IMO Google flunked it on the public side, I think the reason most of it was very hush-hush for years is because it was used for private, government purposes. Now, maybe they can't release most of their prior work without permission, so they're regrettably starting over with a blank slate in various departments.
Agreed. It seems like they have the capabilities, but failed on the product side of things, as it seems they do often these days.
I disagree with the GP that they "blew a 7 year lead". They still have a lot of the top industry minds in this area, and it's still early days; ChatGPT was launched less than 6 months ago (which seems crazy). I'm thankful OpenAI is forcing them to stop resting on their laurels. How they will deliver on all of this remains to be seen, but this Google I/O has at least made me hopeful.
Nice username btw.