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Google AI Businesses Technology

Google To Demo an AI Search Chatbot Amid Pressure From ChatGPT (engadget.com) 34

Posted by msmash from the shape-of-things-to-come dept.
An anonymous reader shares a report: It seems Google is feeling the heat from OpenAI's ChatGPT. The artificial intelligence-powered chatbot has taken the tech world by storm over the last couple months, as it can provide users with information they're looking for in an easy-to-understand format. Google sees ChatGPT as a threat to its search business and has shifted plans accordingly over the last several weeks, according to The New York Times. The report claims CEO Sundar Pichai has declared a "code red" and accelerated AI development. Google is reportedly preparing to show off at least 20 AI-powered products and a chatbot for its search engine this year, with at least some set to debut at its I/O conference in May.

According to a slide deck viewed by the Times, among the AI projects Google is working on are an image generation tool, an upgraded version of AI Test Kitchen (an app used to test prototypes), a TikTok-style green screen mode for YouTube and a tool that can generate videos to summarize other clips. Also in the pipeline are a feature titled Shopping Try-on (perhaps akin to one Amazon has been developing), a wallpaper creator for Pixel phones and AI-driven tools that could make it easier for developers to create Android apps. Pichai reportedly brought in Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin last month to meet with current leaders, review AI plans and offer input. The duo hasn't had much day-to-day involvement with the company since 2019, as they're focusing on other projects.
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Google To Demo an AI Search Chatbot Amid Pressure From ChatGPT More

Google To Demo an AI Search Chatbot Amid Pressure From ChatGPT

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  • How many years has it been since they made improvements to the feature set the users can access?

    It's long overdue.

    • The only thing Google has improved about its search in the past ten years is how to squeeze users for more data and how to sell it better. Oh, and how to push political agendas. Search functionality has degraded in that time. I'm pretty sure they've already been using AI techniques to provide search results, which is something. The only thing they can do with AI and search results IMO is throw more compute at each search, so maybe that's what this is about.

  • ChatGPT is the best search engine I've ever used. (Score:4, Informative)

    by MindPrison ( 864299 ) on Friday January 20, 2023 @12:39PM (#63225556) Journal

    I've been using ChatGPT the last week and I must say it's been a pure joy ride.

    For once I've been able to ask serious scientific questions as search terms and actually get useful functional results instead of page after page with someone trying to sell me something or on an idéa.

    ChatGTP is so good it can even give me code snippets that I can use right away, often with detailed information on each step.

    When I was sitting there trying to have a "human" conversation with A.i. to test its capabilities, it quickly dawned upon me - oh dear... this is exactly how I wished a proper search engine would work - I actually get RELEVANT results, and FAST!

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by igor.sfiligoi ( 1517549 )

      I am undecided if you are being serious or sarcastic.

      I can definitely see the benefit of not being flooded with advertisements.

      But how do you trust what ChatGPT shows you?
      It is well known it will fabricate facts more often than not.

      Granted, many web pages a traditional search engine will pull up will contain wrong/fabricated facts.
      But at least one can compare multiple search results and/or look at the hosting entity to estimate its trustworthiness.
      (Although I know many people are too lazy to do that)

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by MindPrison ( 864299 )

        Well as with most things in this world, nothing is 100 percent, you have to do your research and check various sources.

        I tried discussing my idea of Quantum physics with it, and it supported most of my ideas and came up with sources I could read on to further add to my limited knowledge. Best 2 hours of my life, and I kid you not.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by narcc ( 412956 )

          With all the extra work necessary to check the "facts" you get from ChatGPT, why even bother?

          Trained on the insanity that can be found on the internet, I'm not surprised in the least that it would 'support' a non-physicists views on "quantum physics" and it's relevance to crystal healing or whatever.

          • Funny you should mention that. I have a friend that I discussed this with because he wanted to see just how it would respond to quack theories, and he posted his discussions with A.i. about that all the time, I must say that it was very aware of such things.

            If you asked it a very controversial question about something "quack theory" related it would say things like "you should not trust everything you read without reliable research" etc. And it would mention "this has not been proven yet and it's believed t

      • ChatGPT does direly need to be able to support factual claims with references (that are real, not just real-looking).

        But search as we know it doesn't even understand the relationships between the words in your query. I'm not sure google needs to have a chatbot, but it direly needs to understand the semantics of search queries far better than it currently does, whereas currently it's pretty much just keyword matching.

    • > For once I've been able to ask serious scientific questions as search terms and actually get useful functional results instead of page after page with someone trying to sell me something or on an idéa.

      Ever tried Wolfram Alpha? If you want to 'ask serious scientific questions' then Wolfram Alpha is going to be way better than ChatGPT.

