
Google I/O 2017 - ergo14
https://google.com/io
======
AndrewKemendo
Honestly, as someone who has been playing around with/working with AI in some
form (previously bayes nets etc...) since the 90s and trying since 2012 to
build our computer vision company - every keynote from AFGAM makes me want to
give up a little more each time.

It's like even with a world class AI team the majors just blow past everyone
with their on demand scale, access to data, hardware, people and distribution.

In the past three weeks the products that were shown at conferences (GTC,
Build, I/O) would have been 100 different independent companies, with very
highly trained, specialized PhD level researchers and developers only 5 years
ago. Now this stuff is just baked in to the top platforms.

This has been happening for a while, and I've been saying it for a while too.
No clue where to go from here honestly.

edit: The point I didn't make here but is subtext is that, IMO ML/AI is the
last frontier for technology (an IMO humanity) so if a few dominate it, its
kind of game over for the existence of smaller players generally.

~~~
quotemstr
I've been wondering for a long time whether machine learning will break the
long-time tech industry lifecycle we've all come to regard as some kind of
immutable law of nature.

Traditionally, 1) we start with big, established companies in tech. 2) A few
people, dissatisfied with the trammels that big companies place on their
employees, leave, found a new company, and then, 3) through superior grit,
gumption, execution, flexibility, and speed, steal market share from the big
companies. As the new company grows, 4) it accumulates organizational scar
tissue and is slowly infiltrated by incompetent careerists, and finally, 5)
becomes the very company that the founders set out to create.

We've been going through this cycle since the late 1950s, when the "traitorous
eight" left Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory to found "Fairchild
Semiconductor".

Machine learning might stop this cycle by breaking step #3. Big companies have
access to huge data sets that no group of human developers, no matter how
talented, can match. Even slow, hidebound, and barely-competent use of these
data sets can squash upstart smaller companies.

It'll be like a planet, full of water and life, with a core that cools to the
point where it can no longer sustain plate tectonics. Without constant
replenishment, the crust seizes up, the oceans boil off, and the life dies.
The tech industry will become Mars.

~~~
roymurdock
Generally agree with OP that ML is one of the last viable frontiers for the
current generation of computer tech. We are basically taking the data
generated by machines invented decades ago, and using statistics to optimize a
few % of productivity points more out of them every year. This optimization
applies to humans to - one day you'll be required to have an OBD dongle
monitoring your driving data to get car insurance, for instance. Many facets
of your life will be monitored and fed into a company's individualized
production function or pricing equation.

When the economic cake is growing slowly, every last drop of productivity
enhancement counts, and ML is doing a good job at shaving a few basis points
off basic costs, such as energy (see DeepMind's work on Google's datacenters),
transportation (autonomous cars), and human capital (making some simple jobs
redundant). That's why everyone is piling into IoT/ML/AI right now.

What ML is NOT doing is creating a new paradigm/market/computing platform.
It's optimizing old markets and technologies. It's not baking new cakes.

We'll see a new platform soon. The cycle of human technological progress has
been chugging along steadily for a long time and has sped up exponentially in
the past 200 years. I'm sure some new tech will come along soon that will
allow us to bake more cakes instead of spreading icing ever-thinner on the
ones we already have.

~~~
halflings
Generally agree that ML is _often_ shaving off a few % after all the low
hanging fruits that can be achieved without it have been exploited, but...

> What ML is NOT doing is creating a new paradigm/market/computing platform.
> It's optimizing old markets and technologies. It's not baking new cakes.

This is simply not true: there are many products/markets (such as automatic
translation, speech recognition) that are simply not possible without this
progress in ML.

~~~
pas
What's the paradigm?

In translate it replaces a naive translator's job. In speech recognition it
gives you a new-ish interface to systems.

In prediction and personalization it gives you what you likely want. (Local
weather, local traffic info, local news, in the language it knows you
understand, in the format you prefer, at the time it think you most likely
want it, etc..).

It puts some "smart" into things. But translate is just a smart dictionary,
it's not a real translator, for that we need stronger AI (something like the
Jeopardy playing Watson + Google Knowledge Graph / FreeBase + language
translation + it should ask questions if it doesn't understand something).

