ChatGPT Is a 'Code Red' for Google's Search Business (nytimes.com) 89
A new wave of chat bots like ChatGPT use artificial intelligence that could reinvent or even replace the traditional internet search engine. From a report: Over the past three decades, a handful of products like Netscape's web browser, Google's search engine and Apple's iPhone have truly upended the tech industry and made what came before them look like lumbering dinosaurs. Three weeks ago, an experimental chat bot called ChatGPT made its case to be the industry's next big disrupter. [...] Although ChatGPT still has plenty of room for improvement, its release led Google's management to declare a "code red." For Google, this was akin to pulling the fire alarm. Some fear the company may be approaching a moment that the biggest Silicon Valley outfits dread -- the arrival of an enormous technological change that could upend the business.
For more than 20 years, the Google search engine has served as the world's primary gateway to the internet. But with a new kind of chat bot technology poised to reinvent or even replace traditional search engines, Google could face the first serious threat to its main search business. One Google executive described the efforts as make or break for Google's future. ChatGPT was released by an aggressive research lab called OpenAI, and Google is among the many other companies, labs and researchers that have helped build this technology. But experts believe the tech giant could struggle to compete with the newer, smaller companies developing these chat bots, because of the many ways the technology could damage its business.
For more than 20 years, the Google search engine has served as the world's primary gateway to the internet. But with a new kind of chat bot technology poised to reinvent or even replace traditional search engines, Google could face the first serious threat to its main search business. One Google executive described the efforts as make or break for Google's future. ChatGPT was released by an aggressive research lab called OpenAI, and Google is among the many other companies, labs and researchers that have helped build this technology. But experts believe the tech giant could struggle to compete with the newer, smaller companies developing these chat bots, because of the many ways the technology could damage its business.
The Revenge of Google Labs! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
You know all the people who got let go when they shut down their labs projects are out there right now going "Take that you bastards!"
Why? When I have a question, I want a link to the best answers. Google has been failing at that lately, but they're going to be better than a so-called AI that' can't even rank what's true and what's false.
I'd say it's more of a threat to the New York Times.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
If anything, I'd love to have an AI that used search engines intelligently.
Re: (Score:2)
If anything, I'd love to have an AI that used search engines intelligently.
I don't think even a smart and sentient AI could use today's search engines intelligently, given that said engines have been dumbed down to the lowest common denominator. They simply don't allow for the degree of control necessary to run good searches for anything beyond the latest gossip or news cycle.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't get the Google search hate. I've seen similar comments about search being bad, but that is not my experience at all.
For my Google Searches:
~ 70% of the time the thing I want is the first result
~ 15% it would be within the first 3 or 4 links. (Most of those it would because I was lazy to type the additional search words to aim it towards the secondary source I was aiming for).
~ 5% The thing was between 5 links down, or on the second page
~ 5% of the time I have to try
Re:The Revenge of Google Labs! (Score:5, Insightful)
It's either just luck, or something particular to what you are searching for.
Nine times out of ten, the first few links are trying to sell me something I don't want to buy. Just because a product is mentioned in my search terms does not mean I'm buying it. I'm more likely looking for specifications for it, looking to find details on its' installation, or, even more likely, the rest of what I typed is being ignored.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Google has gotten worse. I can no longer click on 2 to get past all the ads.
Re: The Revenge of Google Labs! (Score:2)
The Google search hate was mainly funded by Microsoft when it tried for years to come up with viable competitors to Google products and failed miserably. We're just hearing the dying echos of it now.
Re: (Score:3)
There's your problem, a search engine should not show you what you want, but rather what the search results actually are, and they should be the same for everyone. What you want is not necessarily the truth, and google gives you what you want.
Re: (Score:2)
I've not used google search for a while now but it could be related to the "programmer mindset" that you probably see on here.
Way back, google was *awesome* for search - but it searched for what you asked for, didn't try to be too smart, and most of the time "just worked"
However, it did depend on a modicum of understanding of how search worked and how to structure the search terms.
