Patrick E. Sharbaugh’s Post

Human Centered Design Strategy, Innovation Strategy & Enablement

3mo

I'm watching closely, and I have yet to see any implementation of AI coming out of Silicon Valley or Big Tech that smartly addresses a true user* need. So far what I've seen is is 80% hype, 15% panicked flailing to add AI to every feature, layer, and page of their platforms, 5% novelty gag with unreliable output, and 0% problem solving. I'm as eager to see AI work to our real benefit as anyone, but so far every time I use one of these tools I feel like I just walked out of a Spencer Gifts in the '90s — fun for a brief diversion at the mall, but that's about it. (*Unless of course one considers the shareholder the core "user." In which case a) bingo, and b) you've landed smack on the stark truth that drives our attention-extraction-surveillance economy: If you're getting the product for free, you are the product.)

Scott Jenson

UX Strategy and Design

3mo Edited

I just left Google last month. The "AI Projects" I was working on were poorly motivated and driven by this panic that as long as it had "AI" in it, it would be great. This myopia is NOT something driven by a user need. It is a stone cold panic that they are getting left behind. The vision is that there will be a Tony Stark like Jarvis assistant in your phone that locks you into their ecosystem so hard that you'll never leave. That vision is pure catnip. The fear is that they can't afford to let someone else get there first. This exact thing happened 13 years ago with Google+ (I was there for that fiasco as well). That was a similar reaction but to Facebook. BTW, Apple is no different. They too are trying to create this AI lock-in with Siri. When the emperor, eventually, has no clothes, they'll be lapped by someone thinking bigger. I'm not a luddite, there *is* some value to this new technology. It's just not well motivated. Edit: Well, this has blown up. To be very clear, I wasn't a senior leader at Google, my projects were fairly limited. My comment comes more from a general frustration of the entire industry and it's approach to AI

This Year's Google I/O Was the Most Boring Ever

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Muriel Naim

Vice President of Design & UX, Film Director

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100%. Let us (UXers) COOK!

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Samir Pandit

Technology | Endurance | Writing | Thinking Simplicity
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A post on the hype. Glad that someone said it. My take on it : The big reason behind AI/ML not giving any real benefits yet is the people who talk about it do not even have a simple understanding of AI/ML. They just read some Mckinsey or FT report and start blabbering nonsense by showing definitions of the various techniques that they copy from the internet and make a shiny presentation or talk about use cases that are just on paper and so on .... Ask what is needed to run the ML model:- I have got answers that vary from it depends, to GPUs which would cost a bomb If you poke people on how we know what is inside the ML algo aka black-box or how to validate if the answers provided by the ML model are correct: the answers vary from Why do I need this, we can call API, we can use hyper-scaler tools, this will need a degree course, to some obscure concepts which has no relevance.

Scott Jenson

UX Strategy and Design
3mo Edited

I just left Google last month. The "AI Projects" I was working on were poorly motivated and driven by this panic that as long as it had "AI" in it, it would be great. This myopia is NOT something driven by a user need. It is a stone cold panic that they are getting left behind. The vision is that there will be a Tony Stark like Jarvis assistant in your phone that locks you into their ecosystem so hard that you'll never leave. That vision is pure catnip. The fear is that they can't afford to let someone else get there first. This exact thing happened 13 years ago with Google+ (I was there for that fiasco as well). That was a similar reaction but to Facebook. BTW, Apple is no different. They too are trying to create this AI lock-in with Siri. When the emperor, eventually, has no clothes, they'll be lapped by someone thinking bigger. I'm not a luddite, there *is* some value to this new technology. It's just not well motivated. Edit: Well, this has blown up. To be very clear, I wasn't a senior leader at Google, my projects were fairly limited. My comment comes more from a general frustration of the entire industry and it's approach to AI

