In a report that should surprise almost no one, an insider says most of the powers that be in big companies don’t actually know what to do with the AI tools they’re fighting to get.
Which if you think about it, says a lot.
The information comes from the LinkedIn post of Diane Theriault, a software engineer at Google.
“Right now, all of these boring, glassy-eyed leaders are trying to point in a vague direction (AI) while at the same time killing their golden goose.”
She’s referring to the layoffs that largely hit the company’s ad sales team.
“Given that they have no real vision of their own, they really need their subordinates to come up with cool stuff for them.”
Last week, Google CEO Sundar Pichai told employees to expect more cuts in the near future.
“We have ambitious goals and will be investing in our big priorities this year. The reality is that to create the capacity for this investment, we have to make tough choices.”
At the same time, Google has invested over $2 billion in a competitor to OpenAI called Anthropic.
The layoffs are largely employees in departments like sales, where jobs could be easily automated by AI tools. The results have left previously happy and motivated employees despondent and unmotivated.
Theriault accused leaders of not caring about the human costs of their investment in AI.
“They’re randomly firing people, torching institutional knowledge, and blowing up perfectly functional teams.
The result is that a pervasive sense of nihilism has taken hold. The buildings are half empty at 4:30pm. I know a lot of people, myself included, who used to happily do extra work evenings and weekends to get the demo done or just out of boredom.
That’s gone.”
Theriault isn’t alone in her anger and hopelessness, either. Last year former employee Ian Hickinson called them out for a “lack of visionary leadership.”
An internal survey reviewed by Business Insider revealed that only 45% of respondents thought Google had a clear vision, and they called the shaky 2023 “grim.”
All that, and their latest large language model, Gemini, is performing below expectations and struggles to keep up with OpenAI.
Also, Google’s core search product is absolutely plagued with fake AI filler and scam results that are giving everyone a headache.
Only time will tell whether or not their investment in AI will pay off, but Theriault and many of her cohorts believe the cost is already too high.
“Google really was a magical place, not very long ago. And for some reason, executives are cashing out their human capital at the very moment it seems to me like they really need it.”
It’s pretty doom and gloom, honestly.
And I, for one, really don’t think this is going to work out in anyone’s favor.
If you enjoyed that story, check out what happened when a guy gave ChatGPT $100 to make as money as possible, and it turned out exactly how you would expect.