Google then tried to become more user friendly, returning the results that more closely match
Re: The Revenge of Google Labs! (Score:2)
ChatGPT is much better at figuring out what you want and sifting out the right answer than Google. It's not a conversational capability, but it's an area where Google really needs to improve.
For example, this morning I needed to know which version of git introduced `git push --force-with-lease`.
I tried Googling "git push --force-with-lease introduced version" and got ... nothing useful.
I tried "which version of git introduced `git push --force-with-lease`" in ChatGPT and got ... "`git push --force-with-lea
Re: (Score:3)
Did you check whether the ChatGPT answer was actually correct? You should, because it often authoritatively states wrong answers.
I found the git 2.9 release notes [github.com] and they don't mention this feature. Also, ChatGPT said 2.9 was released in 2015, but it was released in 2016.
Re: The Revenge of Google Labs! (Score:5, Informative)
I decided to really track this down. To do it I cloned the git repo and ran git grep "force-with-lease".
Turns out, "--force-with-lease" was added in git 1.8.5 [github.com], in 2013. Not in 2.9, as ChatGPT stated, nor in either 2015 (per ChatGPT) or 2016 (when 2.9 was actually released).
Be very careful depending on any answers you get from ChatGPT. Always keep in mind that it produces output that is "statistically likely" to be related to your input prompt, which is a very different thing from "correct". As in this case, where ChatGPT's friendly, helpful and authoritative answer was, in fact, completely wrong.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Which version of GIT introduced the git push "--force-with-lease" feature?
AI:
The --force-with-lease option was introduced in Git version 2.9. You can check the version of Git that
Me:
Your answer may be incorrect, I have found discussion indicating that the feature was introduced in version 1.8.5 in the year 2013.
AI:
I apologize for the error in my previous response. You are correct that the --force-with-lease option was introduced in Git version 1.8.5, which was released in 2013...
Me
Re: (Score:3)
and it replied: "The "--force-with-lease" option was introduced in Git version 2.9, which was released in August 2015."
so your input is not used for any learning outside your own session/bubble
Re: (Score:2)
It doesn't necessarily last for the session in which you provide the correction, either.
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, there will be plenty of wrong answers in Google's search results too, but at least you have a chance of judging the credibility of the answer before you use "rm -rf /" to free up disk space.
Re: (Score:2)
Except that ChatGPT will all too often coherently and convincingly provide a wrong answer, and there's no way to tell because it doesn't cite its sources.
Yes, there will be plenty of wrong answers in Google's search results too, but at least you have a chance of judging the credibility of the answer before you use "rm -rf /" to free up disk space.
Well, "rm -rf /" does do a decent job of freeing up space ... :-)
Re: The Revenge of Google Labs! (Score:2)
Re: The Revenge of Google Labs! (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
"AI" (Score:2, Offtopic)
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, but that's coming. I expect it to develop out of robots with a minimal language capability. (Actual robots, not telefactors like most things that are currently called robots.) The first ones don't need to be very capable. There was this cute fluffy robotic seal pup that some hospitals in Japan used for awhile to help patients feel less isolated. Give that thing a really basic language capability, and let it carry messages to the nursing station. That's probably doable right now. And if people re
Also code red for Wikipedia (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Also code red for Wikipedia (Score:4, Insightful)
The problem is the current generation of these tools will generate citations, its just that they might be fake.
Re: (Score:2)
It's even worse than that. ChatGPT will cite real papers, books, or whatever, but completely misrepresent what they actually say.
Re: (Score:3)
More seriously, you're completely correct. ChatGPT gets things right a fair proportion of the time but if it doesn't know is often all too happy to generate plausible sounding BS, and there's no way to tell which is which.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
It should worry everyone basically (Score:5, Interesting)
The entire ad-supported internet content industry is pretty much under direct threat by these tools.
If you are content creator - I'd be worried that the Vice/Dice/Gawker media types will decide they don't need to pay you much or at all because they can just generate 85% of their content.
If you are a publisher of anything (textual for today but video soon enough) who is going to put up with your ads (or your paywall for that matter) when they get their listicle of "The five worst karate movies of all time" simply by asking for it? Which is not to say things like ChatGPT won't get ads themselves but probably by their nature wont have the most anyoying pop-over-no-matter-what-you-click-open an new window type crap, or 10 words per page articles with 100 ads on each page stuff we get now...
