WEBVTT - Algorithms and Oligopolies with Thomas Germain 0:00:02.440 --> 0:00:03.600 Also media. 0:00:04.600 --> 0:00:07.320 Hello and welcome to Better Offline and we are live 0:00:07.400 --> 0:00:22.439 from beautiful New York City, Nevada. I am edzit Tron, 0:00:22.520 --> 0:00:24.640 I am your host, and I'm joined by Thomas Jermaine 0:00:24.640 --> 0:00:26.520 of the BBC Today it's Better Off Life. 0:00:26.560 --> 0:00:29.720 Welcome Thomas. Glad to be here. So it's been a 0:00:30.000 --> 0:00:31.360 very funny few weeks. 0:00:31.440 --> 0:00:34.120 The Google is a monopoly, and of course you'll the 0:00:34.200 --> 0:00:37.040 next episode will be about that monopoly money stuff. And 0:00:37.159 --> 0:00:41.520 it feels like something is breaking in tech, not necessarily 0:00:41.520 --> 0:00:42.479 in a bad way. 0:00:42.720 --> 0:00:43.920 In that we're finally moving. 0:00:44.040 --> 0:00:47.080 It looks like the government is saying it's time to 0:00:47.120 --> 0:00:50.200 not have five companies that do everything in tech. 0:00:51.159 --> 0:00:51.360 Yeah. 0:00:51.400 --> 0:00:55.240 I mean, we're clearly at some kind of turning point, right. 0:00:55.720 --> 0:00:57.560 I think you know, if we'd been talking about this 0:00:57.600 --> 0:00:59.680 five years ago, I never would have predicted that we 0:00:59.720 --> 0:01:03.959 would seen any meaningful antitrust action against any of these companies. 0:01:04.120 --> 0:01:06.080 Now it's all of them, and it seems like we're 0:01:06.120 --> 0:01:08.560 actually trending in the direction of doing something about it. 0:01:08.600 --> 0:01:10.039 And I'll even take that a step further. 0:01:10.200 --> 0:01:13.000 Two weeks ago, I would have probably said I don't 0:01:13.000 --> 0:01:14.800 think Google loses the anti trust case. 0:01:14.880 --> 0:01:17.720 I think that they're gonna win. I don't think the epic. 0:01:18.120 --> 0:01:21.200 The federal judge on the epic case, did you hm, 0:01:21.800 --> 0:01:23.800 So with that one for the listeners, we'll have the 0:01:23.840 --> 0:01:26.720 links in there about this. The federal judge, during the 0:01:26.760 --> 0:01:29.920 remedy stage of Epic suing Google over their monopoly over 0:01:29.920 --> 0:01:33.480 the Playstore, has been very clear that he does not 0:01:33.680 --> 0:01:37.399 intend to let them let Google off easily, and has 0:01:37.480 --> 0:01:40.080 said because Google has estimated six hundred million dollars of 0:01:40.120 --> 0:01:43.199 costs to fix the play store, and it's kind of multifested. 0:01:43.480 --> 0:01:46.160 And the judge basically said, when Google said, this is. 0:01:46.080 --> 0:01:49.120 Going to be really difficult, not my problem, which is 0:01:49.160 --> 0:01:51.240 one of the funniest ways of putting it. 0:01:51.680 --> 0:01:52.840 But okay, he didn't say it literally. 0:01:52.880 --> 0:01:56.640 He said, I'm paraphrasing, Hey, if you didn't want your 0:01:56.680 --> 0:01:59.040 monopoly broken up, maybe you shouldn't have built it in 0:01:59.080 --> 0:02:02.640 the first place. And it's it's awesome, and I know 0:02:02.760 --> 0:02:04.880 I can delight in this. Perhaps you come like we 0:02:04.920 --> 0:02:07.840 all know our oppositions here, but I think that there 0:02:07.960 --> 0:02:10.640 is something kind of magical happening because this is a 0:02:10.639 --> 0:02:11.040 good thing. 0:02:11.639 --> 0:02:12.680 Competition is good. 0:02:13.520 --> 0:02:16.079 I think even the tech companies would agree. Yeah, competition 0:02:16.120 --> 0:02:16.480 is good. 0:02:16.360 --> 0:02:19.720 At least in their public statements, right, yeah, publicly, and 0:02:20.040 --> 0:02:22.200 we're you know, there's been a lot of talk in 0:02:22.240 --> 0:02:25.960 recent years about all the ways that progress in technology 0:02:26.000 --> 0:02:28.880 has slowed down, not necessarily in the development of the 0:02:28.919 --> 0:02:31.360 tech itself, but you know the way that the landscape 0:02:31.400 --> 0:02:35.160 plays out, you know, innovation things just feeling like fun 0:02:35.240 --> 0:02:37.160 and interesting and weird, and a lot of people are 0:02:37.240 --> 0:02:40.160 arguing that that's because there's been so much power amassed 0:02:40.160 --> 0:02:42.959 among a couple of very large companies. 0:02:43.080 --> 0:02:46.040 And it feels like at this point we're at the 0:02:46.360 --> 0:02:50.000 end of whatever started in like twenty ten. We're getting 0:02:50.000 --> 0:02:52.680 to the point where venture capital doesn't seem to be 0:02:52.680 --> 0:02:55.639 being spent in the same way, where actually it's kind 0:02:55.639 --> 0:02:57.360 of returning to how it wasn't twenty ten. Like I 0:02:57.360 --> 0:03:00.000 think it was like two hundred and something million last year, 0:03:00.040 --> 0:03:02.040 it's probably gonna hear about three hundred million this year. 0:03:02.639 --> 0:03:03.799 And the mask and slut. 0:03:03.880 --> 0:03:07.040 You're not really seeing the massive acquisitions anymore. You're just 0:03:07.160 --> 0:03:11.440 kind of seeing the consolidation of industries. But I just 0:03:12.240 --> 0:03:14.360 I don't know what's gonna happen with generative AI at 0:03:14.400 --> 0:03:18.200 this point, because that in itself seems like monopoly of sorts. 0:03:18.200 --> 0:03:21.360 But also it's all gone very quiet. It feels like 0:03:21.680 --> 0:03:23.400 we're all waiting. I'm hearing about it so much all 0:03:23.440 --> 0:03:25.720 of a sudden, but also we're all waiting for something 0:03:25.760 --> 0:03:26.720 to happen. Uh huh. 0:03:26.760 --> 0:03:29.679 Because we went from recording this, we're obviously in this 0:03:29.760 --> 0:03:32.160 slight delay. We went from this period where everyone's like, 0:03:32.280 --> 0:03:35.960 generative AI is over. It's over too, not necessarily saying 0:03:36.000 --> 0:03:38.200 it isn't, but just everyone's sitting there waiting for someone 0:03:38.200 --> 0:03:39.040 to blink. 0:03:39.400 --> 0:03:42.600 Right, and like we're The conversation is constantly about like, well, 0:03:42.640 --> 0:03:45.440 when the technology gets better, X, Y and Z will happen, 0:03:45.760 --> 0:03:48.080 We'll get all this innovation, the whole world will shift 0:03:48.080 --> 0:03:50.080 around it. And it's not at all clear that that 0:03:50.440 --> 0:03:53.200 getting better thing is going to be real. 0:03:53.400 --> 0:03:56.840 But also they've stopped even saying that. Now. I started 0:03:56.880 --> 0:03:58.280 to see people say things like. 0:03:58.760 --> 0:04:00.920 Well, we've got to look at the smaller language model, 0:04:01.360 --> 0:04:04.600 maybe the large ones aren't good, right. And what what 0:04:04.720 --> 0:04:07.120 I do like though, is the Google's pixel event was 0:04:07.160 --> 0:04:07.840 just pure AI. 0:04:08.640 --> 0:04:10.400 The week after everyone. 0:04:10.240 --> 0:04:12.600 Was saying this is a terrible idea, like this kind 0:04:12.600 --> 0:04:14.400 of looks bad. I don't like how this looks and 0:04:14.400 --> 0:04:17.240 the it's like, nah, you gotta have AI and your earbuds. 0:04:17.279 --> 0:04:20.279 Now you need the thing you use for listening. You 0:04:20.360 --> 0:04:21.719 need to talk to it as well. 0:04:22.120 --> 0:04:23.880 And it's funny if you look at all the marketing 0:04:23.960 --> 0:04:26.240 that the big tech companies are doing, like you know, 0:04:26.440 --> 0:04:30.400 from Google to smaller companies, it's all about like we 0:04:30.480 --> 0:04:32.560 swear that this is useful, and they have like people 0:04:32.800 --> 0:04:35.279 you know, doing different things that you maybe you should 0:04:35.279 --> 0:04:38.080 try using AI for this. I think because they've really 0:04:38.120 --> 0:04:39.640 built a product that, for a lot of people is 0:04:39.640 --> 0:04:42.400 not intuitive. It's not clear what it's good for. It's 0:04:42.440 --> 0:04:44.400 clearly good for something. 