Jeff and Seymour look briefly at earnings and layoffs from 2023 Q1 for the Big 5 Tech giants which leads to further pessimism about Google BARD. This sparks a larger conversation about how best to organize internal research groups. Which extreme works best–Google or Apple? Links:

• The Information published a detailed article on April 27th about Apple's struggles with Siri (paywall)
• Brian Khoon Lee's essay on the merger of Google Brain and DeepMind with a broader perspective of academic incentives from his perspective as a recent Google Brain employee
• Xerox Parc and Bell Labs were the most famous corporate research labs in the second half of the 20th century
• Meta AI, formerly known as Facebook AI Research (FAIR), might strike the best balance between pure AI research and commercial application among the big tech companies

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