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AI Technology

OpenAI Considers Taking on Google With Browser (theinformation.com) 41

Posted by msmash from the shape-of-things-to-come dept.
An anonymous reader shares a report: OpenAI is preparing to launch a frontal assault on Google. The ChatGPT owner recently considered developing a web browser that it would combine with its chatbot, and it has separately discussed or struck deals to power search features for travel, food, real estate and retail websites, according to people who have seen prototypes or designs of the products.

OpenAI has spoken about the search product with website and app developers such as Conde Nast, Redfin, Eventbrite and Priceline, these people said. OpenAI also has discussed powering artificial intelligence features on devices made by Samsung, a key Google business partner, similar to a deal OpenAI recently struck with Apple, according to people who were briefed about the situation at OpenAI.
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OpenAI Considers Taking on Google With Browser More

OpenAI Considers Taking on Google With Browser

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  • Good! (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Some Guy ( 21271 ) on Friday November 22, 2024 @10:30AM (#64964819)
    Maybe it'll help keep all that garbage in one place.

    • If they are smart they will base it on Chromium and not rewrite the entire browser core. This shows how misguided the FTC is with wanting Google to sell Chrome. The browser itself is not valuable due to Chromium being open source, the value is in the cloud services attached to it.

      Maybe the FTC does make Google sell Chrome. But if they do that Chrome isn't going the be attached to Google services anymore and that raises huge 'trust' issues. Are you going to trust whoever it gets sold to with all of your Inte

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        I don't even trust Google

  • Moving from one botnet company to another even bigger botnet company doesn't seem to be what this browser needs

  • If OpenAI is smart (Score:3)

    by kwelch007 ( 197081 ) on Friday November 22, 2024 @10:48AM (#64964837) Homepage

    If OpenAI is smart, and I don't think they are from a business point of view, they'll stay in their lane as a services provider. The browser wars are over, for better or worse. There's little upside to developing their own.

    • If OpenAI is smart, and I don't think they are from a business point of view, they'll stay in their lane as a services provider. The browser wars are over, for better or worse. There's little upside to developing their own.

      But what would you think about OpenAI's idea if they chose to build on top of the FireFox browser, just like all other browser devs use Google Chrome now?

      And FWIW, Isn't the name OpenAI really a misnomer?

      • But what would you think about OpenAI's idea if they chose to build on top of the FireFox browser

        It doesn't matter. A browser is just a window to the Internet. Content is king. It's what's in the windows that matters, not the tool you use to view it.

        OpenAI is succumbing to hubris-induced mission creep.

        And FWIW, Isn't the name OpenAI really a misnomer?

        Yes, but the original intent was to actually be open.

        OpenAI only closed up when potential profit became too much. It was a controversial move.

      • Isn't the name OpenAI really a misnomer?

        I think it's widely understood that Open means "We're not evil so it's ok to give us all your money.... oh wait, we changed our mind but still give us the monaaay"

    • The upside is clear. What an AI company needs is real-world data. And Google has already gotten people used to the idea that their browser slurps up everything for corporate use.

    • If OpenAI is smart, and I don't think they are from a business point of view, they'll stay in their lane as a services provider. The browser wars are over, for better or worse. There's little upside to developing their own.

      While what you say is pretty much fact, think of it from OpenAI's perspective. If they can have a foothold in the browser space, that's a TREASURE TROVE of training data just waiting to be tapped. Because, let's be completely honest here, OpenAI's main purpose is data aggregation, and that will remain true for the foreseeable future. They want a direct tap to that data, rather than relying on other methods. And there's no better tap than a browser. A browser that's 100% guaranteed to make the data-suck that

    • I will be very surprised if they don't just repackage existing libs and contribute close to nothing to the projects. My impression is they're hype-generating parasites. The risk they face is that Sam Altman goes around saying his AI tools will replace developers and make them so productive, etc....if this browser is a lazy reskin or buggy, hopefully it'll spook investors and see that he's been overselling his product by a massive degree.

      I see 2 outcomes:

      1. Deliver on the hype: Open AI engineers, w

      • ...also, either way, you're legally allowed to steal my data for free because of your shady EULA....and if my SSN, passwords, identifying information, porn history, and medical history ends up in someone's results, I can't sue.

        "Also, due to our Strategic Legal Partnership, if you get food poisoning anywhere the concept Disney, you can't sue.

    • They are just desperate to generate some revenue stream before they disappear. All the big players are already knee deep in AI investment and OpenAI lost a LOT of talent in the past year, so the clock is ticking. They need something more than providing ChatGPT to others, because that will be easily replaced once better models come along. It's obviously the wrong move, but then again their CEO is not the smartest tool in the shed and doesn't know how to run a successful business.
    • I think there is upside. Capture of an audience. Think of all the lovely delicious monetizable data they could get and not share.
      Also, to capture mindshare with a new search paridigm. People seem to love and trust new technology, so get our Brand New Browser!
      Don't use last year's embarrassing technology, use OPEN Browser NOW! .. and by "open" we mean closed.

      Always, always try to capture your audience and do everything possible from them using anything else. It's how tech is done these days.

  • I can only imagine (Score:3, Informative)

    by MpVpRb ( 1423381 ) on Friday November 22, 2024 @11:04AM (#64964863)

    ...how awful it would be
    Ads, ads, ads, ads, AI training, all product recommendations go to Amazon, no negative reviews, ads, ads, ads, ads.........