0:04:44.520 --> 0:04:44.760 Is it? 0:04:45.200 --> 0:04:47.680 And I realized it's good for something? And I got 0:04:47.680 --> 0:04:50.040 a very annoying email this morning. And I get very 0:04:50.080 --> 0:04:52.640 annoying emails from someone's saying here is the use case. 0:04:52.680 --> 0:04:54.680 I use it every day. Just to be clear to 0:04:54.760 --> 0:04:57.400 that listener, I have no problem with you. Thank you 0:04:57.400 --> 0:04:59.640 for actually emailing. I love to actually hear how people 0:04:59.720 --> 0:05:02.279 using it bomb. I feel a lot of the biggest 0:05:02.279 --> 0:05:04.800 difference with general if AI is everything else that I'm 0:05:04.800 --> 0:05:08.520 being sold something. I'm being so oh Airport's what are good? 0:05:08.560 --> 0:05:10.480 You put them in your ears that automatically connect the 0:05:10.560 --> 0:05:12.280 music comes out, the noise can't slink these. 0:05:12.839 --> 0:05:14.480 I don't want the noise. I want the noise from 0:05:14.480 --> 0:05:17.200 the music I'm listening too. And then general IFAI comes 0:05:17.240 --> 0:05:19.039 along this AI stuff and it's like, well, you could 0:05:19.160 --> 0:05:21.279 use it for this, I guess what do you think 0:05:21.320 --> 0:05:22.640 of this? Do you want to try this? 0:05:22.720 --> 0:05:24.839 And you're like, no, I don't need to write a 0:05:24.920 --> 0:05:28.240 letter to an Olympic athlete at all, And if I did, 0:05:28.440 --> 0:05:30.320 I don't need it to be written like Grock. 0:05:31.160 --> 0:05:31.400 Yeah. 0:05:31.440 --> 0:05:34.000 I mean, I've been working really hard over the past 0:05:34.040 --> 0:05:36.800 couple of months to try and find things I can 0:05:36.839 --> 0:05:39.440 actually do with it, and I've come across a couple 0:05:39.520 --> 0:05:40.200 of you know. 0:05:40.200 --> 0:05:41.680 You tell me like genuinely I would love to. 0:05:41.880 --> 0:05:45.120 Yeah, I mean I like it for I. I'm a writer, right, Yeah. 0:05:45.160 --> 0:05:49.400 So when I'm stuck with like a sentence that I'm 0:05:49.440 --> 0:05:52.080 having a hard time getting from my brain onto the page, 0:05:52.480 --> 0:05:56.839 sometimes all you know, write out some like terrible. 0:05:56.560 --> 0:05:59.400 Version of the sentence. Yeah, you know, stream of consciousness. 0:05:59.640 --> 0:06:03.200 Ask one of the AI's, you know, for an idea 0:06:03.200 --> 0:06:05.400 of where I could go with it. I don't ever 0:06:05.480 --> 0:06:07.200 take that and then use it. But it's like it's 0:06:07.440 --> 0:06:10.000 I heard someone say it's kind of like talking to 0:06:10.120 --> 0:06:13.000 a smart brick wall, right, You're not gonna get anything new, 0:06:13.040 --> 0:06:15.320 but it can kind of help you sort through your 0:06:15.360 --> 0:06:19.080 own ideas. But that's not what the tech companies are promoting. 0:06:19.160 --> 0:06:20.200 I'm never gonna pay for that. 0:06:20.120 --> 0:06:22.440 And I fully admit that's kind of how I've used it. 0:06:22.520 --> 0:06:25.480 If it's especially some boring workshit Like I don't know, 0:06:25.520 --> 0:06:27.720 if I'm trying to come up with four ideas to 0:06:27.839 --> 0:06:30.840 talk about AI and healthcare, I will throw something at 0:06:30.839 --> 0:06:32.600 it and then none of the ideas will be good. 0:06:32.680 --> 0:06:35.120 I will be just really clear, it never really get 0:06:35.160 --> 0:06:36.800 a good idea. But I'm like, oh, that kind of 0:06:36.800 --> 0:06:40.040 makes me think about it. But again, is this worth 0:06:40.480 --> 0:06:42.320 one hundred two hundred billion dollars? 