In 2016 Google CEO Sundar Pichai introduced that “in the long term, we’re evolving in computing from a ‘mobile-first’ to an ‘AI-first’ world.”
In 2018, he famously informed Kara Swisher that AI is “one of the essential issues that humanity is engaged on. It’s extra profound than, I don’t know, electrical energy or hearth.”
It’s typically over-looked that he opened that assertion by saying “We don’t take a really optimistic view of AI” and closed by responding to Swisher’s remark that “hearth is fairly good” with “(hearth) kills folks too, we’ve realized to harness hearth for the advantages of humanity however we’ve to beat its downsides too.”
And but, simply over 4 years later Pichai, by then additionally CEO of Google’s mum or dad firm, Alphabet, issued a ‘code crimson’ and directed a number of division heads together with these in control of analysis, belief, and security “to modify gears to help within the growth and launch of AI prototypes and merchandise.”
This directional change came about solely three weeks after the launch of OpenAI’s ChatGPT product.
On the time, The New York Instances warned that “as a result of these new chat bots study their expertise by analyzing big quantities of knowledge posted to the web, they’ve a manner of mixing fiction with truth” and “that would flip folks towards Google and harm the company model it has spent many years constructing.”
The Instances additionally quoted College of Washington professor Margaret O’Mara saying, “For corporations which have turn into terribly profitable doing one market-defining factor, it’s onerous to have a second act with one thing solely totally different.”
That was in late 2022, as of mid-year 2025, it’s clear that Pichai has broken Google’s model and its core search product in a seemingly competitors with OpenAI.
As I attempted to grasp what Pichai was doing, my preliminary framework was Cory Doctorow’s “enshittification” idea outlined as when “distributors create high-quality choices to draw customers, then they degrade these choices to raised serve enterprise clients, and eventually degrade their companies to customers and enterprise clients to maximise earnings for shareholders.”
Over the previous yr I’ve discovered Ed Zitron’s evaluation of Google’s decision-making has deepened my understanding of WTF Pichai is as much as. I’ll come again to Zitron in a second, however for these new to his work, I’d suggest giving these three items a fast skim:
- The Rot Financial system
- The Man Who Killed Google Search
- The Period Of The Enterprise Fool
I’ve additionally discovered pioneering AI researcher Gary Marcus’ work very helpful — he flagged a lot of the limitations of LLM AI many years in the past and has been persistently vindicated in his skepticism that the present OpenAI and Alphabet strategy to AI will really show “as essential as hearth.” We’ll come again to Marcus too.
However first I wish to contact on an concept that Bare Capitalism readers have seen not too long ago in one other context by way of Curro Jimenez: nihilism.
Curro was quoting the French sociologist Emmanuel Todd’s evaluation of Israel’s current habits in Gaza and Iran and this quote jumped out at me: “Maybe within the unconscious depths of the Israeli psyche, being Israeli immediately is now not about being Jewish — it’s about combating the Arabs.”
I might argue that for Pichai and people remaining at Google underneath his management, being Google immediately is now not about being the dominant search engine — it’s about combating OpenAi/ChatGPT.
On Wednesday, I’ll be making use of Todd’s formulation to the present management of the Democratic get together which is now not about being the get together of the working class however moderately it’s about combating off the progressive wing of the get together.
Now, let’s dive into Ed Zitron’s rationalization of why Google is prepared to threat its extremely profitable core search enterprise and possibly even destroy the open net itself in a quest to compete with Open AI.
Zitron is an efficient polemicist so let’s let him prepare dinner just a little:
Google now not gives the “greatest” outcome or reply to your question – it gives the reply that it believes is most helpful or worthwhile to Google. Google Search gives a “free” service, however the price is a supply of knowledge corrupted by a profit-seeking entity seeking to manipulate you into giving cash to the profit-seeking entities that pay them.
The web result’s a product that utterly sucks.
