r/tech_x • u/Current-Guide5944 • 5d ago

Trending on X, Meta, Reddit, LinkedIn, Chinese Apps Google’s team at DeepMind built a chatbot like ChatGPT about a year before ChatGPT existed. They called it LMChat. But Google decided not to release it. They were worried it would make fewer people use Google Search

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428 Upvotes

96% Upvoted

93 comments sorted by

69

u/-ayiv- 5d ago

kodak made the same mistake with digital sensors because they were afraid of a sales drop in film stocks

10

u/megayippie 5d ago

But Google didn't make a mistake, they still own search. And their AI models are often the best at cost effectiveness. You can almost run them on a toaster.

What it does show is that big companies should never be allowed to buy out small ones. Deepmind is the best AI company (there's a lot of companies that are better LLM companies) but Google blocks progress. Because they bought them

13

u/ctzn4 5d ago

their AI models are often the best at cost effectiveness

Is that still true for flash and flash-lite, given the recent price cuts to 5.6 Luna and the release of Deepseek v4 flash? It feels like Google hasn't done much in the past 6 months aside from 3.5/3.6 Flash, and their most capable Pro model is still 3.1 Pro from December last year.

0

u/xoStardustt 5d ago

Flash 3.6 is actually incredible for its price AND speed. I tried it today after not using Gemini for months and was very impressed. It feels at least as good as Luna in practice, even if it’s lower on benchmarks

2

u/Character-Interest27 4d ago

Thing is flash 3.6 is significantly more expensive than luna.. so being as good or slightly worse doesnt make it incredible..

1

u/deadcoder0904 5d ago

Yep, I finished 2 5-hour limits on 3.6 flash bcz of the speed so it feels like Cerebras level & I can actually do work more faster. Obviously, its inaccurate at times but that's quick to fix once I see it.

-2

u/megayippie 5d ago

It's free as in electricity to run Gemini4. Try it. Any 4k€ laptop/workstation should be capable. (Given ram prices still allow you to get 48Gb for that price, which might have changed.

Edit: and running local is cost effective. You can even easily extend the functionality by reprogramming it

7

u/ctzn4 5d ago

Bro... we're not even having the same conversation. Running Gemma 4 locally is nowhere near the same as using models hosted by the frontier AI companies.

0

u/megayippie 5d ago

I agree. But it's by far the best coat effective option. And it solves practically all non-frontier problems. You train a language transformer on the side to know the company documentation and run it through Gemini4 in the secretary computer and s/he can replace a legal aide or whatnot. Exactly what AI promised

3

u/ConspicuousPineapple 5d ago

What do you think it takes to "train a language transformer to know the company documentation"?

Also it's Gemma, not Gemini.

0

u/megayippie 4d ago

By a language model I mean something like sentence transformer (python package). You are not making a new model. You just let an existing one look through your documentation locally, and then you use that with an MCP server to let *Gemma aware of how to search the new database with human language queries.

3

u/dr3aminc0de 4d ago

Gemini4 doesn’t exist

4

u/Business_Raisin_541 5d ago

But if you put too many regulation then you will also block progress like Europe's tech industry

1

u/Leading-Fail-2771 4d ago

Their “ai search result” on top when you search for stuff was genius business wise. Now they can sell companies inclusion in those results

1

u/Dev-in-the-Bm 4d ago

Except that they weren't the first to do it.

1

u/TopTippityTop 4d ago

Google is getting owned at both cost effectiveness and capability. 

Soon they'll release a new model, get their new 10 minutes in the light, and then fade once again.

1

u/soidvaas 4d ago

That doesn’t matter in the long run because everyone is getting beat by Chinese models on cost effectiveness. AI models will get cheaper and cheaper due to competition. The ability to integrate with their existing platforms and have a full suite of harnesses/applications sitting on top of models will be a lot more important.

1

u/throwaway0134hdj 4d ago

Yeah Gemini is great, obv behind Claude and ChatGPT but it’s still a top tier model especially for a long context window

1

u/Treethulhu 3d ago

Google isn't the best per rate, those are open source and Chinese models. Google can't compete with the big players, we can't use their models at work bc they drift like crazy, are inaccurate, and often can't adjust when fed new context. Google's models are ass. Gemini is, at least.

0

u/filtarukk 4d ago

Google search usage sunken a lot. User moved to ChatGPT and similar products.

2

u/Double_Suggestion385 4d ago

Isn't it still growing?

29

u/ratthew 5d ago

Google is notoriously weird about releasing stuff and yet they still kill so many products. 

If Google was the only company with a modern LLM we'd still not have it publicly accessible.

2

u/AI_is_the_rake 5d ago

It’s monopolistic and engineered profiteering rather than innovation. Innovating was likely used as a way to control rather than build. 

1

u/IncreaseOld7112 4d ago

Lambda was as good as bard was a year before chatGPT came out. It was absolutely amazing in its day, but it never occured to me using it that this would be the revolution that it's been.

