Docs that are already available, it's not clear that people are using them or finding them helpful.

Some of you may remember Google's much-hyped AI voice "Duplex," which was supposed to automate all those annoying phone calls and call centers. That was in 2018, six years ago. Since then, we've seen how it's turned out.

Google's biggest AI feature is one that no one asked for

Google's "AI Overviews" in Google Search are one of those AI projects that are available on a larger scale. They're quick summaries of website content that show up as direct answers to search queries instead of links.

They're also getting a lot of flak for being created without the website operators' consent, which could lead to copyright infringement. Plus, they can contain false information without it being clear who's responsible. They also affect how content is shared on the World Wide Web.

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Google recently rolled out a new "web" filter that only shows classic links to websites. The company is selling this as a convenient feature, but at the same time they've basically reduced the WWW to a filter.

This could be a step toward the Jarvis vision that Jenson mentioned, where Google gradually stops relying on external sites and becomes a closed platform, just like social media.

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Summary
  • Scott Jenson, who recently left his role as a UX strategist at Google, says the company's AI projects are driven by panic and "not well motivated. He compares the situation to the Google+ fiasco 13 years ago, which was driven by fear of Facebook.
  • The goal, he says, is to create an assistant that will keep users locked into the Google ecosystem for fear that competitors will get there first. Many of the AI projects Google announced at Google I/O are still in the testing phase, available only to a few users, or being rolled out over the course of the year.
  • It's not yet clear what the value proposition will be for users when these features are rolled out. Google Search's "AI Overviews," which are sometimes inferior and unauthorized automated summaries of web page content, have come under fire.
Sources
Online journalist Matthias is the co-founder and publisher of THE DECODER. He believes that artificial intelligence will fundamentally change the relationship between humans and computers.
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