This Year's Google I/O Was the Most Boring Ever

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Paul Manzey

Digital Marketing Expert in the Travel & Hospitality Space | Co-Host of The Heads in Beds Show | SEO, PPC, Email Marketing & More
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Whoa..... . . . . . The fact that the push for #ai at Google is being compared to Google's panicked and unsuccessful push into social media (who didn't love Google+) by a former product manager is eye-opening. This is the line from Scott Jenson post that really caught my eye: "The fear is that they can't afford to let someone else get there first." Google started "behind" in the AI race after ChatGPT dazzled in the "early phases" of the #airevolution. Their attempts to catch-up do not appear to be going as planned. What do you think -- has AI improved the overall search experience within search engines? Scott Jenson's Post: https://lnkd.in/gd5TS5Pt #digitalmarketing #sge #seo #searchengineoptimization #artificialintelligence #serp #gemini #aiprojects

Scott Jenson

UX Strategy and Design
3mo Edited

I just left Google last month. The "AI Projects" I was working on were poorly motivated and driven by this panic that as long as it had "AI" in it, it would be great. This myopia is NOT something driven by a user need. It is a stone cold panic that they are getting left behind. The vision is that there will be a Tony Stark like Jarvis assistant in your phone that locks you into their ecosystem so hard that you'll never leave. That vision is pure catnip. The fear is that they can't afford to let someone else get there first. This exact thing happened 13 years ago with Google+ (I was there for that fiasco as well). That was a similar reaction but to Facebook. BTW, Apple is no different. They too are trying to create this AI lock-in with Siri. When the emperor, eventually, has no clothes, they'll be lapped by someone thinking bigger. I'm not a luddite, there *is* some value to this new technology. It's just not well motivated. Edit: Well, this has blown up. To be very clear, I wasn't a senior leader at Google, my projects were fairly limited. My comment comes more from a general frustration of the entire industry and it's approach to AI

This Year's Google I/O Was the Most Boring Ever

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Dominic Wellington

Democratising access to the power of technology through low-code and no-code
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Fascinating insight from a Google veteran. This is classic “peak of inflated expectations” FOMO: just slather it in #AI and shove it out the door, chop chop! There will be a shakeout in the market and only then will we get to see which actually useful applications this tech gets adopted for.

Scott Jenson

UX Strategy and Design
3mo Edited

I just left Google last month. The "AI Projects" I was working on were poorly motivated and driven by this panic that as long as it had "AI" in it, it would be great. This myopia is NOT something driven by a user need. It is a stone cold panic that they are getting left behind. The vision is that there will be a Tony Stark like Jarvis assistant in your phone that locks you into their ecosystem so hard that you'll never leave. That vision is pure catnip. The fear is that they can't afford to let someone else get there first. This exact thing happened 13 years ago with Google+ (I was there for that fiasco as well). That was a similar reaction but to Facebook. BTW, Apple is no different. They too are trying to create this AI lock-in with Siri. When the emperor, eventually, has no clothes, they'll be lapped by someone thinking bigger. I'm not a luddite, there *is* some value to this new technology. It's just not well motivated. Edit: Well, this has blown up. To be very clear, I wasn't a senior leader at Google, my projects were fairly limited. My comment comes more from a general frustration of the entire industry and it's approach to AI

This Year's Google I/O Was the Most Boring Ever

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Roden McMiles

Cyber Security Professional
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There are countless examples of this - from LinkedIn "AI" prefixing your comment with "I'm excited to share", Google giving arguably worse search results through AI insights, and various security vendors peddling their latest and greatest AI-driven products to replace "legacy" solutions, which honestly don't need replacing. AI isn't new. in fact it's half a century old, but the current rush to market of "new" AI products will most likely lead early adopters into the far too common trough of disillusionment. There are some exceptions, such as the ability to convey tone or change context for mobile notes and messages, but it's important for organisations to take enterprise AI solutions with more than a single grain of salt.

