forward Reddit CEO Yishan Wong pointed out that the over-infatuation of tech giants with artificial intelligence (AI) has begun to affect the quality of the products they launch. In a post on Wednesday, Wong said: "The big internet giants are caught in a meme race over AI, and Google's existential fear over OpenAI is at the center."
Source Note: The image is generated by AI, and the image is authorized by Midjourney
Wong added that this has led them to integrate LLM-powered AI into their products, but AI can sometimes give incorrect answers, which is problematic given the higher quality/accuracy expectations of existing products. Wong believes that now we get worse products because tech giants are obsessed with “competing on AI” instead of just providing good and useful products.
Wong's comments echo those of former Google employee Scott Jenson, who criticized his former employer's failed attempts to win the AI race on LinkedIn on Monday. "The vision is that there will be a Tony Stark-like Jarvis assistant on your phone that locks you into their ecosystem so that you never leave," he wrote.
While established companies like Google and Meta have been trying to catch up to upstarts like OpenAI, having more money and resources hasn’t given the tech giants the edge they were hoping for. In February, Google got into trouble when the image-generating function of its chatbot Gemini was accused of being “woke.”
Faced with criticism on social media over claims that Google’s AI continuously generated images of people of color in inaccurate historical context, Google suspended Gemini’s image-generating feature on February 22. The company had acknowledged Gemini’s missteps a day earlier, saying the chatbot “got off the mark.”
For Meta, their decision to roll out AI-powered chatbots on their social media platforms has drawn ridicule from users. Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram users are now forced to use chatbots that cannot be turned off instead of the regular search bar.