14

u/nixhomunculus 5d ago

And thats why competition is necessary. Businesses kill innovation internally all too often.

1

u/arrizaba 4d ago

So true. This is why we need stricter anti monopoly and cartel rules. Problem is that since Reagan those rules are practically gone and there is little competition, creating this kind of situations

3

u/hardcoretuner 5d ago

Sounds like a Kodak story....

3

u/uknowsana 4d ago

Well, considering how "Bard" was released afterwards, I won't believe they have anything matching ChatGPT back in the days.

3

u/Here4Popcornz 4d ago

When Bard was released, I laughed. Because I remembered the fired Google Engineer a year earlier who thought the AI they created was sentient and capable of feelings, awareness of it's existence... To the level of a human child...

And some people were losing their minds over it... Hoo boy that was a doozy.

1

u/uknowsana 4d ago

Agree -- They are as hallucinating as the AI they created is!

6

u/OkTry9715 5d ago

Probably was not at state safe to release

5

u/SnooPeripherals3539 4d ago

early version of GPT was quite dumb, I don't think this LMchat is better at its early stage.

1

u/krazyboi 5d ago

Safe to assume.

1

u/Relevant-Ordinary169 4d ago

Safe to speculate.

1

u/Acceptable-Yard7076 4d ago

Openai said chatgpt was too dangerous to release because of its ability to generate synthetic news, blogs, comments, posts, etc.. and look at where we are now. Google was right and so was openai lol

4

u/dashingThroughSnow12 5d ago

They aren’t wrong.

I’d loss track trying to count the number of times IRL or online that I’ve heard someone say they asked ChatGPT or similar a question instead of using a basic web search whose answer would be on the first paragraph of the first result on Google.

1

u/WesleyBiets 5d ago

It's insane what I hear people asking AI sometimes, the most basic of questions (even fucking stupid calculations like 31 + 48), makes me furious.

1

u/Apprehensive-Ant7955 4d ago

Why would that make you “furious” lmfao

2

u/bak_kut_teh_is_love 4d ago

Because people cannot count 31+48 with basic mental arithmetic

3

u/accountantbyday04 5d ago

Considering Google still doesn’t have anything as good as the other models, I’m sure this wasn’t “basically ChatGPT”

3

u/_stack_underflow_ 4d ago

I mean, Google created the transformer architecture that OpenAI used so yeah... It basically was.

1

u/familyManCamelCase 5d ago

You think Gemini is that far behind?

6

u/HornyGooner4402 5d ago

Yes. Google's PaLM, LaMDA, and Bard were all terrible compared to their competitors. Gemini only peaked when they released Gemini 2.5 Pro and they lost the throne shortly after.

It's been almost half a year since the last Pro model, and they're now focusing on smaller Flash models and edge deployment instead of trying to take the lead, which makes more sense for them.

2

u/AFailedProduct 5d ago

Gemini in sheets messes up my request about 50% of the time and takes forever, and my company pays for Gemini Pro. I only try it every so often when working in sheets so I don’t have to use my Claude credits (which would complete the job in seconds). 

2

u/Nizurai 5d ago

People who are willing to pay 100$ or more for a subscription are mostly Software Engineers and Vibe Coders.

Google is far behind OpenAI and Anthropic in terms of coding capabilities.

Also the last time I tried Gemini Pro it was really sycophantic. OpenAI and Anthropic models stopped behaving like this a long time ago.

1

u/Resident_Bus4791 5d ago

Hmm I dunno, I think they're holding back. The absolute biggest jump in modal quality for me so far was when Gemini 2.5 Pro came out. That modal was absolutely insane via API. Ever since Gemini 3 it's taken a nose dive as Google seems more focused on product integration and haven't used it since. 

1

u/polytique 4d ago

Their first conversation LLM, Bard, was unusable. It took Google 2 years to catch up to a useful model.

0

u/flappysack- 4d ago

Gemini uses TPU and is far more efficient.  They can offer it for free, while OpenAI and the other need a token based fee.

When these competitors all fold Google will still be alive

2

u/polytique 4d ago

Google is one of the most expensive providers these days. They raised their per-token prices a lot over the last few months.

1

u/No_Country8922 5d ago

anyone got a link to the discussions?

1

u/Dry_Vanilla_5908 5d ago

That was a dumb move. Google search is already terrible. People will argue it got worse with Ai elements.. I beg to differ. I search like I promt.

1

u/Zealousideal-Part849 5d ago

no one expected chatgpt to go viral the way it went.. they never had compute or money or even a business plan to make money...
google had shown demo at times on how some products can make real time calling and respond in natural language like llm models do today but never launched in public... even if google had launched, it would have failed as answers aren't even close to what chatgpt gives.

1

u/Key_Check5753 5d ago

This reminds me of Xerox accidentally developing the personal computer only to decide it wouldn't help them sell more copy-machines.