…That’s as a result of Google has, like each main tech firm, targeted solely on what’s going to make revenues improve, even when the price of doing so is destroying its whole legacy. Google has introduced their very own “Bard AI” to compete with Bing’s ChatGPT integration, and I’ll be sincere – I really feel just a little loopy that no one is saying the reality, which is that Google broke the product that made them well-known and is now productizing fixing their very own downside as innovation.
…
Enterprise capital and the general public markets don’t really reward or respect “good” companies or “good” CEOs – they reward folks that may steer the sort of progress that raises the worth of an asset. …Sundar Pichai isn’t paid $280 million a yr as a result of he’s a “good CEO.” In spite of everything, Google has all however destroyed its search product. He’s paid as a result of he finds methods to extend the general progress of the corporate (even whereas their cloud division nonetheless loses cash), and thus the inventory goes up.
Zitron expanded on these concepts in his “Enterprise Fool” piece:
Our economic system is run by those who don’t take part in it and our tech corporations are directed by those who don’t expertise the issues they allege to unravel for his or her clients, as the trendy government is now not an individual with calls for or duties past their allegiance to shareholder worth.
The incentives behind successfully every little thing we do have been damaged by many years of neoliberal considering, the place the concept of an organization — an entity created to do a factor in alternate for cash —has been drained of all that means past the continued domination and extraction of every little thing round it, focusing closely on short-term beneficial properties and progress in any respect prices. In doing so, the definition of a “good enterprise” has modified from one which makes good merchandise at a good value to a sustainable and dependable market, to at least one that may show probably the most inventory value progress from quarter to quarter.
Ewan Morrison elegantly summarized why Pinchai’s dedication to AI is so riskly to its search enterprise and the Open Net itself:
One drop of sewage in a glass of water turns the complete glass into sewage.
That is taking place with AI hallucinated details on the web. AI programs have 48% error margins & are turning our historic, information, philosophical & scientific information on the web into sewage.
Don’t drink it. pic.twitter.com/nN0dhV9Dg2— Ewan Morrison (@MrEwanMorrison) June 19, 2025
And like Captain Ahab, Pinchai is aware of he will need to have a crew simply as devoted to his suicidal mission as he’s. He won’t be nailing a gold coin to the mast and demanding loyalty oaths, however he’s aggressively pushing buy-out affords on Googlers who usually are not down with this system:
Bear in mind Google is providing buyouts to staff who aren’t all-in on how the corporate is doing issues and it’s “AI first” route. Sadly, I’ve to assume that also working for Google at this level means they assist what’s occurred and the way the corporate intends to turn into an a solution engine.
— Katherine Argent (@effthealgorithm) June 21, 2025
Let me wrap with a few paragraphs from Freddie de Boer in regards to the points the entire of tech faces and why it thinks AI is the reply:
the hype is a phenomenon pushed by wants which are basically monetary in origin. The tech corporations want a brand new suite of merchandise that may restore their eroding profitability and encourage the general public the best way that the general public was impressed within the late 2000s and early 2010s; the monetary sector and traders want the tech corporations to be the unicorn shares that they as soon as had been. As common with speculative capitalism, the tail is wagging the canine. When hockey stick progress doesn’t emerge naturally from actuality, it is going to be invented.
Media hype about AI, the just about literal absence of any countervailing narrative, the relentless manner that the stodgiest publications inflate the threats/hopes which were invested in these applied sciences… it’s all downstream of the will to really feel about tech the best way folks did within the Obama period and the demand from the moneyed to have the proper lottery tickets to purchase. Lots of people who’re used to getting what they need need to let the nice occasions roll once more, and “AI” is exactly the sort of obscure instrument into which they will throw these hopes. Anybody who factors out that the emperor has no garments is just informed that they don’t perceive the know-how, and yearly that goes by that human life is just not critically disrupted by this know-how is only a minor delay. Rinse and repeat.
In future posts, I’ll take a look at different gamers within the AI area — OpenAI, Meta, Microsoft, Amazon, and Apple.
