Tech demos being scripted is something I’ve come to expect, but for Google to practically lie about their capabilities is alarming. After all, they’re passing off a video of “here’s where we are” that’s really “this is what we want to get to”. Not really confidence inspiring.

Their research ended up as the groundwork for what’d become the foundation of a lot of other AI services, so it’s obvious Google has the talent to pull this off. I can understand the rush to play catch-up since everyone else was questioning Google’s ability to deliver AI in a meaningful way publicly, but instead of leaving me with the impression that they’re on track to catch up, this leads me to think they’re much further behind than I previously thought.

OpenAI has a lot of momentum right now, they showed an impressive product that’s become a household name in under a year. Even if OpenAI doesn’t show any improvements on their AI work, I think they can comfortably rest knowing that one of the wealthiest companies is having a difficult time catching up to their “wow” factor.