The real question is how expensive is the compute and storage needed to run something like ChatGPT and how fast is it going to get cheaper - because the cheaper that gets the more its going to crowd out lower tier and derivative content - including things like search results and aggregations - as well as creative content (which if we are honest is all mostly derivative, even if its good). About all that isn't doomed is original research and firsthand reporting..
Re: (Score:3)
I've been trying out ChatGPT on search queries and have found that it's actually very good. It answers the question directly and clearly with appropriate context and information. It's much better than weeding through a bunch of links looking for the sentence that answers my query.
Once it gets updated to current information, it will be unbeatable.
I do think Google search should be afraid.
Re: (Score:2)
Now the question is "How will this new version update it's database?"
I don't think Google needs to be worried, but they do need to be experimenting with new front-ends, and possibly related financing models.
Re: (Score:2)
I said that, and then it occurred to me that Sears and Penny were ideally positioned to exploit sales over the web. They already had a massive catalogue sales setup. And they totally missed their opportunity. So perhaps Google DOES need to be worried.
Re: (Score:2)
The entire ad-supported internet content industry is pretty much under direct threat by these tools.
So, how will development and operation of these tools be funded?
Betcha it will be ads. Ads are just the best mechanism yet found for funding information services for mass consumption. It's been that way since the invention of the printing press, through many technological changes -- radio, broadcast TV, cable/satellite TV, and now various generations of Internet content. I wouldn't be surprised to find that advertising was monetized by town criers and Roman
Just looked it up and Wikipedia claims that Rom
Re: (Score:2)
I don't get the correlation between the title of your comment and the content. Destroying the Internet content creation business would be a good thing if it meant going back to the WWW of the 90s, with information instead of content. The real threat is that it will produce more content and continue to overwhelm actual information.
Re: (Score:2)
Years ago some Google head engineer stated that this was the end goal. He wanted Google to be like the computer on Star Trek, where you can ask it a natural language question and it will give you a direct, natural answer.
Account needed to use this chatbot (Score:2)
Re:Account needed to use this chatbot (Score:4, Informative)
Whether you are logged in or not doesnt mean much to google anyway. You're still profiled and getting served ads according to your search and past (guesstimated) history.
Google has a reason to panic as this AI, and the ones that will be much better at their job, will simply ignore every single ad and point the user at what he asked for (hopefully).
Re: (Score:2)
Search engines do not require logins.
Exactly my first thought. I am not inclined to open an account and share personal data with a tool used for searching the WWW.
I agree... they should be scared. (Score:5, Interesting)
ChatGPT doesn't literally do an internet search - it only knows about a finite set of content, processed in 2021. But even so, it's a very useful first step in finding information, because it does a pretty good job of understanding your request for information and responding with well-structured info. It's got drawbacks - it can't go very deep and when it's asked about topics that require expertise it can be "confidently wrong" which can be dangerous because it all sounds good to the user who isn't an expert, But even with those limitations, it's a much more intelligent first step in learning about a topic than web search.
If Google can add a comparable layer of intelligence, and then provide links drilling down to specific sources of deeper info, that'd be a willing combination. Google search does have some intelligence, and does understand some info (e.g. flight schedules, restaurant reviews) but ChatGPT is dramatically smarter, and Google had better catch up if they want to keep owning all that search traffic / revenue.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
It's basic capitalism.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: I agree... they should be scared. (Score:2)
The problem isnt the input, it's the output style. Rarely is long winded prose with a lower signal to noise ratio than a simple search engine results page what you want. Now if a search engine could have a chat style input but maintain it's current output style with that would IMO be the best of both worlds
Re: (Score:3)
Like someone else said, don't limit your imagination to the current ChatGPT demo. This technology is more than. ChatBot can already generate syntactically correct source code. I asked for python bindings using FFI for a handful of not terribly popular (not popular enough for something to already be in pip) for some FOSS C libraries. - It created them and did so mostly correctly.