0:06:42.360 --> 0:06:43.559 Is this is this really? 0:06:43.600 --> 0:06:46.160 Because if they had launched this and the entire thing, 0:06:46.360 --> 0:06:48.320 this will be like a very twenty tens thing where 0:06:48.320 --> 0:06:50.880 they're just like, yeah, it's an ideation machine. You throw 0:06:50.920 --> 0:06:53.039 some shit in, it bounces it back. Because really, that's 0:06:53.080 --> 0:06:55.800 what of them's are They just kind of repeat the 0:06:55.839 --> 0:06:58.000 past back to you. If that was what they were saying, 0:06:58.000 --> 0:07:00.400 and it was like, this is an ideation machine. Open 0:07:00.440 --> 0:07:03.280 Ai had raised fifty million dollars and this is what 0:07:03.320 --> 0:07:03.720 it did. 0:07:04.000 --> 0:07:04.640 I'd actually be. 0:07:04.720 --> 0:07:06.920 Kind of like, right, sick core product, Yeah, sick. 0:07:07.000 --> 0:07:09.279 This is just it's kind of a churning machine. 0:07:09.320 --> 0:07:12.440 This is this is something where oh like it's kind 0:07:12.440 --> 0:07:15.560 of it's not really creative, but it's kind of lets 0:07:15.560 --> 0:07:16.440 me bounce things off of it. 0:07:16.480 --> 0:07:18.280 What a great idea the brick wall, like you. 0:07:18.240 --> 0:07:21.720 Said, but it isn't it is And that's it's like 0:07:21.760 --> 0:07:24.320 the opposite of how they're describing it, almost as if well, 0:07:24.360 --> 0:07:28.920 what you see today it sucks, but what if it 0:07:29.080 --> 0:07:33.080 didn't Yeah, one day in a non specific way that 0:07:33.160 --> 0:07:35.480 I cannot describe as I am yet to work it out. 0:07:36.160 --> 0:07:39.400 It's just but actually back to the question, what have 0:07:39.480 --> 0:07:40.880 you found any other useful things? 0:07:40.880 --> 0:07:43.320 Because I really, I genuinely actually feel like this is 0:07:43.360 --> 0:07:44.560 a useful conversation. 0:07:45.400 --> 0:07:48.400 Yeah, I mean I I went and did a ton. 0:07:48.520 --> 0:07:51.000 I read everything I could find from people that I 0:07:51.080 --> 0:07:54.920 respect about what you can do with AI, how you 0:07:54.960 --> 0:07:56.440 can use it, how you can figure out how to 0:07:56.520 --> 0:07:59.120 use it, And what I landed on was really you 0:07:59.240 --> 0:08:01.280 just have to try everything you can think of and 0:08:01.320 --> 0:08:04.360 spend like four to eight hours in total, and eventually 0:08:04.760 --> 0:08:07.240 you'll find a way that you can bounce back and 0:08:07.280 --> 0:08:10.800 forth with it. I mean I had to write a 0:08:11.000 --> 0:08:14.480 bio for something, yeah, and it was useful for because 0:08:14.520 --> 0:08:16.320 it was just like what does that look like? 0:08:16.320 --> 0:08:18.880 Like what kinds of things should I include? It was 0:08:18.960 --> 0:08:21.000 kind of useful for that. It probably saved me half 0:08:21.000 --> 0:08:21.360 an hour. 0:08:21.520 --> 0:08:24.280 And maybe that's something it's useful for, where it's like 0:08:24.520 --> 0:08:28.160 an aed own business copy. But also the very boring 0:08:28.200 --> 0:08:31.280 structural stuff that no one enjoys writing like bios. Yeah, 0:08:31.360 --> 0:08:34.640 I think it's actually very threatening, specifically for writing press releases, 0:08:34.640 --> 0:08:35.800 express releases. 0:08:35.679 --> 0:08:37.600 Anything that's formulaic. Yeah. Yeah. 0:08:37.640 --> 0:08:40.200 And also maybe that's a good thing for it, but 0:08:40.320 --> 0:08:44.880 again that is not worth plagiarism. That's not worth the 0:08:44.920 --> 0:08:46.320 insane amount of money it costs. 0:08:46.400 --> 0:08:47.160 It is really. 