alt Hacker NewsSuddenly all this focus on world models by Deep mind starts to make sense. I've never really thought of Waymo as a robot in the same way as e.g. a Boston Dynamics humanoid, but of course it is a robot of sorts.
Google/Alphabet are so vertically integrated for AI when you think about it. Compare what they're doing - their own power generation , their own silicon, their own data centers, search Gmail YouTube Gemini workspace wallet, billions and billions of Android and Chromebook users, their ads everywhere, their browser everywhere, waymo, probably buy back Boston dynamics soon enough (they're recently partnered together), fusion research, drugs discovery.... and then look at ChatGPT's chatbot or grok's porn. Pales in comparison.
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Internal firewalls and poor management means that the vast majority of integration opportunities are missed.
> Suddenly all this focus on world models by Deep mind starts to make sense
Google's been thinking about world models since at least 2018: https://arxiv.org/abs/1803.10122
Tesla built something like this for FSD training, they presented many years ago. I never understood why they did productize it. It would have made a brilliant Maps alternative, which country automatically update from Tesla cars on the road. Could live update with speed cameras and road conditions. Like many things they've fallen behind
>I've never really thought of Waymo as a robot in the same way as e.g. a Boston Dynamics humanoid, but of course it is a robot of sorts.
I always understood this to be why Tesla started working on humanoid robots
Which is why it's embarrassing how much worse Gemini is at searching the web for grounding information, and how incredibly bad gemini cli is.
The vertical integration argument should apply to Grok. They have Tesla driving data (probably much more data than Waymo), Twitter data, plus Tesla/SpaceX manufacturing data. When/if Optimus starts on the production line, they'll have that data too. You could argue they haven't figured out how to take advantage of it, but the potential is definitely there.
But somehow google fails to execute. Gemini is useless for programming and I don’t think even bother to use it as chat app. Claude code + gpt 5.2 xhigh for coding and gpt as chat app are really the only ones that are worth it(price and time wise)
Grok/xAI is a joke at this point. A true money pit without any hopes for a serious revenue stream.
They should be bought by a rocket company. Then they would stand a chance.
The flywheel is starting to spin......
>or grok's porn
I know it’s gross, but I would not discount this. Remember why Blu-ray won over HDDVD? I know it won for many other technical reasons, but I think there are a few historical examples of sexual content being a big competitive advantage.
What an upsetting comment. I'm glad you came around but what did you think was going to be effective before you came around to world models?
It's a 3500lb robot that can kill you.
Boston Robotics is working on a smaller robot that can kill you.
Anduril is working on even smaller robots that can kill you.
The future sucks.
"Waymo as a robot in the same way"
Erm, a dishwasher, washing machine, automated vacuum can be considered robots. Im confused as to this obsession of the term - there are many robots that already exist. Robotics have been involved in the production of cars for decades.
......
Google has been doing more R&D and internal deployment of AI and less trying to sell it as a product. IMHO that difference in focus makes a huge difference. I used to think their early work on self-driving cars was primarily to support Street View in thier maps.