Until now, search engines have mostly been showing us links to websites. That may all be about to change with the power of AI. Microsoft, long struggling to get anyone to use Bing, wants to turn its business around with ChatGPT. But Google has similar plans. — Photo: Rolf Vennenbernd/dpa
WASHINGTON: For years, nothing has come close to even putting a dent in Google's reign in all matters related to search. The same goes for browsers, and Chrome remains the go-to for the vast majority of internet traffic.
Now, Microsoft has been handed the one piece of software that could make a difference: ChatGPT.
This could not only turn the online balance of power upside down, but also the way people search the internet.
Why are Google and Microsoft suddenly so active in AI?
Google and Microsoft, as well as other tech companies like IBM and Salesforce, have been working for years to improve their products with AI. The spectrum ranges from the automatic translation of texts to the calculation of travel routes in a navigation app.
And yet much of this was happening in the background – until in November, Californian start-up OpenAI released the demo version of ChatGPT, the answer-anything, write-anything text machine sponsored by Microsoft.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman's decision to make this piece of AI public soon made his company the talk of the town, while entire industries speculated on the ways – both positive and negative – this technology could change workflows.
What is so innovative about systems like ChatGPT?
The basic technology behind ChatGPT was developed five years ago, mainly by Google researchers. Huge amounts of text are analysed with algorithms that mimic nerve cells in the brain.
These so-called neural networks can then recognise which words frequently occur together, quickly learning for example that "cat" often comes together with "furry", "cute" and "whiskers".
ChatGPT can thus predict with a high degree of probability which word will occur next in a sentence and thus formulate texts that sounds like they were written by a human.
But what's new is that different AI functions can be combined with each other. That means you can tell ChatGPT to write 300 words for a LinkedIn post in French about how AI will change customer service.
How will this change search?
Right now, search engines like Google, Bing and DuckDuckGo still largely rely on links to other websites. However with the power of AI, the search engine could soon be more of a machine that answers questions.
Instead of giving you a list of websites where you might find the information you're looking for, AI-powered services from Google and Microsoft are set to simply formulate a short paragraph of text for you with the answer to your query.
That's because systems like ChatGPT can combine information from a wide variety of sources.
Say you go to search for a travel destination that is no more than X hours away by plane, you may no longer see a list of links to features from travel blogs.
Instead, the chatbot will deliver a text formulated by the AI in which Marrakesh, Lisbon, Faro, Istanbul, Crete and Reykjavík are suggested as possible destinations, each with a brief description.
What have we seen so far?
The leading search engine Google has so far used two methods to answer queries. On the one hand, there is the "knowledge graph", which is a pool of information that Google can display directly with the help of sources such as Wikipedia and many other databases.
In other words, we are already seeing fewer links to internet platforms and more immediate information as snippets of text.
The core business, however, is still that list of internet links that match a search term. That's because beside – and sometimes above – these generic search results, Google displays links paid for by advertisers.
Could Bing become the new Google?
This is certainly what Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella hopes. And while Bing has never managed to seriously compete with Google in recent years, it now appears closer than ever with the help of ChatGPT.
Google holds a global market share of nearly 93% in search, according to statcounter.com, while Bing comes in at just 3%.
"This technology is going to reshape pretty much every software category," Nadella said. This explains why his company is pouring billions of dollars into OpenAI and the rights to use ChatGPT.
Google won't be giving up without a fight, however, and both the search king and its arch-rival Microsoft, with whom it competes mainly in the cloud business, are set to rely equally on AI smarts.
One day before the Microsoft event, Google's CEO announced a comprehensive AI product initiative and a "conversational AI service" named Bard.
What are the problems with using AI chatbots?
The linguistic eloquence of these AI-powered answers gives the impression that we can rely on them to speak the truth. But this is not the case.
ChatGPT often spits out would-be facts that are entirely fictitious, and sometimes even racist or incendiary. Even the makers of the chatbot warn us not accept the results unchecked.
Chat systems have particular difficulties when searching for people. That means that sometimes different people with the same name can merge into one new virtual person.
Can AI bots also be abused?
Yes, AI can be used for nefarious purposes, even if developers are trying to block malicious searches for things like how to build a bomb. On the web you can see examples again and again of how these blocks can be circumvented.
ChatGPT and Google's counterpart Bard also offer a perfect means to cheat on exams and homework at school and university.
The problem for teachers around the world, is that so far there is no effective method to clearly recognise content generated by an AI as robot text.
Are AI bots getting better and better?
Yes, they are, and the pending widespread use of ChatGPT is also expected to help improve the quality of results. The creators at OpenAI are in fact asking users to rate the quality of the answers. This feedback helps the AI to recognise systematic weaknesses and to eliminate them. – dpa
