Great (?) Googly Moogly
Following Google’s recent ban on creating custom algorithms and AI products for the oil and gas industry, a salesman for Amazon Web Services (AWS) has countered with a pitch that almost guarantees him loads of new commissions. Brad Farmer, an AWS oil and gas specialist, posted a loud message to the fossil fuel industry: “Remember that we (Amazon) actually consume your products!” Not that Google and its 118,899 employees don’t. We seriously doubt that every employee from the C-suite to the call center drives electric vehicles, lives in solar-powered homes and dresses in hemp. But the big question is, who anyway wants to partner with a business that singles out an entire global industry as a “do not touch” it hypocritically depends on? Then again, Google’s percent of sales in the AI and machine-learning oil and gas sector has captured only 4% of the market, compared with AWS at 47.8% and Microsoft at 15.5%. In full disclosure, Amazon has launched an initiative to become carbon-neutral by 2040. But until then, it relies on gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel to power its vehicle fleet. And Farmer? One heckuva salesman.