Quote

Google's management has issued a "code red" amid the launch of ChatGPT — a buzzy conversational-artificial-intelligence chatbot created by OpenAI — as it's sparked concerns over the future of Google's search engine, The New York Times reported Wednesday.

 

Sundar Pichai, the CEO of Google and its parent company, Alphabet, has participated in several meetings around Google's AI strategy and directed numerous groups in the company to refocus their efforts on addressing the threat that chatbots pose to its search-engine business, according to an internal memo and audio recording reviewed by The Times.

 

In particular, teams in Google's research, trust, and safety division, among other departments, have been directed to switch gears to assist in the development and launch of AI prototypes and products, The Times reported.

 

Google's move to build out its AI-product portfolio comes as Google employees and experts alike debate whether ChatGPT — run by Sam Altman, a former Y Combinator president — has the potential to replace the search engine and, in turn, hurt Google's ad-revenue business model. 

 

Sridhar Ramaswamy, who oversaw Google's ad team between 2013 and 2018, said ChatGPT could prevent users from clicking on Google links with ads, which generated $208 billion — 81% of Alphabet's overall revenue — in 2021, Insider reported.

 

ChatGPT, which amassed over 1 million users five days after its public launch in November, can generate singular answers to queries in a conversational, humanlike way by collecting information from millions of websites. Users have asked the chatbot to write a college essay, provide coding advice, and even serve as a therapist.

 

But some have been quick to say the bot is often riddled with errors. ChatGPT is unable to fact-check what it says and can't distinguish between a verified fact and misinformation, AI experts told Insider. It can also make up answers, a phenomenon that AI researchers call "hallucinations."

 

Its high margin of error and vulnerability to toxicity are some of the reasons Google is hesitant to release its own AI chatbot LaMDA — short for Language Model for Dialogue Applications — to the public, The Times reported. A recent CNBC report said Google execs were reluctant to release it widely in its current state over concerns over "reputational risk."

 

Chatbots are "not something that people can use reliably on a daily basis," Zoubin Ghahramani, who leads the Google's AI lab Google Brain, told The Times before ChatGPT was released. 

 

Instead, Google may focus on improving its search engine over time rather than taking it down, experts told The Times.

Source

tbh I tried chat gpt and it's pretty cool. Can see why google would be worried about it

Chat gpt is a fluke. It won't be another 10 years till we get something that is actually useful 

17 hours ago, Delirious said:

Chat gpt is a fluke. It won't be another 10 years till we get something that is actually useful 

This. All hype no usefulness. This stuff will take decades to be of any importance

chatgpt is fun to mess around with but u wouldn’t use it in place of google

Edited December 24, 20223 yr by Nip Tuck

1 hour ago, IBeMe said:

This. All hype no usefulness. This stuff will take decades to be of any importance

not useful? you’re not using it correctly . I use it at work to help with coding , I use it to write blogs (which i go over and fact check but is still a LOT less effort than making them from scratch) , i use it to come up with copy for marketing material .. i even get it to write social media captions. it is extremely useful if used properly!  

13 hours ago, IBeMe said:

This. All hype no usefulness. This stuff will take decades to be of any importance

Decades seems like an exaggeration, though I’m sure we still have a while. Google hasn’t really had real competition so this is an existential threat and I can see them speeding up integration of these types of models into Search. Especially since regulators are looking into their $20 billion/year payments to Apple to be the default search engine on their devices.