ML is amazing, but it's just a slow march toward more and more adaptive smarts
(general intelligence) in a box (hence artificial). And there's probably a
tipping point for that. When it can start to learn, or program itself,
blablabla... ( [https://intelligence.org/2013/04/29/intelligence-
explosion-m...](https://intelligence.org/2013/04/29/intelligence-explosion-
microeconomics-released/) )

~~~
halflings
If we look at things from that point of view, then nothing is new.

What are computers good for? They are just replacing a calculator, which was
just replacing some manual calculation machines, which were just replacing
mental calculus.

A "naive translator's job" cannot translate arbitrary sentences for free and
instantaneously. We are not far from real-time (and quality) translation that
will make it possible to talk to somebody in a foreign language and have
everything translated on the go (there's already a feature that replaces text
in a foreign language _in_ the image you're viewing).

I don't know :) I think I'm quite satisfied with the level of disruption ML is
bringing to the world. And I feel people are constantly pushing away against
this ("This is not real AI!") every time we start to understand how these
things work.

Reinforcement Learning is the case of a program teaching itself (without
training data or instructions) but I still, some will argue it is not AI
because "it's just maths and engineering hacks", I guess.

~~~
pas
I understand how ML/AI works, and there are great things like collaborative
filtering, self-driving whatevers, "expert systems" (IBM Watson), magical
image processing (which just shows how much detail our own brains just
imagines and fills in for us in non-ideal conditions).

I'm not saying it's not real AI, I'm saying I can't wait for the time when
these separate components/models can be "synergized", when one big system can
be trained for multiple tasks, and when it can train itself tasks.

------
davesque
I know it's just par for the course, but I always get annoyed how peppy and
fake these keynotes are. When they go with this kind of faux-personal style
where they're staging calls to their mother on stage, etc. It actually comes
across as the opposite of personal and just seems really rehearsed and
distracting. I'm actually not sure who they're speaking to exactly when they
go with this approach as I feel like most other people would have the same
reaction as me. But I guess I don't know that for sure.

~~~
cat199
I suggest purchasing a scarf, growing a beard, wearing some flannel and
extremely thick glasses, and getting some cold brew coffee to sip. Things will
make more sense then.

~~~
return0
> purchasing a scarf

either steal a used one, or knit one yourself

------
znpy
So Youtube is announcing "super chats"... Basically if you pay, your message
to a live stream is highlighted so that the streamer can notice it.

Basically is the camgirl business model, fifteen years later.

Nothing bad, just...lol.

~~~
Shywim
The way she said "Cool, no?!" after demonstrating this and the little silence
after was half-way embarassing...

I mean, they sure DO know that this feature has been on twitch for one year
now, right? It should have been a side note somewhere or an announce on a
product blog, not a full blown stage demo...

~~~
pgodzin
I think the point of it being presented at I/O was a new API that lets Youtube
streamers sync up the "superchats" with anything they want in the real world.

~~~
tkxxx7
Why didn't Twitter make this money a long time ago? All those tweets scrolling
across TV for free...

~~~
mbaha
Because tweets are mostly curated for TV audiences. Paying for top tweets
would show that editorial staff doesn't give a flying fudge about their
audiance, and simply want to make money (which you are also giving it to them
by sitting through commercials).

------
emsy
I've always been somewhat underwhelmed by AI stuff but Google is rocking it.
As a long time iPhone user I'm really tempted by their stuff (if it wasn't for
the privacy creep). Apple isn't even in the same league as Google when it
comes to AI and services.

~~~
ethbro
_> if it wasn't for the privacy creep_

The sad thing is, I'd pay Google $500+/yr to use their tech... _if_ they could
guarantee a firewall between any of my data moving outside of Google-proper.

~~~
AndrewKemendo
What do you mean? Google doesn't re-sell your data to third parties - that
wouldn't make any sense. Third parties pay (bid) for the chance to put their
ads in front of you...

~~~
donald123
Not making sense doesn't translate to guarantee. Third parties also include
governments.

~~~
joshuamorton
(I work at google)

FWIW the privacy policies pretty clearly outline that your information isn't
given to third parties. So this is already guaranteed.

~~~
kbenson
I think what would make ethbro more confident, and myself as well, was if
there was a way to pay that included a contract ensuring my data _could not_
be used in certain ways without my express permission.

To clarify, I don't worry about the Google of today, I worry about the Google
a decade from now, or even worse, the company that buys a chunk of it down the
line that feels no such compunctions about using that data however they see
fit. A legal contract would go a long ways towards preventing this
possibility.