  • Three browsers stories in a row (Score:3)

    by xack ( 5304745 ) on Friday November 22, 2024 @11:23AM (#64964891)
    Everyone wants to be the new Konqueror.

  • What for? (Score:5, Informative)

    by nospam007 ( 722110 ) * on Friday November 22, 2024 @11:34AM (#64964901)

    I already replace Google with ChatGPT, it's way easier, like the example below:

    "Can you give me a few Amazon links for the thingies at the top of ceiling lamps that hide the cable connections and also tell me what they are called?"

    ChatGPT said:

    The component at the top of ceiling lamps that conceals cable connections is called a ceiling canopy or ceiling rose. These fixtures are designed to hide wiring and mounting hardware while providing a clean, finished look.

    Here are some examples:

    Canomo 5 1/8 Inches Ceiling Lighting Canopy Kit, available at https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07M... [amazon.com]
    2-Port White Ceiling Canopy with Nylon Cord Grips, available at https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08H... [amazon.com]
    Urbanest 5-Foot Chandelier Chain Cord Cover, available at https://www.amazon.com/dp/B081... [amazon.com]

    These items are suitable for various light fixture setups and can enhance the aesthetics of your ceiling-mounted lights. Let me know if you need additional help!

    And no advertisement. I would have had to do some research first to know what the thingies are called.
    Try the same text in Google and you get crap and ads.

    • "And no advertisement. " ... yet? What's their business plan?

      BTW chromium speller must have been switched to AI as often now I get "what most probable word given context" often resulting in antonyms. So thanks Google but no thanks!

      • Google went to crap not entirely because it looks worse compared to modern competition, but by suicide when they put the chief of advertising in charge of the search engine. Google is garbage compared to every previous incarnation of Google. Product quality has also gone down while not improving. I'd switch to OpenAI for email if they offer it.

    • "Can you give me a few Amazon links for the thingies at the top of ceiling lamps that hide the cable connections and also tell me what they are called?"

      Curious, I get:

      I wasn't able to fetch specific Amazon pages, but you can easily find what you're looking for by searching for terms like "ceiling canopy" or "ceiling rose" on Amazon...

  • New browser wars will certainly fix AI being overhyped and generally useless. They better put a team chat and uselessly bad spreadsheet feature in it too!

  • Eat your own dog food! (Score:3)

    by chthon ( 580889 ) on Friday November 22, 2024 @11:53AM (#64964933) Journal

    Will they use their AI to write their browser?

    • Were all this garbage really "intelligence" that could be trained on anything, it would be able to write ALL the code for an entire bug-free operating system AND a bug-free web browser without using ANY code written by any human. Nobody would need to employ a vast army of programmers all across tech world to write Android, or Windows, or Chrome, or any other software. We could just junk all legacy software and somebody could describe a PC and a Web browser to an AI, give it the technical details (PC schemat

  • ... and it has separately discussed or struck deals to power search features for travel, food, real estate and retail websites ...

    Back around 1995, I bought a book called "Websites that Suck" or something to that effect. It was about how to make a good website, with plenty of examples of ones that sucked, to illustrate the contrary point.

    This was the era of first important browser NCSA Mosaic (1993) then Netscape (1995). The internet was largely unknown to most people outside the universities that were using it, and Netscape is what opened up the internet to average people using the graphical hypertext WWW via a browser. The autho

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by shoor ( 33382 )

      I'm old enough to remember those days, reading and posting to usenet in the 1980s, and the myriad computer BBSes that were around. Maybe it's because of the habits I developed then, but I feel I can get around on the web doing my thing and avoiding the worst of the commercialism. I disregard ads on youtube the same way I disregarded them on broadcast TV in the days when all you had was ABC, CBS, NBC and maybe a few UHF and Educational TV stations.

      I do miss the old Usenet though, with the free give and tak

      • Thanks for the reply.

        Usenet was the best.

        My personal interests kept me on groups where people were polite and cooperative, so I rarely experienced any flame wars.

        The whole way messages were organized and listed was better than any of the modern web blog and WordPress style sites.
        Even Slashdot pages, while okay, are not as easy to navigate as newsgroups in a news browser.

        Oh well, times change.

        • The crucial value of Usenet until it rotted: organization by topic rather than by author. The other crucial value: it grew before it was straightforward to access.

  • I bet this OpenAI browser will be yet another variant of Chromium.

    As long as your browser's guts are made by Google, Google wins.

  • A search engine that gives confidently wrong answers - built into a bad browser ...

  • OpenAI is good at one thing: LLM development. If they venture into the browser wars, they will either 1) do it cheaply and poorly, or 2) spend a ton of money that they should be devoting to improving their core product. I personally enjoy using ChatGPT, and I hope it doesn't end up having resources diverted to other things. LLM is still very immature, it's going to continue to take a long time to fully develop the technology.

  • How long until they're offering to handle your email?

  • Yay! Just what the world needs, yet ANOTHER chrom* browser, and then packed with AI as a "bonus."

    Hard pass. Will stick with Firefox.

  • This brings a definition of super AI: an AI that would be able to produce w web browser
  • Security wise, what could possibly go wrong?

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