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Only a few of the search behemoth's 88,000 workers were briefed on the project before The Intercept reported on 1 August that Google had plans to launch a censored mobile search app for the Chinese market, with no access to sites about human rights, democracy, religion or peaceful protest.
The customised Android search app, with different versions known as Maotai and Longfei, was said to have been demonstrated to Chinese Government authorities.
In a related development, six US senators from both parties were reported to have sent a letter to Google chief executive Sundar Pichai, demanding an explanation over the company's move.
One source inside Google, who witnessed the backlash from employees after news of the plan was reported, told The Intercept: "Everyone's access to documents got turned off, and is being turned on [on a] document-by-document basis.
"There's been total radio silence from leadership, which is making a lot of people upset and scared. ... Our internal meme site and Google Plus are full of talk, and people are a.n.g.r.y."
(Score: 2) by Mykl on Tuesday August 07 2018, @02:20AM (11 children)
A lot of the brilliant minds that work there are doing so under the belief that the company is more egalitarian and transparent than they have been over this. It's going to lead toward some of those brilliant minds leaving to work elsewhere.
I'm fine with corporate needing to manage from the top, and to keep things "need to know", but if you change the employee value proposition (or their understanding of the EVP) from under their feet, prepare for some of those employees to check out (mentally and/or physically).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 07 2018, @02:28AM (1 child)
How many of the "brilliant minds" there have been hired to do rather mundane tasks as directed by their supervisor? Perhaps if they had more "settled minds", they would spend more time working on their tasks, rather than trying to be brilliant on internal meme sites.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday August 07 2018, @12:52PM
Even if that were somehow relevant, mundane is relative. Everything is mundane to the sufficiently jaded eye.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday August 07 2018, @03:45AM (8 children)
Haven't seen anything outstandingly innovative coming out of Google in the last couple of years. **
I wonder what those brilliant mind actually do there? Are there still a significant number of them or did they already left long ago.
** AI by NN on a large scale (the TensorFlow) is the last thing I remember. Designing some dedicated chips for the job is a matter of engineering rather than innovation.
Self-driving car? Slowly grinding ahead - yes, that's the nature of the problem - but does it require brilliant minds?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by khallow on Tuesday August 07 2018, @04:13AM (7 children)
Only if you define innovation to mean something like Buckaroo Banzai where you slap the ball-point ink formula on some dude's head and it happens. Real world innovation is the process of making those ideas work.
My last self-driving car didn't require any brilliant minds. But then, it didn't exist either.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday August 07 2018, @05:00AM (6 children)
Context [xkcd.com]: "outstanding innovation"
It could appear I said otherwise only if you ignore the context.
If you won't ever get a self-driving car, I'm pretty sure the cause will not stay with Google launching a censored search in China.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0, Offtopic) by khallow on Tuesday August 07 2018, @01:06PM (5 children)
Sorry, still don't buy it. Designing a chip to optimize a theoretical neural network language is still pretty damn outstanding and innovative.
Remember that context thing? You mentioned self-driving cars which brought them into the scope of our conversation.
I'll note also that we don't currently have effective self-driving cars for the masses despite more than a century of developing cars, and some projections make them quite revolutionary. So getting something like that to work and distributed to the masses sounds to me like it qualifies for outstanding innovation.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday August 07 2018, @01:28PM (4 children)
As you were. I'm not selling it, thus don't you fret about.
Over and out.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday August 07 2018, @01:36PM (3 children)
Your fingers are monkeys on the keyboard and these things just come out. Shakespearean sonnets could be next.
(Score: 3, Funny) by c0lo on Tuesday August 07 2018, @01:45PM (2 children)
But thou contracted to thine own bright eyes,
Feed'st thy light's flame with self-substantial fuel,
Making a famine where abundance lies,
Thy self thy foe, to thy sweet self too cruel
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday August 07 2018, @01:55PM (1 child)
(Score: 3, Interesting) by c0lo on Tuesday August 07 2018, @02:17PM
What are the chances? (compute the probability distribution)
Or... maybe it's a case of "self-fulfilling prophecy" and the "Totally asked for it" would be closer to the truth?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford