
At Google X, a Top-Secret Lab Dreaming Up the Future - ssclafani
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/14/technology/at-google-x-a-top-secret-lab-dreaming-up-the-future.html?_r=1
======
nosequel
One nitpicky-type thing for me in the article is saying that Sebastian Thrun
invented the first driverless car. Yes, he was the head of the Standford team
who won in 2005, but he was on the CMU team the competition before where Red
Whitaker was the team lead. The fact that these teams were quite huge also
prevents someone from saying that one person invented the driverless car.
Being team lead on a team who wins the second competition certainly doesn't
mean that person invented the tech. I know I'm being anal about it, but there
were a lot of people who competed in the DGC, and it is quite annoying to hear
people mention his name in that regard. Having talked to Sebastian a few times
during the competition, I would think he thinks the same way.

~~~
marshallp
It's important to put some face to tech/science breakthroughs otherwise the
general public doesn't relate. Also, in that vacuum you'll get politicians
gaining credit. Kennedy gets a lot for credit the moon landings because their
wasn't a clear face to put it to, while in the manhattan project at least
oppenheimer gets credit.

------
neilk
Here's a collection of quotes from the triumvirate about artificial
intelligence.

[http://ignoranceisfutile.wordpress.com/2008/09/13/google-
fou...](http://ignoranceisfutile.wordpress.com/2008/09/13/google-founders-
artificial-intelligence-quotes-archive/)

(Except, ignore the Moffett field thing. That has nothing to do with AI
research as far as I know.)

Anyway, any Googler will confirm that Sergey Brin, in particular, keeps
returning to this idea: that Google's ultimate destiny is to realize Strong
AI.

I'm not saying they've achieved anything. But I would not be surprised if they
were putting substantial resources into it. It's even directly related to
their bottom line. It doesn't have to end in HAL 9000. They may come up with
some technology that is just more insightful about search queries. But even
that would be worth billions and billions.

~~~
noibl
> I'm not saying they've achieved anything.

Clearly you're not aware of the CADIE incident a couple of years ago.

<http://www.google.com/intl/en_us/landing/cadie/>

Be sure to check the blog.

(By far my favourite piece of Google whimsy, for the detail and number of
teams involved) (You're right, muro)

~~~
inuhj
It took me much longer than I'm comfortable admitting to realize that this was
an April Fool's joke.

------
waterlesscloud
"It’s a place where your refrigerator could be connected to the Internet, so
it could order groceries when they ran low. Your dinner plate could post to a
social network what you’re eating. [...] These are just a few of the dreams
being chased at Google X, the clandestine lab where Google is tackling a list
of 100 shoot-for-the-stars ideas. "

Those are shoot-for-the-stars ideas? I hope those are at the lowest end of the
scale. They seem pretty boring to me.

~~~
JonnieCache
I've been hearing talk of self-restocking fridges for at least 10 years. It's
the ultimate go-to cliche for the "connected devices" hype, that's now called
the "internet of things."

It's the modern-day version of the Honeywell H316 Kitchen Computer:
<http://jdh.oxfordjournals.org/content/23/2/163/F9.large.jpg>

~~~
davidmathers
apropos: <http://valerieaurora.org/kitchen.html>

------
aantix
There have been times in my life where I've thought that I've had a "genius"
idea and every cell in my body has said "Don't tell anyone. Hoard it.
Cultivate it. And you'll be a revolutionary!"

And then I end up sharing. And there never ceases to be one or two or four
perspectives shared that I never thought of before. And in the end, I think
the idea flourishes because I was open and shared and iterated and shared
those iterations.

Do these "top secret" labs ever make the big cognitive leaps that we hope for?

~~~
flyt
PARC gave the world Graphical User Interfaces, object oriented programming,
ethernet, laser printers, precursors to PostScript, and a few other major
breakthroughs.

It wasn't necessarily a "secret lab", but its distance from XEROX management
on the east coast made it effectively an under the radar operation (to their
detriment, of course)

~~~
snowwrestler
Most of these only really took off once PARC shared them with other people and
companies.

------
treetrouble
_It’s a place where your refrigerator could be connected to the Internet, so
it could order groceries when they ran low. Your dinner plate could post to a
social network what you’re eating._

The stuff that could have been invented 5-10 years ago but was not interesting
enough to warrant the effort

~~~
hugh3
I've been hearing about fridges-that-order-groceries for at least ten years.
It's one of those dumb ideas that just keeps coming up, despite the fact that
there's no demand for it. Basically, I don't trust my fridge with my credit
card... and besides, I don't want to order groceries by delivery anyway,
particularly not the kind of perishable goods that I'd be keeping in my
refrigerator.