Scott Jenson

UX Strategy and Design
3mo Edited

I just left Google last month. The "AI Projects" I was working on were poorly motivated and driven by this panic that as long as it had "AI" in it, it would be great. This myopia is NOT something driven by a user need. It is a stone cold panic that they are getting left behind. The vision is that there will be a Tony Stark like Jarvis assistant in your phone that locks you into their ecosystem so hard that you'll never leave. That vision is pure catnip. The fear is that they can't afford to let someone else get there first. This exact thing happened 13 years ago with Google+ (I was there for that fiasco as well). That was a similar reaction but to Facebook. BTW, Apple is no different. They too are trying to create this AI lock-in with Siri. When the emperor, eventually, has no clothes, they'll be lapped by someone thinking bigger. I'm not a luddite, there *is* some value to this new technology. It's just not well motivated. Edit: Well, this has blown up. To be very clear, I wasn't a senior leader at Google, my projects were fairly limited. My comment comes more from a general frustration of the entire industry and it's approach to AI

This Year's Google I/O Was the Most Boring Ever

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Scott Jenson

UX Strategy and Design
3mo Edited
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I just left Google last month. The "AI Projects" I was working on were poorly motivated and driven by this panic that as long as it had "AI" in it, it would be great. This myopia is NOT something driven by a user need. It is a stone cold panic that they are getting left behind. The vision is that there will be a Tony Stark like Jarvis assistant in your phone that locks you into their ecosystem so hard that you'll never leave. That vision is pure catnip. The fear is that they can't afford to let someone else get there first. This exact thing happened 13 years ago with Google+ (I was there for that fiasco as well). That was a similar reaction but to Facebook. BTW, Apple is no different. They too are trying to create this AI lock-in with Siri. When the emperor, eventually, has no clothes, they'll be lapped by someone thinking bigger. I'm not a luddite, there *is* some value to this new technology. It's just not well motivated. Edit: Well, this has blown up. To be very clear, I wasn't a senior leader at Google, my projects were fairly limited. My comment comes more from a general frustration of the entire industry and it's approach to AI

This Year's Google I/O Was the Most Boring Ever

gizmodo.com

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Nick Walters

Senior Consultant at ZEREN | Product Design and Product Management | Exec-Search Partnering with VC & PE companies
3mo
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"The "AI Projects" I was working on were poorly motivated and driven by this panic that as long as it had "AI" in it, it would be great. This myopia is NOT something driven by a user need. It is a stone cold panic that they are getting left behind." We speak to a lot of companies who feel the need to embed AI in their Products as quickly as possible, many of them are honest about not knowing how best to implement it and therefore looking to hire Product people/Designers to help them with that. Implementing AI just for the sake of it or because everyone else is doing it, is a sure fire way to turn great talent off. Have a plan! #ai #productdesign #productmanagement

Scott Jenson

UX Strategy and Design
3mo Edited

I just left Google last month. The "AI Projects" I was working on were poorly motivated and driven by this panic that as long as it had "AI" in it, it would be great. This myopia is NOT something driven by a user need. It is a stone cold panic that they are getting left behind. The vision is that there will be a Tony Stark like Jarvis assistant in your phone that locks you into their ecosystem so hard that you'll never leave. That vision is pure catnip. The fear is that they can't afford to let someone else get there first. This exact thing happened 13 years ago with Google+ (I was there for that fiasco as well). That was a similar reaction but to Facebook. BTW, Apple is no different. They too are trying to create this AI lock-in with Siri. When the emperor, eventually, has no clothes, they'll be lapped by someone thinking bigger. I'm not a luddite, there *is* some value to this new technology. It's just not well motivated. Edit: Well, this has blown up. To be very clear, I wasn't a senior leader at Google, my projects were fairly limited. My comment comes more from a general frustration of the entire industry and it's approach to AI

