Google has around $130 billion in cash reserves. It isn’t giving it to shareholders. It isn’t acquiring much. And it has started cutting costs (lower salaries and lesser support for ad customers). What is Alphabet planning to do with all that cash?
This is definitely a join-the-dots exercise, because on the surface Alphabet (the parent company of Google) are a law-abiding company only interested in making information available to everyone.
Yet, given that we all fear having AI overlords, detecting the start of something early will mean getting a feel of what is happening, even if not prove-able.
The Cash
Google has a shit-tonne of cash. It keeps growing. There are no dips where they have used it. Governments are starting to anti-trust them, so the ability to spend it on acquisitions is fading away. Even with all of their “long shot” ideas that typically lose money, Google/Alphabet are still saving more and more. Almost the biggest piggy-bank in history.
The Cost Cutting
I work with Google Ads. It is widely acknowledged that customer service has been getting worse and worse. Ad agencies no longer have contacts. Local support staff have been replaced with foreign ones. And “because of lockdowns” the most tech-capable company in history has not managed to keep phone support going. Google are very clearly, deliberately choosing lesser customer service because it is more efficient.
Meanwhile, Google has decided to cut salaries for people working from home, because those people now have lower expenses. Rather than the normal paying people based on what they are worth.
Automation
Anyone who works with Google Ads has noticed the trend, and Google is not shy about it. They are aiming for full automation. They want advertisers to provide the minimum possible information (logo, description, website link) and Google will magically do the rest. Google is even making it harder for marketers who want to put effort into their advertising.
The reduced support at Google Ads is not just cost-cutting, as Google thinks AI can answer queries and also decide if an advertiser is “bad”. Such advertisers get virtually no means of complaining, and many are wrongly denied the ability to advertise on the monopoly search engine, for reasons that cannot and won’t be explained.
Where are the founders?
Unlike most Big Tech businesses, the founders left, by choice, in 2019. When you are one of the richest people in the world, stopping working makes sense to the layman. But typically the richest actors, pop stars, athletes and business-people keep going, because the drive that got them there becomes who they are.
Neither have done anything newsworthy since. All that drive has shifted to… watching TV? Page has become an NZ resident.
I sense they were told to leave. It could’ve been the US government who seems to have played a pivotal role in the beginning (so Brin and Page might owe them…), or it could be an Artificial Intelligence that has assumed control.
Artificial Intelligence
- Google is leading the way in quantum computing
- And robot cars
- And machine learning — Google Brain
While the above is what has been publicly acknowledged, you can guarantee that either there is more happening in secret, or the above is a smokescreen to disguise their true capabilities.
But For Why?
Of course this speculation, but it is based on how our collective fears made hits of stories and movies like 1984, Blade Runner, 2001 and The Matrix.
We fear an invisible power that we are helpless against. We know that power is seductive. And we know that an Artificial Intelligence could get it in its head that the best result is power.
We should be fearful of any of these:
Non-living entities having rights and ownership. While corporations have the rights of people, they still need to be owned and controlled by people. The concern is an entity that has no human ownership and responsibility. Sounds far-fetched? Australia recently decided that AI can own a patent.
AI making critical decisions. For the most part AI is used for business decisions, or adjusting retail offers. The concern is that AI could decide who gets a job, who gets a mortgage, who gets fired. We are on the cusp already and laws to stop this are critically needed.
Automation of policing and warfare. Minority Report is on the verge of happening. We already have predictive policing based on locations and circumstances. Next will be individuals, and it is inevitable.
While major Western nations have vowed to not have autonomous fighting machines, what happens when the enemy has them? We will be given all kinds of assurances, but they are coming, it is unavoidable.
Should I Be Afraid?
In a worst-case scenario, Alphabet already has AI capabilities far greater than anyone suspects. It is something that would be kept quiet.
That AI could be making business decisions that the 135K employees follow unquestionably.
That AI could work out how to control sharemarkets, how to gain immense profits and also destroy competitors.
It could have discoveries sitting, waiting, for AI to have the legal ownership of patents. When it has that, it has to be able to store the money, use the money, and it becomes an entity with immense potential and zero morals or soul.
It could happen fast, faster than governments can react with laws.
And not being a person, it can hide. In the cloud. Clouds. Space (yes, you, Elon). It can be distributed, and cannot be imprisoned.
Just like the actor worth hundreds of millions, who is growing old, but still makes increasingly lame movies… the AI most likely won’t stop. It will be driven and have no other purpose.
As has been predicted by science fiction a lot, that AI may decide that humans are no longer needed.