I suppose I wouldn't _mind_ having a fridge which knew what was in it, so I
could check what I needed to pick up on my way home before I left the office.
But I doubt the system could be made smart enough that it actually saved me
more mental effort than it consumed. The low-tech version is to simply put
cameras in your fridge so that you can check its contents remotely... but even
if I had this set up I doubt I'd use it all that often.

Maybe I'm being overly harsh on the smart-fridge idea. But I think it's
representative of a huge _class_ of dumb ideas: let's use fancy technology to
save some minor effort for the consumer, at the cost of the consumer now
having to go to the effort of acquiring, learning and maintaining yet another
fancy piece of new technology. Screw it, I want my microwave with dials back.

~~~
tlholaday
Although I share your sentiment, there is contrary evidence.

Consider this essay:

[http://www.taquitos.net/chipworld/articles/snaxpo-
learned.sh...](http://www.taquitos.net/chipworld/articles/snaxpo-
learned.shtml)

> Convenience in foods will continue. Anything that takes the steps out of a
> process will become successful. Witness the "chip/dip" combo packs that
> Frito Lay is now selling. Open the package, you have chips and dip right
> there. No need to go to the fridge! At the testing area, Jays demonstrated a
> combo pack that had mini pretzels and honey mustard that was extremely
> tasty. Other examples included a pre-cooked baked potato that includes the
> sour cream, butter and salt and pepper inside the package. All you have to
> do is nuke the potato for a few minutes and you've got instant lunch.

~~~
hugh3
I'm really not sure how fast food product ideas contradict my point about
adding unnecessary complications to home electronics, but... damn, a one-step
microwaveable baked potato sounds _great_.

------
nadam
I am hacker and a geek, but nowadays I am more and more interested in
marketing. I am wondering in what part the existence of such a lab and the
emphasis in their communication on A.I. is a conscious marketing effort. I can
imagine that even if nothing from that lab will make direct profit for them,
and even if their search engine will never be even close to strong A.I. they
can communicate an excellent marketing message: when you use Google you use
strong A.I. (or at least almost). If we think about it this way the
secretiveness can also make the story more exciting from a marketing
perspective. Also if this is their main motivation then they will create more
'spectacular' prototypes rather than just honestly trying to solve deep
problems.

~~~
mattdeboard
Being more and more interested in marketing in the way you've described means
to me that you are cultivating a more and more robust, healthy skepticism of
the messaging that comes from our media/corporate centers.

------
ootachi
"Because Google X is a breeding ground for big bets that could turn into
colossal failures or Google’s next big business — and it could take years to
figure out which — just the idea of these experiments terrifies some
shareholders and analysts.

“These moon-shot projects are a very Google-y thing for them to do,” said
Colin W. Gillis, an analyst at BGC Partners. “People don’t love it but they
tolerate it because their core search business is firing away.” "

Is it just me or does this represent the worst of Wall Street short-term
thinking? I mean, the first sentence could really be read as an indictment of
venture capital as a whole.

------
badclient
I think what Google's best at is not so much innovation as taking existing
innovations typically reserved for Dept. of Defense/B2B uses and bringing it
to consumers for free.

We already know the DoD already has tech that is years ahead. Google is one of
the few companies who can not only afford to bring crazy breakthroughs like
Google Street but to do so in a financially profitable or feasible manner.

~~~
marshallp
I disagree that dod has the best tech already in "top secret". The best tech
is often dod sponsored, but is made public by the university researchers who
usually create it. And it's not costly, you can go read it and use it, often
the stuff is released as open source software on the researchers' website.

~~~
Jd
"But is made public by the university researchers who usually create it" <\--
yeah, the stuff you know about is made public, and the stuff you don't....
isn't. That's what secret means. I think I heard that 50% of the research in
Neuroscience labs today is DoD sponsored and never sees the light of day.
Mind-hacking anyone?