0:08:47.080 --> 0:08:50.760 Crazy, though, how distant these things are, where you've got 0:08:50.840 --> 0:08:53.920 like this kind of useful thing and just this out 0:08:54.200 --> 0:08:57.560 outlay of money, this insane amount of money. I have 0:08:57.760 --> 0:09:01.199 never seen a single thing in tech history anything close 0:09:01.280 --> 0:09:04.559 to this ever, ever, ever, ever, Like, I. 0:09:04.200 --> 0:09:06.280 Don't know, is there anything. 0:09:06.840 --> 0:09:09.760 I mean, there's always a hype cycle thing, right, there's 0:09:09.800 --> 0:09:13.400 the metaverse or when you know Facebook first blew up. 0:09:13.440 --> 0:09:17.120 Everything had a social media component but I've never seen 0:09:17.880 --> 0:09:20.880 write anything close to this level of investment where the 0:09:20.880 --> 0:09:24.080 whole industry acts as though this really is the wave 0:09:24.120 --> 0:09:26.240 of the future and it's happening now. That's it. I 0:09:26.240 --> 0:09:27.280 think it's kind of unpressive. 0:09:27.320 --> 0:09:30.000 Even the metaverse was the forty five billion that Mark 0:09:30.080 --> 0:09:33.320 Zuckerberg put into it, which is so funny, still remains funny. 0:09:34.280 --> 0:09:36.360 That turned out this great Yahoo Finance story about it. 0:09:36.440 --> 0:09:40.079 Yahoo Finance still still doing stuff, all right. They had 0:09:40.080 --> 0:09:43.240 a story about how it's mostly just mismanagement. It's just 0:09:43.280 --> 0:09:45.280 like they keep firing and hiring people. 0:09:45.320 --> 0:09:47.880 It's just like I love that that. I love the GOV. 0:09:48.040 --> 0:09:51.480 There is no law about like running a company remotely sustainably. 0:09:51.679 --> 0:09:55.360 But even then, outside of the metaverse with Meta, I 0:09:55.400 --> 0:09:57.640 don't think the spend was there. And I'm sure that 0:09:57.760 --> 0:10:01.120 some smart person who reads things no things very rude 0:10:01.280 --> 0:10:04.959 do not email me that might say, yeah, the overall 0:10:04.960 --> 0:10:07.679 outlay for just data centers, maybe that's it. When the 0:10:08.200 --> 0:10:11.600 push of I don't know when they started moving towards 0:10:11.760 --> 0:10:17.120 using GPUs for processing outside before llm's maybe then, But 0:10:17.200 --> 0:10:19.320 even then, this feels like more, and it feels like 0:10:19.800 --> 0:10:22.360 more for so much less, like we are a year 0:10:22.400 --> 0:10:25.800 and a half in and we're still sitting there being like. 0:10:25.840 --> 0:10:28.640 So white is what do we do with this? Yeah, well, 0:10:28.640 --> 0:10:30.840 my thing that I've wanted to do, and I don't 0:10:30.840 --> 0:10:32.000 think I'm gonna be able to do it because I 0:10:32.000 --> 0:10:35.360 think everyone will work out on my dickhead immediately. I 0:10:35.440 --> 0:10:38.480 kind of want to just ask multiple leaders in tech 0:10:38.880 --> 0:10:42.280 what is chet GPT and just see if they can 0:10:42.320 --> 0:10:46.359 tell me because I cannot gun to my head describe, 0:10:46.920 --> 0:10:49.120 like what is Google Search? It's a way of searching 0:10:49.120 --> 0:10:53.920 for stuff online. It indexes everything. What is chet GPT? 0:10:54.320 --> 0:10:57.880 It's sometimes it answers questions? 0:10:57.880 --> 0:11:00.240 Correct, it's a question answerer. 0:11:00.320 --> 0:11:01.839 Well, I think And this kind of brings us back 0:11:01.840 --> 0:11:04.719 to the anti trust conversation right the a year and 0:11:04.760 --> 0:11:07.520 a half ago. The big discussion was this is an 0:11:07.559 --> 0:11:09.800 existential threat to Google, right, this is going to be 0:11:09.840 --> 0:11:13.040 an alternative to search, and you know, whether or not 0:11:13.120 --> 0:11:16.679 it's good for that, the hallucination problem is a real issue. 