# My favourite critiques of AI and Big Tech last week

# How Google is killing journalism (even further)

Link: Google is abruptly changing the game for journalism — again (opens new window)

This week, Google went one step further, rolling out the advanced search tool AI Mode to Australian users, which will further sideline news sites and embed the shift from "search engine" to "answer engine".

Some publishers are discussing "Google Zero" — the hypothetical moment when Google Search stops sending any traffic to third-party websites, instead providing AI overviews directly on the search results page.

# An engineer's appeal for us to take back our power from Big Tech

Link: Reflections on Big Tech (opens new window)

We are slaves to a system we didn’t create. Yet I’m here to tell you, it’s our duty to do something about it. Life isn’t about endlessly scrolling X, TikTok, or whatever else holds your attention. There is real purpose to this life. And part of that purpose is for us to rectify a wrong when we see it. A lot has happened in the past two years. A lot has happened in the past decade. But what’s really become clear to me is, we can’t keep letting ourselves be beholden to these things that are just corporations feeding off our attention to make money. There is a justification that they are building technology that helps humanity, and yet all I see is massive levels of addiction, inequality, and unhappiness. We are depressed. We are in a horrible state. We are as far from what it means to be human as we can be.

I am utterly and entirely sickened by the state of Big Tech. As engineers, we are the ones with the power; we have the ability to create real change, we can do something that reorients the state of play. I don’t know how much of this is a technology problem versus a people problem, but what I do feel is that something needs to change. And that has to start with us. We have to do something. There are certain things we cannot affect directly, not yet, but there’s a lot we can do. And we should do it.

# Trolling as advertising and former OpenAI employees raising money for companies without products

Link: AI profiteering is now indistinguishable from trolling (opens new window)

But suffice to say we’re in a moment where $12 billion companies are formed entirely on the basis of one of the founders having formerly worked at OpenAI and literally nothing else. I am talking of course about former OpenAI CTO (and very very briefly tenured CEO) Mira Murati, who left OpenAI in September 2024. She announced her new company Thinking Machines the next February, and began seeking investors. Not only was there no product to speak of, she apparently would not even discuss her plans to make one with potential backers.

“It was the most absurd pitch meeting,” one investor who met with Murati said, according to the Information. “She was like, ‘So we’re doing an AI company with the best AI people, but we can’t answer any questions.’”

No matter, investors soon handed her $2 billion anyway.

# Bonus podcast episode

As a bonus, I really enjoyed Search Engine's Cocomelon For Adults (opens new window) episode. It's a hilarious overview of OpenAI's recently released TikTok-esque Sora 2 app.