This Year's Google I/O Was the Most Boring Ever

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Greg Sterling

Chief content officer, 20+ year local marketing analyst, event organizer, strategist, digital marketer.
3mo
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This confirms what Mike Blumenthal, David Mihm and I have been talking about on several Near Media podcasts: that many of Google's recent search moves, including SGE, are "defensive" and based on reacting to competitors rather than building a great product for users. I'm not sure that the analogy to Google+ works completely but maybe in terms of the company's motivation. The point here, I think, Is that Google+ was doomed because the product's motivation was based on fear. The company taking the place of Facebook in the current scenario is, of course, ChatGPT in particular but AI + anyone else in general. Google clearly will not walk away from AI -- although it may show AI Overviews less frequently -- in the way that it did from Google+. The most interesting and useful application of gen-AI in search may ultimately be "AI Organized Pages" for vertical results. But we'll see ...

Scott Jenson

UX Strategy and Design
3mo Edited

I just left Google last month. The "AI Projects" I was working on were poorly motivated and driven by this panic that as long as it had "AI" in it, it would be great. This myopia is NOT something driven by a user need. It is a stone cold panic that they are getting left behind. The vision is that there will be a Tony Stark like Jarvis assistant in your phone that locks you into their ecosystem so hard that you'll never leave. That vision is pure catnip. The fear is that they can't afford to let someone else get there first. This exact thing happened 13 years ago with Google+ (I was there for that fiasco as well). That was a similar reaction but to Facebook. BTW, Apple is no different. They too are trying to create this AI lock-in with Siri. When the emperor, eventually, has no clothes, they'll be lapped by someone thinking bigger. I'm not a luddite, there *is* some value to this new technology. It's just not well motivated. Edit: Well, this has blown up. To be very clear, I wasn't a senior leader at Google, my projects were fairly limited. My comment comes more from a general frustration of the entire industry and it's approach to AI

This Year's Google I/O Was the Most Boring Ever

gizmodo.com

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🧢 Graeme Provan 🧢

2 x LinkedIn Top Voice | Entreprenuer | Advisory Board @ CCW | Generative AI, CX, EX, UX, MX, ML and AI | MACS CP | Global Experience
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Having worked with Ai for over a decade, knowing how poorly early transformer models performed, and observing Open Ai since the GPT-2 days, I knew the promises conversational artificial intelligence was finally being recognised with the launch of GPT 3.5 and the UX that placed it in the hands of all. What I initially failed to understand was the magnitude of the shift it was triggering as we enter the 4th industrial revolution . I asked someone recently who had met with over 100 AI companies of their view on AI was, is it a feature, is it a company operating system, is it an architectural layer, is it a product. Unfortunately they didn’t have an answer. I currently think of as a moment like when humans tamed fire somewhere around 1 million years ago. It’s uses are immense and it’s triggering an intelligence evolution like we haven’t witnessed in our lifetime. Highly recommend reading the comments of this post to see others views with regards to one of the largest advertising companies on the planet. #ageofintellgence #4thindustrialrevolution

Scott Jenson

UX Strategy and Design
3mo Edited

I just left Google last month. The "AI Projects" I was working on were poorly motivated and driven by this panic that as long as it had "AI" in it, it would be great. This myopia is NOT something driven by a user need. It is a stone cold panic that they are getting left behind. The vision is that there will be a Tony Stark like Jarvis assistant in your phone that locks you into their ecosystem so hard that you'll never leave. That vision is pure catnip. The fear is that they can't afford to let someone else get there first. This exact thing happened 13 years ago with Google+ (I was there for that fiasco as well). That was a similar reaction but to Facebook. BTW, Apple is no different. They too are trying to create this AI lock-in with Siri. When the emperor, eventually, has no clothes, they'll be lapped by someone thinking bigger. I'm not a luddite, there *is* some value to this new technology. It's just not well motivated. Edit: Well, this has blown up. To be very clear, I wasn't a senior leader at Google, my projects were fairly limited. My comment comes more from a general frustration of the entire industry and it's approach to AI

This Year's Google I/O Was the Most Boring Ever

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This Year's Google I/O Was the Most Boring Ever

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