0:11:16.880 --> 0:11:19.120 But I you know, in my own life, I'm trying 0:11:19.160 --> 0:11:21.320 to use AI as often as I can to understand it. 0:11:21.320 --> 0:11:23.320 It is useful for you know, the other day. 0:11:23.240 --> 0:11:24.520 I can't remember what it was, but I needed to 0:11:24.520 --> 0:11:27.280 look up an acronym, you know, where it's like low risk. 0:11:27.440 --> 0:11:30.480 I can probably tell whether it's I it yeah, And 0:11:30.520 --> 0:11:32.120 I'm not like putting that in a story. It's just 0:11:32.120 --> 0:11:35.439 for my own understanding or something. But I've also heard 0:11:35.520 --> 0:11:39.040 a lot of speculation that this is part of why 0:11:39.360 --> 0:11:42.960 Google has put AI at the top of search results. 0:11:43.040 --> 0:11:43.160 Right. 0:11:43.160 --> 0:11:45.439 It's this anti trust stuff because there's a very real, 0:11:46.520 --> 0:11:51.120 once unfathom unfathomable possibility that Google is going to get 0:11:51.120 --> 0:11:53.040 broken up, that they're going to separate the ads business 0:11:53.040 --> 0:11:53.959 from the search business. 0:11:54.440 --> 0:11:57.360 And you know, all of the moves that Google. 0:11:57.040 --> 0:11:59.680 Has been making to change the way the search algorithm works, 0:11:59.679 --> 0:12:03.560 which you talked a lot yeah about, could be an 0:12:03.600 --> 0:12:06.600 effort to shift over to where we don't really need 0:12:06.640 --> 0:12:08.440 to scrape the open web because we're just giving you 0:12:08.480 --> 0:12:09.040 the answer. 0:12:09.120 --> 0:12:11.560 But what's crazy is a story came out from Bloomberg 0:12:11.600 --> 0:12:15.160 the other day where so there's robots dot txt that. 0:12:15.480 --> 0:12:17.760 And I'm going to fumble this and someone's gonna email 0:12:17.800 --> 0:12:20.160 and correct me. It's very rude. Again, but how does 0:12:20.160 --> 0:12:21.079 the internet actually work? 0:12:22.040 --> 0:12:23.560 Which computer? 0:12:24.520 --> 0:12:25.240 Is this a phone? 0:12:26.280 --> 0:12:29.120 But it says that if you try and cut Google off, 0:12:29.600 --> 0:12:34.079 specifically Google off from your using your website for training data, 0:12:34.320 --> 0:12:37.320 it will also stop Google indexing it, right, which is 0:12:37.800 --> 0:12:39.560 what you were saying, is correct. If they were using 0:12:39.600 --> 0:12:42.240 generative AI as means of distancing themselves and saying we're 0:12:42.240 --> 0:12:45.599 no longer just not play is a We're not just indexing. 0:12:45.640 --> 0:12:48.640 We have created this knowledge ourselves, this is our own material. 0:12:49.160 --> 0:12:52.320 This is not just we're not just passively keeping people 0:12:52.360 --> 0:12:55.080 out from this. It's actually worse now because if that, 0:12:55.280 --> 0:12:57.679 if that is the case, that is the anti trust 0:12:57.679 --> 0:13:01.040 problem with l LMS, with that with Gemini, they have 0:13:01.120 --> 0:13:04.240 made it so that you cannot get. 0:13:04.000 --> 0:13:04.960 Away from Google. 0:13:05.040 --> 0:13:07.520 Google will fuck you over in the event that you 0:13:07.640 --> 0:13:10.080 try and stop them stealing your stuff. 0:13:10.400 --> 0:13:13.000 It's just it's so frustrating as well, because there's no 0:13:13.160 --> 0:13:15.320 real there's no need for them to do that. 0:13:15.320 --> 0:13:17.240 They could have probably made a very small amount of 0:13:17.280 --> 0:13:19.600 effort to not make that the case, and maybe they 0:13:19.600 --> 0:13:23.280 will indeed, it's just like it's like these companies don't 0:13:23.320 --> 0:13:26.720 even know how to operate normally anymore. They've kind of 0:13:26.960 --> 0:13:30.280 they're too big, they're too messy. But also their natural 0:13:30.360 --> 0:13:32.920 configuration isn't We're going to do a thing so that 0:13:32.960 --> 