If it can spit out python code it can generate a table with anchor tags and descriptions. If there is a need to put some rules an
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
But even so, it's a very useful first step in finding information, because it does a pretty good job of understanding your request for information and responding with well-structured info.
What color is Washington's white horse?
I'm sorry, but I am unable to provide an answer to that question. As a language model, I do not have access to information about the colors of specific horses or other animals. I am not able to browse the internet or access other sources of information, and I am only able to generate natural language text based on the inputs that I receive. Is there something else I can help you with?
Re:I agree... they should be scared. (Score:4, Insightful)
The question for both isn't so much whether they can provide the most useful interface for a human to use, it's whether they can deliver actually useful information if there is a massive increase in the volume of generated, vaguely plausible but possibly flawed information in the source data set.
What training data do they use? (Score:3)
Assuming that GPT3 uses supervised learning, where are they sourcing the expected input/output data for their training and validation set?
We'll See... (Score:2)
So, instead of an interpreted pseudo-query, now I have to deal with a search engine that thinks it can have a conversation with me? I don't want a single answer - I want to interpret the results myself (we're ignoring the fact that the search engine has already tried to do it's own relevance calculations).
Let's just have Eliza do it. "Please, tell me more about what's the weather tomorrow."
No it isnt (Score:2)
When I want search results I wants clear list of links, not some long winded prose that I'd have to wade through to get close to the same amount of info as a single search engine page. I imagine the sort of people who think a chatbot will replace search engines are similar to the ones who think having to wade through 3 levels of menu to change the heat setting in a modern car is superior to a knob because tech.
Re: (Score:2)
The problem with search results is that the information you want is buried inside a lot of irrelevant text. ChatGPT gives you what you want without having to dig through multiple search links.
Re: (Score:2)
The most common use case with today's search engines, among those who care that they get a good quality answer, is to peruse the top several links and discard/discount the ones that are more offtopic/bogus after you gain a mental sketch of the landscape. This is quick to do with a search results list. Maybe not so easy in a conversational interface. You'd have to question it like an adversarial lawyer.
Sure, sometimes the go
Re: (Score:2)
It would probably be pretty easy to add a way to respond to:
"Give me a list of links to Mongolian Skate Rinks"
Yeah, I sort of agree that when I'm typing I want to avoid verbosity, but interfaces are shallow, and easy to alter. Particularly when they are as formulalistic and transparent as "give me a list of links".
Funny that this comes up now (Score:4, Interesting)
I JUST made an account to test this thing and I must say I am impressed!
I asked it to provide me with some powershell code to create ten VMs in Virtual Machine Manager.
It did! And I mean perfectly usable code that creates preciselt 10 VMs via VMM and not HyperV.
I asked it whether covid measures were appropriate in Switzerland. Granted the response was a bit corporate as it didn't give an evaluation, obviously, but even as a bit of a skeptic I found the reply to be basically correct.
I asked it how to find all mkv files in a folder and how to remove an undesirable language track. The response needs testing but looks promising.
I then asked it to write a bit of fiction about a world where gravity suddenly gets inverted. It left out how the problem was fixed but it did mention several of the people's responses to the problem. Some created harnesses, other learned to walk on the ceiling and so forth.
Do you have any idea how long it's been since Google gave me even remotely as appropriate an answer on the first page?
I will actively try to omit google with ChatGPT for a few weeks. If I can replace the thrice-damned search engines, all the better!
Re: (Score:2)
I just thought it might be prudent to clarify on what I count a correct response to my covid question: It basically said that the measures were based on the recommendations of health experts and the WHO (which is correct) and when I asked it if the proposed measures by the WHO were appropriate it told me that basically all responses need to keep being reevaluated as new information surfaces... which is also correct.
Re:Funny that this comes up now (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
It has already proven to sometimes deliver wrong facts.
You still need to not be a dumb dumb.
Re: (Score:2)
I wonder how it would respond to a request for "a delicious recipe for weasel stew. It would probably invent something, but I really doubt that it would work. (Not that I'd experiment.)
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
I will actively try to omit google with ChatGPT for a few weeks. If I can replace the thrice-damned search engines, all the better!