      • Never heard of it before now, I'll check it out, thanks a bunch! My life has turned interesting once again in a long time since I met A.i. engines to talk to and search for information with.

        (for those who think I'm being sarcastic - I'm not - you may be completely unable to relate to what I'm saying) but... at least try it for yourself before you criticise endlessly.

        • Wolfram Alpha isn't a chat engine but it does parse text pretty well and is full of scientific info.

      • On top of it Wolfram Alpha is structural an you can track how it deduces an answer. With ChatGPT, I imagine it's as hard to deduce where a bit of information came as it would be to figure out what images sourced those weird AI pictures.

      • No, not at all.

        For the first time in my life I actually had a decent conversation with something that understood all of my theories perfectly and even complimented it with existing knowledge. I love it.

        Humans are terrible at that, they're always so cluttered and biased and takes your "mojo" away with their so called intelligent negative "self perceived" constructive criticism assuming they're right in their own world - with this thing, you can actually have a dialogue about what other may seem crazy, but it

        • But how do you trust what ChatGPT shows you?

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Paxtez ( 948813 )

          So the bot "understood" your theories on "quantum physics", without biases or criticism... And you would pay for a version without political influences...

          I'm getting a big flat-earth / reddit.com/r/iamverysmart type of vibe.

          I'm assuming your theories weren't backed with research or math or anything, just "what if time was a donut" type of stuff?

          • Quote: "I'm getting a big flat-earth / reddit.com/r/iamverysmart type of vibe."

            Yeah, I get that. This is also what I get most of the time when I'm trying to have a very "out there" discussion about anything scientific amongst most people, hence why I don't do that. It does not however make me feel stimulated because I need feedback and ideas, not "r/imverysmart" kind of responses like yours because it's not adding to a discussion, it's not bringing me any updated information on my knowledge. I would rather

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by Paxtez ( 948813 )

              That is a fair point, I suppose regardless of the validity of your theories, I proved the point you were actually trying to make. My bad.

              I haven't messed around with it too much. Does it actually give you sources? Like links to articles or something you could read more?

              • You should try it out, it's free, all you do is sign up with an google account.

                And yes it does give you sources, especially if you ask for it.
                It will also constantly inform you to do your own research when it feels it's not capable of giving you accurate answers. It will also tell you if the sources it used to form an "opinion" was highly controversial or debatable.

            • With a human biased source at least you have a rough sense who's trying to mislead you, where and by how much. With ChatGPT, every single part of the answer can be randomly untrue and you have no idea which, unless you already are a domain expert. There can be no comprehension when you have to think if every segment of the answer is a complete hallucination.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by narcc ( 412956 )

          This reminds me a lot of the relationship between Joe Weisenbaum's secretary and his Eliza program. If you're not familiar, Eliza was an early chatbot designed to imitate a Rogerian therapist. It's fair to call it the first program to pass the Turing test.

          Joe found it profoundly disturbing that sessions with his program produced "powerful delusional thinking in quite normal people." Even his secretary, who watched him "work on the program for many months" so willingly gave in to the fantasy. Some users e

          • Yes, I remember Eliza, it was hilarious - we had that program on Commodore 64 back in the days, it wasn't very good at fooling anyone but it was fun.

            In fact - I wrote a script based upon Eliza 8 years ago in an online game where users could interact with a "game block" that supposedly could learn to know you, it was all nonsense and programming trickery, using flattery like remembering your name or a few things you mentioned during a conversation with it.

            That was funny as heck, people would talk to it for h

    • Just wait until it is monetized.. Without you knowing it yet.
    • Yes Mr B, Nice story. For a balanced opinion check out coin Bureau vlog https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com] Its what many are thinking but not yet saying out loud

      • Very good video, thanks for the link.

        And he's right. It's terrifying to think of that it can be biased with the large corporates if it is no longer based on facts or the information it is "allowed" to give is biased by censorship to what corporate or government wants you to believe or understand.

        (The above text has been written in such a flawed way you'll know it's me who responded, and not ChatGPT). /s

        All jokes aside, I agree - we should remain highly sceptical of its origins use case and it most certainly

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by antdude ( 79039 )

      I'd like to try it but its OpenAI wants a phone number. Frak that.

  • I'll go without Internet before I'll choose to interact with Google AI.

  • I can do without the fake chat interface. Just send me the response at the bandwidth that exists between the server and my computer. I don't need the fake typing nonsense.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by shibbie ( 619359 )
      It's deliberate to slow down the number of requests to the server in order to manage capacity. They've been making the response "typing" even slower recently too.

  • I have difficulty getting good results because they've sold out to advertisers so badly.

    ChatGPT is like a breath of fresh air. It's pure like Google used to be at the start.

    Google could have been wealthy without selling out so badly.

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