~~~
joshuamorton
I'm obviously not a lawyer, but to my knowledge, a privacy policy is a
contract that ensures that your data cannot be used in certain ways without
your express consent. A future google would have the option to update their
privacy policy, but they couldn't use your information unless you opted in to
the new policy (which companies often do by saying "if you continue to use
this, you opt in").

~~~
kbenson
> but they couldn't use your information unless you opted in to the new policy
> (which companies often do by saying "if you continue to use this, you opt
> in").

Yes. I'm working under the assumption (which may or may not be correct) that
an official legal contract (and not just a privacy policy which _may_ be
enforceable as a contract depending on locale) would both require more formal
acceptance (i.e. typing in your name and the date for a digital signature and
a note that it's illegal to sign if you are not that person instead of just a
click on a button saying "I accept"), and provide a much easier time for any
individual wishing to pursue legal action against an entity that violated it
(which should keep most of those violations at bay).

In other words, I see privacy policies as new, unstandardized, not taken very
seriously by many companies, and possibly useless in some jurisdictions. That
may or may not be accurate, as I have no legal experience.

~~~
joshuamorton
Then wouldn't the right course of action be to talk to a lawyer and not ask
google to charge you for something they already do for free?

~~~
kbenson
Whether they charge you or not is irrelevant to the point I'm making. Whether
they make it part of the standard offerings, or charge for it, some people
would like some assurance that they have actual legal control over their data
and it's harder to subvert than an accidental click, and they have some
recourse should that data be abused.

This is not a problem unique to Google. I'm far more worried about Facebook
than Google with regard to this.

------
ChuckMcM
Based on the Google I/O talk about actions/home/etc it is seems like they are
speaking directly to Amazon. Clearly they aren't looking at Facebook, Apple,
or Microsoft here. They have Alexa in their sights.

That said, I _really_ hope they improve the hands free SMS interactions. My
phone tells me I have a text and asks me to say 'listen' to hear it, but it
doesn't start listening for the word until it beeps, so we enter into a
staccato repeated 'listen' wait 'listen' wait then finally the text is read.
Then after its read, it says "Say Ok to send a respond" not just "Would you
like to respond?" where answering yes or no would be fine. It never vocalizes
what special phrase you have to use to answer in the negative (if you're
wondering it is 'cancel'). So here's hoping for a much better dialoging
system.

~~~
sbuttgereit
I don't know. Much of the reason I keep Facebook at all is because I share
photos with family and friends.... what they're talking about right now
(Google Photos) pretty much solves that problem without my friends/family just
needing a phone.... which means I don't really need Facebook for the one
reason I've kept it.

------
TeMPOraL
Oh man, it seems that Android Go is a better system than Android itself. The
features they presented - like easy off-line sharing, downloading YT videos,
data usage management up front - are ones we should have had on normal Android
phones for a long time.

~~~
gervase
Agreed. Greater efficiency, lower power and data usage... are those not things
that premium phones can benefit from also?

I suppose you have to give up some features, but given how few of the features
on most apps I do use, I think this could be an acceptable tradeoff.

~~~
julioneander
Just wait until eventually someone over the XDA forums creates an Android Go
based ROM with those features back, but still with the more efficient kernel
and base system.

I'm actually pretty stoked for this to be honest! Can you imagine if there was
the possibility of switching those profiles in real-time, like an upgraded
version of the "battery saver" that already exists.

~~~
namaemuta
Would be possible to use Android Go on old devices that are stuck on old
android versions? if that possible it would be awesome.

------
lanestp
The I/O keynote always bothers me. Apple and AWS have great Keynotes that get
me excited to develop on their platforms. Google's always comes across as too
self congratulating.

~~~
krzyk
You mentioned that Apple has great Keynotes and at the same time you wrote
that "Google's always too self congratulating"?

Didn't you mean the opposite? Apple is always so self centered on their
presentation that it is hard to watch.

~~~
lanestp
They're self centered but it's about stuff that is relevant to me. All this
talk about Google Assistant is useless to me as a developer. At least Apple
talks about stuff I'm able to plug into.

~~~
bobsam
Are you really watching the keynote? They literally just released TPUs to
developers.

Last time I watched wwdc they had staged a standing ovation for a trashcan...

------
Klathmon
Wow, Kotlin is now a first class supported language with Android!

------
jtraffic
I feel nervous admitting this, but I don't see much of value here. I am
definitely not typical, I realize, and often the major benefits of technology
don't become apparent until a while after they are announced. But, right now,
before people show me why it's amazing, I see these things as small marginal
improvements.

