Panic, fear, and unmotivated: ex-Google manager criticizes the company's work on AI

Ex-Google manager Scott Jenson believes that the company can potentially be a serious player in the AI market, but it is hampered by a lack of motivation and panic (stone cold panic).

«The artificial intelligence projects I worked on were unmotivated and panic-driven,» he wrote on LinledIn.

In his opinion, this «myopia» is not caused by user needs. It’s just a fear of losing to the competition.

Later, the author of the post clarified that he was not a senior executive at Google and that the projects he worked on «were quite limited»:«my comment is more related to the general frustration of the entire industry and its approach to AI».

Scott Jenson emphasized that this is not the first time a company has been afraid and panicked in a competitive situation.

«The same thing happened 13 years ago with Google+, I was there during that fiasco. It was a similar reaction»,” he said.

Google+ was a social network that the company launched in June 2011. The social network never became a competitor to Facebook, constantly facing «low usage and» engagement. The project was finally shut down in April 2019.

According to Jenson’s LinkedIn profile, he is a graduate of Stanford University and has worked at Google for a total of about 16 years.

Scott Jenson has been employed at Google three times.

The first time was from 2005 to 2011. At that time, he was in charge of the mobile UX design department.
In 2013, he rejoined Google and worked there for over 8 years, focusing on product strategy.
Jenson’s last and shortest period at Google lasted from April 2022 to March 2024. He explored new ways to use haptic technology for Android.

However, according to the expert, Google is not the only one making such mistakes.

«By the way, Apple is no different. They are also trying to create artificial intelligence in Siri. When the emperor eventually has no clothes, they will be pressed by someone who thinks more»,” he said.

It’s worth noting that Jenson himself worked as an interface designer at Apple for eight years.

It is worth noting that an AI race is currently taking place in the technological dimension: Google and Apple are trying to catch up with OpenAI.

However, neither financial capabilities nor previous investments in AI have provided any advantage to either company.

The New York Times even wrote that Apple’s software executives tested ChatGPT for weeks on their own before realizing they needed to update their digital assistant Siri.

According to BloombergApple is closing in on a deal with OpenAI to integrate ChatGPT into the next version of iOS.

Panic, fear, and unmotivated: ex-Google manager criticizes the company’s work on AI