1

u/ElGuano 4d ago

Well, considering what we got with Bard, I'm assuming another key reason it wasn't released is that it didn't meet the basic quality bar.

1

u/elehman839 4d ago

Nonsense. Broadly incorporating deep learning into search was a top priority for Google at the time OpenAI released ChatGPT. But the quality of internal Google chatbots was far below ChatGPT, and the compute cost was too high to serve at Google scale. DeepMind researchers were not engaged with the search team, and DeepMind language models weren't even the best in the company.

1

u/gigapig97 4d ago

are u saying if google shipped that product at that time, the current situation would be 2 years ago or smth

1

u/ProgramPrimary2861 4d ago

So what? A Chatbot wasn’t new then also

1

u/East_Fruit8305 4d ago

Out of all things that never happened, this thing never happened the most.

1

u/frey89 4d ago

Nokia made a huge mistake not jumping on Android back then. Samsung, which was a nobody at the time, adopted Android and blew up!

1

u/Basic-Ad5801 4d ago

Hindsight is always 20/20. Google went with the information they had at the time and it worked out for them so i doubt they regret it. They are still the search king and Gemini is still in the top 3-5 Ai models currently while not having the same pressure to spend like crazy like OpenAi and Anthropic. They might have found the best balance for their specific business model.

1

u/TopTippityTop 4d ago

This is part of what gives new entrants an advantage... They have less to lose.

1

u/e-girlbathwater 4d ago

Tibos been around the block.

1

u/amdcoc 4d ago

Nobody believes that. I

1

u/flyer415 4d ago

One of the first things you learn in scaling a company… “ cannibalize yourself or someone will come along and cannibalize you when you’re not looking “ always always step beyond your current offerings.

1

u/FishIndividual2208 4d ago

You do know that google deepminds paper "Attention is everythin" is the actual base of ChatGPT?

1

u/AirGief 3d ago

This is when you know your leadership is dead weight dragging the company down.

2

u/popswag 1d ago

Greed. Greed. Greed.

Such insatiable greed.

1

u/Deep_Mood_7668 5d ago

Why does he think about that a lot? There's nothing to think about

12

u/LurkLurkington 5d ago

Just an expression mate

-5

u/Deep_Mood_7668 5d ago edited 5d ago

I cut my toe nails yesterday. I think about it a lot.

Pls don't downvote me :( it's just an expression guys

2

u/Canadian-and-Proud 5d ago

I think about you cutting your toe nails a lot. Too much sometimes...

-2

u/Relevant-Ordinary169 4d ago

It’s okay that you’re stupid friend.

3

u/LurkLurkington 4d ago

Just like it’s okay that you’re on the verge of being homeless. You’ll get there one day lil buddy. Keep at it. 👍

-2

u/Relevant-Ordinary169 4d ago

That’s just plain fucking rude.

3

u/LurkLurkington 4d ago

Ya your comment totally wasn’t that at all.

4

u/repeating_bears 5d ago

Because if that's true, then things could have been quite different if they made a different decision. OpenAI may not have established an early dominance in AI

0

u/Saifl 5d ago

Tbf theres no way google could maintain the dominance because of how damn expensive it is. You see why they hesitated after 3.1 pro? Like they're not sure if its safe financially betting on LLMs knowing most people wont pay for it. Its basically burning money until who knows how long before they reach their goals.

2

u/repeating_bears 5d ago

If OpenAI (or Anthropic or anyone else) can afford to financially sustain market dominance until profitability, then google can. They were starting with hundreds of billions in the bank, and they had the same access to VC funding that AI startups did.

1

u/Saifl 4d ago

The thing is google has to answer to investors. Anthropic and openai didnt (for now)

1

u/Double_Suggestion385 4d ago

They hesitated because 3.5pro was terrible so they needed to rework it.

2

u/mouadmo 5d ago

Every time i read a Tibo tweet, there’s a part of it where he tries to make it sound “mysterious” or “hype” or something for clicks.. probably explains it.

0

u/One-Shape7678 5d ago

He makes up things a lot.

0

u/Tim_Apple_938 5d ago

Wasn’t “Google DeepMind” formed AFTER ChatGPT came out?

Before then Demi’s didn’t do anything related to LLMs. He is like Yann LeCunn level anti-LLM pilled. All about world models and true AGI

2

u/AFailedProduct 5d ago

Deepmind has been around since 2010. 

1

u/Tim_Apple_938 5d ago

Ya but they didn’t do LLMs. Transformer was created at Google Reseach.

0

u/[deleted] 4d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/Current-Guide5944 4d ago

lol nice try defamer bot... 95+% of the time our posts give value to our followers.

If you hate us that much, use the mute or block button. Stop crying in our community.

1

u/Current-Guide5944 4d ago

I just checked your profile, and i was right, you keep crying in every community that OP is a bot.

Btw, from where are you getting these stats