Google is the place to go when you have questions about anything. The process is a little involved, but after digging through a few search results and using a search operator or two, you will usually find what you need. A new AI chatbot, ChatGPT, is upending this proposition, though. Instead of having to dig through results yourself, this new technology gives you natural-sounding, easy-to-understand answers in a chat interface. ChatGPT still has a lot of issues and isn’t always correct, but its potential has Google scared. According to a New York Times report, ChatGPT has caused Google to declare a “code red” internally, with fears that this technology could upend its search business.
ChatGPT is currently still under development and experimental. It leverages a data set that was finalized sometime in 2021, so it doesn’t have any knowledge about events past that point. When you first start the experience, you’re also warned that answers might be incorrect. You’ll also never see the actual sources used, with ChatGPT stating everything it claims as facts. With that in mind, it still already feels like magic writing with the chatbot. For example, you can ask it to recommend a phone to you based on parameters important to you, and it will come up with a confident answer. In the future, you might just reach out to a specialized bot to help you with purchase decisions rather than pulling up a Google Search.
Chatbots replacing Search is exactly what Google fears, according to the New York Times. The company relies on ad revenue made through its search engine, but when people flock to chat programs in the future, they’re less likely to click or tap on those ads that Google is displaying in search. Even if Google came up with a competent competing chat bot, it would still have to figure out how to monetize it as well as search.
In fact, the company is experimenting with an intelligent chatbot of its own, called LaMDA. While the public can only test much more limited scenarios with it than with ChatGPT, Google’s bot recently made the headlines when an ex-employee claimed it was sentient and needed to have its rights represented. This has since been refuted by Google, but it still shows just how powerful these AI tools are at creating realistic conversations. This will certainly bring new challenges upon us in the future, similar to how social media and Google Search have changed how we acquire information and news.
ChatGPT is made by OpenAI, a research company focusing on building the next big thing with machine learning algorithms. It's the same business that's behind the uncanny Dall-E 2 image creation bot, which can create brand-new, realistic looking images based on your text prompts. Google researchers have also contributed to ChatGPT and Dall E, which shows that the company definitely sees the potential.
If you’re curious, you can give ChatGPT a try yourself by signing up for an OpenAI account. Just be aware that your conversations with the chatbot may be evaluated by researchers and used to further advance the technology.