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  There’s no question that Google was dedicating itself to AI work  just like everyone else. Over the next few years, it made serious strides in designing AI computation hardware, built useful platforms for developers to test and develop machine learning models and published tons of papers on everything from esoteric model tweaks to more recognizable things like voice synthesis. But there was a problem. I’ve heard this anecdotally from Google employees and others in the industry, but there’s a sort of feudal aspect to the way the company works: Getting your project under the  auspices of an existing major product, like Maps or Assistant, is a reliable way to get money and staff. And so it seems that despite having hoarded up many of the best AI researchers in the world, their talent was channeled into the ruts of corporate strategy.

  Surveys are tools of the current moment (not fortune tellers), and those tools have, on the whole, done a good job of forecasting Biden’s and the Democratic Party’s political fates over the past few years. Let’s start with the most recent election, when polling supposedly did poorly. It is true that some surveys underestimated Democratic candidates. The polls that meet CNN’s standards for publication, however, were quite good. The national surveys looking at the generic congressional ballot had Republicans ahead by about 1.5 points over the last 21 days of the campaign. Republicans ended up winning the national House vote  by a little less than 3 points. If you take out uncontested races – more Republicans than Democrats were unopposed in House contests last year – the final margin would probably have been closer to a 2-point Republican edge.