~~~
marshallp
Tech that could be applied to civilians and made money on doesn't stay hidden
for long - this is one place where the "greedy" mba types are the good guys.

~~~
Jd
I take it you think there are MBA types that wander around NSA headquarters,
grab the dragonfly-size spy robots and bring them to market?

~~~
marshallp
yeah, exactly.

there has to be a management structure even at nsa, and management types are
"networkers" who'll talk to people with money to invest.

~~~
nosequel
NSA gets their money whether you like it or not. They certainly have people in
charge who talk to the legislative branch, but they aren't MBA/marketing
people. The are usually ex-generals. Other agencies might seek outside
contractors, but the NSA is one of the few who do most of their work
themselves. I didn't work there, but that was my understanding at the time I
worked in other parts of the government.

~~~
marshallp
Doesn't matter about their backgrounds, mba or ex-general, people who rise to
executive levels rub shoulders with investors at cocktail parties and deals
happen.

~~~
nosequel
Seriously, what are you talking about? What investors? You have proven you
don't know what you are talking about in this thread, but I am curious what
you think is true? Who are the heads of the NSA meeting with who would be
considered investors? The NSA meets with the Armed Services board and the
Senate intelligence board, and that's about it. I get it, you think the
government is b.s., but groups like the NSA don't seek outside investment.

~~~
marshallp
No need to get rude, I'm not some teenage troll guy, I'm here for intelligent
discussion. I don't seen where I've "proven" myself wrong.

This thread is not about investment into nsa, but commercialization of nsa (or
other military/government org) technology. My point was that regardless of
nsa'a official stance of secrecy, tech gets "leaked" out into the commercial
sphere. You can't stop a good thing from spreading, no matter how hard you
try.

~~~
Jd
Are nuclear bombs good? Do the heads of our national security agencies take
technologies that could potentially kill the whole world's population and,
because they, like every other executive in the world, are an MBA-types, sell
it to whoever they happen to meet at a cocktail party? You may not be a
teenager, but I can't say that you aren't a troll.

~~~
marshallp
Nuclear tech, in the form of reactors has been commercialized for quite some
time if you haven't noticed. And no, I'm not a troll, just because someone
takes a contrary view they are not automatically a troll.

------
46Bit
I can't help but feel the article starts by missing the point. Connecting
random devices to the internet is only a good thing when you get something
neat out. Sticking a 3G modem in random devices & a bit of hardware is low-
hanging fruit.

------
keeran
Awesome to see both Andrew Ng (ml-class.com) and Sebastian Thrun (ai-
class.com) involved in these projects.

------
thadwoodman
I wonder if they will ever work on a flawless mobile OS that has tons of great
apps and great offline support for Google Docs.

~~~
suivix
Nothing is ever flawless. If you focus on refining one technology too long,
the world will change around you and it'll become obsolete. Imagine Microsoft
patching Windows 95 for 15 years.

------
balsam
X for Xerox? When can I expect futuristic visualizations from Google Design?

------
jopt
Maybe it's somehow an important proof-of-concept AI challenge, but restocking
my fridge does not make the list of things I desperately need better
technology for.

The driverless cars are old news and space elevators are a niche at best.
Whatever makes Google X interesting must truly be top secret.

~~~
wlievens
> space elevators are a niche at best

What does that even mean?

~~~
suivix
Only Willy Wonka and Richard Branson would buy one?

------
_corbett
this is where Google Labs went when it was "cut"

~~~
zem
not sure if you're being serious, but no, google labs was a bunch of
experimental projects run by normal google software engineers. this is an
entirely separate thing.

~~~
_corbett
partially a joke and partially just hopeful, yes. to explain myself, Google
seems to have attempted to appease investors by focusing on their core money
making products, while still maintaining their commitment to innovation with
spinoffs like this. so it's the best of both worlds for Google and for us in
this case. now if we could only find Google Code Search, Google Labs, and the
old design of Google Reader somewhere in there too....

------
jacques_chester
The spaghetti cannon continues to boom.

~~~
Roboprog
Too bad I can't watch the spaghetti cannon at work during lunch. I know it's
silly, but silly is fun.

Stuff like YouTube (as well as Netflix) is helping to kill broadcast TV
(alright, reality TV and other low value cruft is also helping to kill
broadcast, as well as fixed show schedules). Long term, internet video is more
democratic, as well as flexible and fun. Perhaps stuff like YouTube will have
more effect on society that internet-fridges and AI cars?