I'm an open minded person, though, so I'm interested to learn what I'm
missing.

~~~
shaklee3
I agree to some extent, but the Google photos features are always a really
nice touch. Having it remind you to share pictures of people you just took a
picture of, or being able to share your entire library with a spouse is really
useful.

------
gallerdude
The demos always get a bit excessive. I'm no journalist, but I'd be way
happier if they just told us what they added and moved on.

~~~
graphitezepp
I feel like if tech announcements should just be basically patch notes. Why
all the pomp?

~~~
ralusek
The answer is obvious: some people like it.

------
lopespm
I can´t help to think this was not a business as usual I/O, it feels like the
concretization of the exponential nature of technology development, sported
nowadays a good deal by deep learning. Notice that a good portion of the
products presented in I/O weren't just a result of many people grinding away
on a problem (say, iterating on a new version of a operating system), but
where "machines" worked/trained on a problem in order to do something useful
for us.

This is not news to me nor anyone here I am sure, but seeing it realized on a
keynote where a company gives us an update on what was accomplished in roughly
a year and seeing it realized in a more wholesome approach/platform (Google
Assistant), instead of scattered along different products, just made me
realize that a fundamental mindshift is happening on a more global scale. From
makers ("I will make this machine/software so that it can help with X") to
leaders of machines ("I will give the necessary conditions for the machine to
help with X").

------
onmobiletemp
I thought it was funny how video previews and superchats have been around
forever in porn. Google lens made me genuinely excited. The most important bit
was also the shortest: designing nets with nets. I wonder what nn experts
think of that little sidenote.

------
KurtMueller
Watching this reminds me that the satire in HBO's Silicon Valley is pretty
spot on.

~~~
flinty
Shots for each time they said platform in the keynote will get you alcohol
poisoning

------
plg
This all looks awesome (e.g. google assistant, google lens, google home, etc)
but I would rather pay some $ for the service and have the guarantee that my
data are my data ... than have it for free and have google mine my data to
sell me ads or sell profiles to who knows who.

Maybe others are willing to trade the privacy creep for it being "free" but
I'm not.

It would be great to have the option.

~~~
aesthetics1
Google simply does not do this. They are very transparent about their security
and privacy policies and I encourage you to read through the policies. Google
uses the data internally to improve your experience - they are not in the
business of selling your data to third parties.

~~~
warkdarrior
> Google [...] are not in the business of selling your data

Not today, not yet

~~~
Goronmon
If that is your concern, how would paying into the system improve things in
anyway?

------
tsycho
Google Photos "shared libraries" looks awesome!

~~~
forgot-my-pw
Just be careful not to take nudes while your kids photos sit in a frame behind
you. Auto send to mom.

~~~
TeMPOraL
We're in for some fun times.

------
Keyframe
I would like to know more about that black magic of removing things from
photos in the foreground.

~~~
halflings
[https://www.technologyreview.com/s/539936/erase-
obstructions...](https://www.technologyreview.com/s/539936/erase-obstructions-
from-photos-with-a-click/)

~~~
Keyframe
Thanks!

------
recursion
My wallet is ready. Hoping for some nice new devices.

~~~
nailer
Hope for some way of making sure Android doesn't turn into Windows XP (ie,
millions of no longer supported devices connected to the internet).

~~~
ctz
Doesn't? It's already a much bigger problem than Windows XP. There are
_billions_ of Android devices shipped each year, and a miniscule proportion
get updates. Even the best devices for updates only get them for a couple of
years.

If this isn't a disaster bigger than Windows XP, it'll only be because most of
the devices end up in landfill.

~~~
eslaught
This is an absurd comparison. The number of devices running Gingerbread (which
is 7 years old) is around 1% [1]. At the time when XP was 10 years old, its
usage was much higher.

I understand that phones don't receive updates (I've had several myself), but
practically speaking it only takes about 3-4 years for the world to move to
new Android releases. As of today, over 50% of devices are Lollipop (3 years
old) or newer, and over 75% are on Kitkat or newer (4 years old). I've been
around long enough to remember the days when people were complaining that they
would never be able to take advantage of _Froyo_. That has clearly not
happened to us; Froyo is long dead and gone at this point (and it's worth
noting that Froyo is about the right age to compare to XP at the time of its
deprecation, and has nowhere near the usage).

