
Google: Our assistant will trigger the next era of AI - fnbr
https://backchannel.com/google-our-assistant-will-trigger-the-next-era-of-ai-3c72a4d7bc75#.lvdwxi4i2
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fnbr
The key quote here is this:

> “When you try to build a system for understanding natural language, and you
> don’t have many examples of the kind of understanding you want,” Pereira
> says, “then you have to prescribe, you have to write—essentially teach it
> grammar—so that it can do the understanding. That teaching is very
> laborious.”

> When millions of people begin conversing with Google, through the Assistant,
> the seas of difficulty suddenly part.

This is why Google has been able to continue to dominate search (IMO). Their
original algorithm was radically better than the competitors, which allowed
them to start to gather extremely relevant, and hence valuable, data. They
have then used that data to make their algorithm better, creating a virtuous
cycle.

Additionally, the same reason explains why Siri sucks- Apple might have
brilliant researchers working on it, but they don't have the same data that
Google has access to, which hamstrings them.

The extreme, non-linear value of the data makes me extremely bullish on
Amazon. Alexa/Echo are allowing Amazon to gather an extremely large set of
very valuable data that they can use. If they proceed to open up Alexa through
an API (which I believe they're planning on doing), that value will continue
to skyrocket.

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visarga
> Additionally, the same reason explains why Siri sucks Apple might have
> brilliant researchers working on it, but they don't have the same data that
> Google has access to

Nah, I think it's mostly because Google has hired better talent (and more
employees working on ML) and invested more money into research. It's only
natural that a team of 300 does more than a team of 30, but I am just
guessing. Apple has a web browser and two OS platforms, with cloud services.
They have tons of data in the system, just like Google.

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tmaly
I have a nexus 5 running android 4.3. Even without this new assistant, I get
all sorts of youtube suggestions that creep me out and make me think I am
being profiled on every single detail about my life.