0:13:34.280 we interact with the ends because it is kind of 0:13:34.280 --> 0:13:36.160 how it used to be. It's like, we're scraping this, 0:13:36.280 --> 0:13:38.840 but we provide a service, we send you traffic, you 0:13:38.920 --> 0:13:41.760 allow us to scrape your website. This is kind of 0:13:41.760 --> 0:13:44.360 the deal now. It's just no, this is ours now, 0:13:44.600 --> 0:13:47.280 this is our world that you don't you don't get 0:13:47.280 --> 0:13:49.480 to play here other than on our rules. And it's like, 0:13:50.200 --> 0:13:53.120 I that's why I want the breakup to happen so badly, 0:13:53.520 --> 0:13:55.839 not just because they will be better companies, but also 0:13:56.360 --> 0:13:58.000 we need a fairer deal for the web. 0:13:58.040 --> 0:14:00.480 We need a fairer deal for everyone right now. 0:14:01.320 --> 0:14:03.760 I mean, I've talked to people who work at Google 0:14:04.040 --> 0:14:06.400 who've told me that it really does seem like there's 0:14:06.440 --> 0:14:09.240 been some kind of mission creep and the people who 0:14:09.320 --> 0:14:11.880 run in the company aren't really clear what the company does. 0:14:12.240 --> 0:14:14.480 And I think part of that, and it's not just Google, 0:14:14.640 --> 0:14:17.839 is because all of these companies are such behemoths, right 0:14:17.840 --> 0:14:21.160 and they touch every part of the world. Every decision 0:14:21.200 --> 0:14:24.560 they make is about a strategy that's expanding to every 0:14:24.680 --> 0:14:26.960 corner of the Internet and the physical world. So it 0:14:27.160 --> 0:14:30.840 just there's so many competing incentives for every decision that 0:14:30.920 --> 0:14:34.080 a company like Google or Amazon makes it's just hard 0:14:34.120 --> 0:14:36.520 to operate. It's the same thing that happened with the telecoms, right, yeah, 0:14:36.560 --> 0:14:39.800 they got so big and then you know, when a 0:14:39.840 --> 0:14:42.160 company is big enough, it's kind of just like stomping 0:14:42.200 --> 0:14:45.400 around and can't really do anything super effectively. 0:14:45.560 --> 0:14:47.800 I mean my chat GPT thing. What is chat GPT? 0:14:48.320 --> 0:14:50.880 What does Google do? What does Google do? 0:14:51.000 --> 0:14:51.520 Now? Yeah? 0:14:51.560 --> 0:14:55.240 Google is a search company, an ADS company, a phone company, 0:14:55.400 --> 0:14:58.360 a phone provide a company that have an MVNO with 0:14:58.560 --> 0:15:01.920 Google Fi, which for listeners is a basically they are 0:15:01.960 --> 0:15:06.720 on the T mobile network. They are a cloud storage company, 0:15:06.720 --> 0:15:10.560 a data center company. They are also they have all 0:15:10.600 --> 0:15:12.320 sorts of business lines. They make robots. 0:15:12.760 --> 0:15:15.760 No, do they own Boston Dynamics now? Is Boston Dynamics 0:15:15.760 --> 0:15:18.840 to nevertheless demic robuts Yeah, yeah, Well they're doing something 0:15:18.880 --> 0:15:22.280 in every ar VR yea what the like? Well? 0:15:22.320 --> 0:15:25.080 Google is the Internet, right, That's what's going on, not 0:15:25.120 --> 0:15:26.800 just with Google, but with all these companies. It's this 0:15:26.920 --> 0:15:32.440 platformization where the open Web is dying and everything exists 0:15:32.560 --> 0:15:37.239 on a platform that some gigantic company is running. Not universally, 0:15:37.280 --> 0:15:38.920 but that's the direction we're trending. 0:15:38.960 --> 0:15:42.000 It's most of them and it's but Google is I think, 0:15:42.160 --> 0:15:44.520 and this is the thing. I don't hate technology. I 0:15:44.560 --> 0:15:46.640 actually really would love Google to be where they work. 0:15:46.760 --> 0:15:48.480 It's great. I love tech a lot. 0:15:48.520 --> 0:15:51.400 Fifteen twenty years ago Google I didn't mind like they 0:15:51.880 --> 0:15:52.920 were doing a decent job. 0:15:53.000 --> 0:15:53.480 Yeah they were. 0:15:53.800 --> 0:15:56.360 Even the old Facebook in like two thousand and five 0:15:56.480 --> 0:15:57.640 is a pretty good product. 