The Android update situation is definitely bad for security, but the situation
is simply not in the same class as Windows XP. I'm pretty sure up until the
point where Microsoft forceably deprecated XP, there were still new computers
(especially in places like China) being sold with it. With Android, old phones
become obsolete and get replaced by new ones, and manufacturers do adopt the
new OS versions for their new phones which causes updates to make their way to
users (albiet slowly). I don't think you could buy a new phone (even in China)
with Froyo today.

[1]:
[https://developer.android.com/about/dashboards/index.html](https://developer.android.com/about/dashboards/index.html)

~~~
nailer
How many Android 5 devices are still receiving security updates?

------
angryasian
link to direct youtube live

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2VF8tmLFHw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2VF8tmLFHw)

~~~
adrianlmm
The irony, YouTube can't keep up with the streaming.

~~~
eugeneionesco
It can, it's your network that's the issue.

~~~
adrianlmm
My network is fine, and it broadcasted Build 2017 w/o problems.

------
wavesounds
LCD Soundsystem had this giant farewell show at Madison Square Garden complete
with documentary and album saying it was there last show ever. Now they've
come back to play tech conferences? Lame

~~~
belak
They actually reunited a few years ago, have been playing shows since then,
and are releasing a new album this year. They didn't get back together just to
play a show at a tech conference.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LCD_Soundsystem#Reunion_and_ne...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LCD_Soundsystem#Reunion_and_new_album_.282015.E2.80.93present.29)

~~~
jdhawk
Yeah, they were a headliner at Austin City Limits last year...

------
agiamas
SuperChat sounds like Jackass coming to Youtube, can't wait ! Parker/Stone
satirised it 17 years ago in Fat Camp episode, it's gonna be so awesome :)

------
return0
Google in full offence on ML/AI. Their computing advantage enables them to
outperform everyone else at this point. AI dominance and monopoly is in sight.

------
kbenson
I don't have time to watch this, but I would like to go back and find
highlights and hear about some interesting stuff earlier than later. Can
someone point out a good liveblog/livetweet source?

~~~
Symmetry
Here:

[http://www.anandtech.com/show/11409/the-google-
io-2017-keyno...](http://www.anandtech.com/show/11409/the-google-
io-2017-keynote-live-blog)

------
noja
Monthly Android updates everywhere please.

~~~
nailer
Yep. And tie it to 'Google Experience'. No updates? Then no Play store, no
Gmail.

------
navbaker
I'm really hoping they talk about the Starcraft 2 API they're working on.
Looking forward to getting my hands on a tool less finicky than BWAPI.

------
blhack
Did google make _another_ new chat platform?

~~~
flinty
Nope, they made a box

------
sirwitti
Why, oh why is the sound that bad? Sounds like they're adding reverb for the
live sound and just use that for the stream...

~~~
obstinate
It's at Shoreline amphitheatre, so a little reverberation is kinda inevitable.
Someone should develop an AI to delete reverb, though.

~~~
cat199
don't think that would really require 'AI', no?

or is 'AI' the new 'Algorithm' like 'API' is the new 'server'

~~~
obstinate
Definitely the latter.

------
meow_mix
Great stuff for google home but I thought they already had almost all of this

------
shinryuu
Is there no ATAP session in google I/O this year?

------
blhack
Kotlin? Why not golang, I wonder?

~~~
itp
Long story short, Kotlin is easy to support without substantive (any?) changes
to Android runtime, golang would involve much more effort.

It's also not clear to me there's any desire to write applications in golang.

~~~
blhack
Native android application development is totally not my community. I admit I
have never even heard or kotlin.

Actually, at the coworking space I'm currently streaming the conference at,
_nobody_ had heard of kotlin.

edit: AH, Kotlin runs on the java virtual machine. That makes much more sense
to me now.

~~~
itp
Sorry, that's the context I should have provided! (Knowing that also probably
explains why they cut to a shot of the JetBrains CEO in the audience, since
Kotlin originated there.)

------
holydude
These Google people. They are so full of themselves. Yet they fail to deliver
a profitable product besides serving ads

~~~
simooooo
Seems like they are doing pretty well to me..

------
0003
"Have my router pw, Google"

edit: Should have emphasized the using camera part.

~~~
halflings
1) It already has it when you enter the password manually. 2) What do you
think Google will do with your router password?

~~~
0003
Yes. But are we really going to ingrain our mindset that taking pictures of
passwords & sending them to the Cloud is safe?

~~~
yincrash
Tons of people already save their passwords in Chrome/SmartLock