I wouldn't do that if I were you. At least, not without using Google (or other tools) to fact check ChatGPT.
Take a look at this comment and my replies to it: https://tech.slashdot.org/comm... [slashdot.org]
Not so fast (Score:2)
But then again, ChatGPT is being upfront that it wants your email address and info.
Screw the bot, restore advanced search operators (Score:2)
I don't want the damned bot, google.
Just restore _all_ of the advanced search operators. The search has been the next damned thing to useless since they disappeared.
Replace Google Search or fill it with spam? (Score:1)
Please, enough is enough! (Score:2)
We get it already - you're shilling ChatGPT in hopes of a big payday when you do an IPO in a couple months. But at this point the repetitive attempts are just plain annoying.
"ChatGPT answers" business model is unclear (Score:2)
My understanding is that each chatGPT answer requires a few cents worth of computation to produce. For somebody who needs multiple answers per day that's going to quickly add up. If there's one thing we've learned from the history of internet businesses, it's that barely usable and cheap almost a
Good riddance Google (Score:3)
Their usefulness for me finding answers to tech problems has nose dived lately due to SEO shenanigans to get these tech solution pages full of ads to top of results.
Like no matter what error code you search for lately you get the first page full of
"The problem you searched for" [SOLVED] ... then a bunch of pages that say to run SFC /SCANNOW, the trio of DISM commands and if that doesn't work, try system restore.
It's gotten so bad I get better answers if I just append "site:reddit.com" to any issue I want to look for.
Re: (Score:2)
That's not a Google problem specifically, it's a popularity problem. There is a whole industry of so-called "search engine optimization" which specifically targets gaming Google rankings. If ChatGPT does start to eat into Google's market and becomes popular, these SEO companies will pivot and target whatever new tool becomes popular. And those who run ChatGPT aren't nearly as experienced at fending off the SEO guys, so it's likely to be worse than what you now experience with Google.
Fuck Amazon, Please (Score:2)
GIGO (Score:3)
ChatGPT will bring World Peace! (Score:1)
All this ChatGPT is nothing more than a very well planned marketing strategy.
Google isn't going to just stand still and wait (Score:2)
Google has been developing AI systems for years, they just don't hyperventilate over the *AI* buzzword. Google, if nothing else, is very adept at fending off competition. If ChatGPT starts to eat into their business they will absolutely defend it, and they are more than capable of enhancing their capabilities to compete.
Re: (Score:2)
This doesn't replace search engines. (Score:2)
These things won't replace search engines - but they may destroy them.
A search engine is nominally a way to find actual knowledge. A huge problem is that the Internet has been overrun by people creating websites which bear the same attributes as websites with knowledge, but don't actually contain anything useful. These chat bots are just an automated form of that. Clickbait sites will use them to generate plausible-looking faux content which will overwhelm the search engines.
But as far as replacing searc
Decided to finally try it (Score:2)
Oops, gotta disable NoScript, ok.
Still nothing. Disable trackers blocking in FF? Maybe.
Hmm, now it wants me to create an account. Ok.
It created one, I think. Some error message telling me to sign in again.
A login button I click and nothing happens.
Yeah, this is great ...
Re: (Score:2)
Wait, got a little farther now ..
They want to verify my throwaway email. Ok.
They want to "verify" my phone number, which I haven't given them yet, and won't. Okay, goodbye.
Could (Score:2)
It could. Or it might. Or maybe would. Call me when it does.
Yeah, Idiocracy! (Score:1)
ChatGPT is gonna turn society into a full-blown idiocracy. Time to invest in Brawndo.
Well it wouldn't be a problem (Score:2)
If Google hadn't gotten worse and worse. Today if you search for a phrase, Google will often exclude the most important word in it, just to show you more results.
Google results are no longer sorted by relevancy, but by compliance to Googles rules. This makes spam sites quickly bubble up while original sources are hidden deeply withing the search results.
Bye bye level 1 tech support? (Score:2)
Will this replace the 18 levels of Hindu hell, or just make it 1 level of AI hell and then 18 levels of Hindu hell?