0:15:57.800 --> 0:15:57.880 Ye. 0:15:58.000 --> 0:16:00.360 And then mox Zucker Book's kind of evil and I've 0:16:00.360 --> 0:16:03.480 done plenty of episodes on him. But Google is just 0:16:03.680 --> 0:16:06.400 I think symbolic of the problem. They are symbolic of 0:16:06.440 --> 0:16:09.560 the too big not too big to fail because they've 0:16:09.640 --> 0:16:13.160 kind of proven that as well, that they seem incapable 0:16:13.200 --> 0:16:17.720 of failing despite their failures. It's just maybe we shouldn't 0:16:17.760 --> 0:16:21.040 have a company that does everything. Maybe they need to 0:16:21.280 --> 0:16:23.960 be broken up, and there needs to be genuine legislation 0:16:24.000 --> 0:16:27.480 that stops companies getting that big, because I don't think 0:16:28.600 --> 0:16:32.400 as a product, Google Search needs to be bad, and 0:16:32.440 --> 0:16:35.520 I think it could be insanely profitable without being a monopoly. 0:16:35.840 --> 0:16:39.000 It's just that at some point I think this company 0:16:39.000 --> 0:16:41.160 became a private equity firm. I think they became a 0:16:41.160 --> 0:16:44.840 private equity firm that gets bankrolled by Google Search, and 0:16:44.880 --> 0:16:47.880 that change those incentives. I mean, it makes sense if 0:16:47.880 --> 0:16:50.080 you're as a company, don't believe you can lose customers 0:16:50.080 --> 0:16:52.920 if you don't believe that if everything is kind of 0:16:52.920 --> 0:16:54.960 because the other units of Google, and we'll never know 0:16:55.000 --> 0:16:57.240 because even public they don't really break it down. 0:16:57.880 --> 0:16:59.400 I don't know how many units. 0:16:59.120 --> 0:17:01.720 Of Google are profit without Google Search, Like how much 0:17:01.760 --> 0:17:02.480 of it is bankrolled. 0:17:02.600 --> 0:17:05.080 They're making sixty percent of the company's money. It's coming 0:17:05.080 --> 0:17:05.480 from search. 0:17:05.520 --> 0:17:05.800 Yeah. 0:17:05.840 --> 0:17:08.400 And also it's a terrible way to run a company. 0:17:08.960 --> 0:17:12.159 It's an awful way to run a company. And it 0:17:12.200 --> 0:17:14.159 isn't how they used to do things. But in and 0:17:14.280 --> 0:17:16.959 breaking them up I think is good. I think we 0:17:17.000 --> 0:17:20.640 need an example in the tech industry we get going well. 0:17:20.680 --> 0:17:22.720 I mean, we're at a point where now we can, 0:17:22.920 --> 0:17:25.720 you know, officially say like Google is legally a monopoly. 0:17:25.800 --> 0:17:26.960 Yeah at this point, right, like we. 0:17:26.920 --> 0:17:29.119 Don't have to we don't have to edge Google is 0:17:29.160 --> 0:17:31.399 a monopoly at least in the search business. There's a 0:17:31.400 --> 0:17:33.600 bunch of other anti drust cases. Maybe other parts of 0:17:33.640 --> 0:17:35.879 the company are going to get declared to monopoly. But 0:17:35.880 --> 0:17:38.960 that's how monopolies work, right, Like, once you achieve enough 0:17:39.040 --> 0:17:42.560 market power, you don't need to make a good product, right, 0:17:42.600 --> 0:17:43.520 Like I talk. 0:17:43.400 --> 0:17:44.280 To people all the time. 0:17:44.280 --> 0:17:47.320 It used to be I think back, you know, fifteen 0:17:47.359 --> 0:17:50.560 years ago or maybe even long with the early two thousands, 0:17:50.720 --> 0:17:52.439 Google was the best search engine. 0:17:52.480 --> 0:17:54.920 Yeah, right, Google came out. It was better than AltaVista, 0:17:54.960 --> 0:17:55.919 it was better than Yahoo. 0:17:56.080 --> 0:17:56.480 Excited. 0:17:56.640 --> 0:18:01.320