Popular YouTuber @Mrwhosetheboss has singled out the Google Tensor G3 as a major failing of the Pixel 8 Pro. According to the YouTuber, all of the new generative AI features found on the Pixel 8 Pro cannot be processed onboard the device, but need to be off-loaded to the cloud for processing, despite Google pitching the device as being “AI-first.”
Isn’t that kinda the dream. We have devices that remote the os. So we get a super powerful device that keeps getting updated and upgraded. We just need a receiver ?
Isn’t that what we want. Can reduce down the bulk on devices. Just a slab with battery, screen and modem and soc that can power the remote application ?
Sometimes that’s what people dream about. On the other hand that hybrid cloud model is giving up the last remnants of computing autonomy and control over devices we own.
What I would like is something that gives me the framework to host my own server-side computations at home.
I mean it sucks for offline situations or for actions that need very good latency.
But the phone’s battery would be happier if the processing is not done locally.
For some things I prefer to do the stuff locally, for other things on the cloud.
Some cloud Vs local examples I’m thinking about:
For example (example not related to the Pixel) if I’m generating an image with stable diffusion at home I prefer to use my RX 6800 on my private local Linux rather than a cloud computer with a subscription. But if I had to do the same on a mobile phone with tiny processing power and battery capacity I’d prefer to do it on the cloud.
(Another non AI example): for gaming, I prefer to run things natively. At least until it is possible to stream a game without added latency. Obviously I don’t play games on a phone.
Another example (Google photos): I would prefer to connect Google photos to a local NAS server at home, and “own the storage on premise” and then pay a lower fee to Google photos for the extra services it brings. Browsing, face and objects recognition, etc. But this is not an option. With this I would be able invest on my own storage, even if I had dozens of gigabytes in 4K60FPS videos.
That would be, if Google wasn’t constantly killing things that didn’t do good enough. Especially given how expensive generative AI can be to run remotely. Just look at what happened with Stadia
Also, it just feels disappointing. Ever since chatGPT, they’ve been pouring near infinite budget into stuff like this by hiring the top talent, and working them to the latest hours of the night. And the best that they could come up with for the pixel 8 is feeding it data from the cloud.
And I can’t even really believe the whole “consumer hardware isn’t powerful enough” thing given that there’s quite a few ARM processors, Apple especially, That’s been able to build consumer hardware capable of performing generative AI (I’ve personally been able to run stable, diffusion and whisper on my M1 MacBook). Maybe not at the scale or quality of the cloud, but still capable of doing so regardless.
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Obviously, I mean, Google did so well with Stadia.
/s
Stadia was great. People were just attacking it. Bad marketing from the get go. Have you tried it ? Did you just follow what everyone else says or actually try things for yourself
No, how could I try it? it doesn’t exist anymore. Poor tiny little startup Google, bullied by the big bad user mob who paid for the service they sold and actually expected to receive what they had bought.
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I’m not from the USA, how could I possibly have tried it? It died before it could’ve even become a product. Even if they would’ve gone to rural areas or the developing world it would’ve failed because there’s not sturdy enough infrastructure to support the service. And as the experience proved, not even South California has enough infrastructure to support the service without massive lag. I remember reading that even people with Google Fiber had issues. So it was a failed service for a strong technical reason, not just the awful marketing and even worse service offering. Paying a subscription and buying games was the most retarded move Google made at the moment, but they make so many stupid moves so frequently that it’s hard to tell if it was the worst.
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I tried it. It worked reasonably well when wired and pretty terribly wireless, which isn’t that surprising. The free starter kits they gave out came with a Chromecast Ultra for a reason: it had Ethernet on the power brick.
On the other hand, I hated it ideologically from the start. You bought games that were only available on their service and could only play with an active Internet connection. That’s also to be expected. Not ideal, but not a big deal in itself so long as you know what you’re getting into. What isn’t okay is that you could lose access to the service permanently and there was no guarantee you would be compensated in any way whatsoever. At most they gave vague “don’t worry about it wink wink” answers when asked in Reddit AMAs. Fortunately they did refund everyone when they shut it down, but they were under no legal obligation to do so. People who bought in were lucky. I wish I could say it was purely out of goodwill, but it’s more likely that a bean counter at Google decided it was cheaper to refund everyone than to shoulder the bad press from not doing so.
Thank goodness there were also no notable exclusives on the service. The idea of games just completely disappearing from history just because Google got bored with a product like they always do is nauseating. It’s bad enough that they bought out Typhoon Studios only to pretty much immediately shut them down. Again, thank goodness they were able to rise from the ashes and reform the studio under a new name.
Interesting. I only had access to it wireless. I used a OnePlus one VPN to North America and HDMI to a screen. It wasn’t flawless but I didn’t expect it to be.
Oh I agree but also I don’t. Ubisoft games are still the same. They can drop access at any point and they likely wouldn’t refund. Unfortunately unless we build an open source internet that is backward compatible I think we are fucked.
Will Xbox and PS5 games work without a patch. Could they yank a game and stop it being playable? Can steam epic gog ?
Yeah there was a game that was exclusive? Was that the one you mentioned?
Fuck Google but I loved the idea and now use GeForce. Similar concept I suppose
Good idea, while they’re at it, they could tweak their prices accordingly.