Ajit Karn
The James Webb space telescope cost $10 billion (£8.3 billion) to create, but when the search engine’s new chatbot gave a wrong response to an inquiry about it, it left Google suffering losses of more than $160 billion.
The competition for artificial intelligence has entered a new chapter with this week’s announcements from Google and Microsoft about AI-assisted search. However, when the issue showed up in a demo, the introduction of the former’s new chatbot, Bard, went horribly wrong.
When questioned about the telescope, the rival to Microsoft’s ChatGPT said that it “captured the very first photographs of a planet outside of our own solar system.” Both experts and investors quickly picked up on the error.
Alphabet, the parent company of Google, had a $163 billion loss in share value on Wednesday and Thursday. The corporation still has a market value of $1 trillion or more, mostly as a result of its dominance in search. However, how long?
On Tuesday, Microsoft said that it was enhancing its Bing search engine and Edge web browser with the technology underpinning ChatGPT, created by the San Francisco-based startup OpenAI.
The business, which last month made a multibillion-dollar investment in OpenAI, said the technology, based on a more potent version of ChatGPT, will make shopping simpler, enable customers more easily refine their searches, and provide more relevant, up-to-date results. It said that the revamped Bing will be accessible to everyone in a few weeks, and users could sign up for an early access waiting list.
After the agreement with OpenAI and the phenomenal success of ChatGPT, Google realised it had to act. Bard was undergoing specialised testing, it was said on Monday, and will be made more readily accessible to the public in the next weeks.
When asked if the piano or guitar is easier to learn, Sundar Pichai, the CEO of Google, indicated that the technology powering Bard will soon be included into its search engine. Unfortunately, the telescopic reaction and a lacklustre presentation of Google’s newest AI-powered search initiatives in Paris on Wednesday garnered the most of attention.
The week had been a “huge success story,” according to Dan Ives, an analyst at the US financial services business Wedbush Securities, for Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, while Google’s Paris event and Bard mishap had left the company with “more questions than answers.”
The Microsoft ChatGPT agreement and event overshadowing the firm, he said, “While first it appears that Google rushed Bard to market, this race will be a long one.”
According to analysts, Microsoft is likewise unlikely to avoid blunders similar to those made by James Webb. Inaccuracies have been reported by ChatGPT customers while using the chatbot, whose technology powers the redesigned Bing and other Microsoft products including Teams.
According to analysts, Microsoft is likewise unlikely to avoid blunders similar to those made by James Webb. Inaccuracies have been reported by ChatGPT customers while using the chatbot, whose technology powers the redesigned Bing and other Microsoft products including Teams.
In one case, it provides more insightful solutions to queries such, “Why did Russia initiate a conflict in Ukraine?” than ChatGPT. The new-look Bing also offers users the choice of answering in several tones, including professional, informal, passionate, informative, or humorous, as well as in multiple forms, including paragraph, email, or blog, according to the Platformer newsletter.
AI may make mistakes, and you can get replies that seem convincing but are really incomplete, wrong, or unsuitable, according to the FAQ page on the revamped Bing.
Before a broader deployment to the public, Google said that the telescope mistake highlighted the necessity for the “rigorous testing” that Bard is undertaking.
But if public interest in chatbot-enhanced search, as shown by ChatGPT’s popularity, is sustained, Microsoft will have a sizable goal to shoot for. According to the internet statistics company SimilarWeb, Google has a 91% share of the worldwide search industry, while Bing only accounts for 3%. The “Ernie bot” chatbot from the Chinese search engine Baidu has also entered the competition.
Also read:- Elon Musk Says Twitter Will Remove “Legacy Blue Checks”
Microsoft claims that every percentage point it gains in market share—presumably from Google—represents an additional $2 billion in advertising income for the firm. The corporation is alluding to the lucrative industry of search result advertisements. This week, Microsoft said that marketers will be drawn to Bing’s AI-enhanced capacity to comprehend inquiries with “increased depth” and learn about customers via “deep conversational interaction.” Google undoubtedly concurs.
The firms have a significant gap to close: in its most recent quarterly results, Microsoft reported sales from search and news advertising of $3.2 billion, while Google produced search revenues of $42.6 billion. A market grab using AI will cost money, as will maintaining a dominant position in the market. Chatbots also demand a lot of computing power.
Google has made significant investments in AI, and its products utilise it extensively (in Google Translate, for instance). Another notable AI research company owned by Alphabet is DeepMind, situated in the UK. Google is still in a good place.
I don’t think Google’s search business will be seriously threatened by the next version of Bing that uses massive language model technology. According to Mark Riedl, a professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology, Google has massive language model technology that is at least on par with that from Microsoft and OpenAI.
Nevertheless, he continues: “Microsoft has accomplished a significant success by essentially overnight resuming a two-way contest in search technology. The outcome will be intriguing to see.
We need your help with a tiny favour since you are joining us from India today. Since the Guardian began publishing 200 years ago, tens of millions of people have put their faith in our fearless reporting, turning to us in times of difficulty, uncertainty, camaraderie, and hope. We are currently financially supported by more than 1.5 million donors from 180 different nations, keeping us open to everyone and adamantly independent. Will you help us too and change the world?
The Guardian does not have shareholders or a rich owner, unlike many other publications. Just the will and enthusiasm to produce high-impact global reporting that is never influenced by business or politics. Such reporting is essential to democracy, justice, and the ability to hold the powerful accountable for their actions.
And we provide all of this for free, so anybody may read it. We act in this manner because we support information equality. More people will be able to follow the developments that are changing the globe, comprehend how these events affect individuals and communities, and be motivated to take meaningful action. Regardless of their capacity to pay for it, millions may profit from free access to high-quality, accurate news.
No matter how much or how little you donate, your support will keep our reporting going for years to come.
