Since ChatGPT’s launch in November 2022, tech analysts have suggested that chatbots could upend the way people surf the web. The bots are trained on huge amounts of information scraped from the internet, which they can draw on to answer questions. But the technology also constantly makes up information, making the tools unreliable in terms of accuracy.
AI companies have tried to fix the problem by plugging their chatbots into search engines. ChatGPT already searches Bing, Microsoft’s search engine, to find up-to-date information for some queries. Perplexity AI, an AI search start-up, uses AI to search the web, read articles and provide summaries that it aims to make more direct and conversational compared with regular Google search results.
OpenAI’s push into search comes after Google in May jumped heavily into using generative AI in search. After ChatGPT’s launch, the company began testing its own AI search features, and in May it put AI answers at the top of search results for most people in the United States. The results have been mixed, with some of the search answers being nonsensical or just plain incorrect, such as Google’s bot telling people to put glue on pizza. A spokesperson for Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
It’s unclear whether the new OpenAI tool also works with Bing. Microsoft uses OpenAI’s technology as part of a licensing agreement. A spokesperson for OpenAI said its search tool draws on information from “third-party partners and direct feeds.”
Publishers, from newspapers to one-person bloggers, have raised concerns that the move to AI answers over search results could undermine or even destroy their businesses. Web publishers rely on traffic from Google to stay afloat and make money, and they have had a long and uneasy relationship with the search giant, which often disrupts web publishers with tweaks and changes to the way search results work.
OpenAI has tried to position itself as more of an ally to publishers by signing deals with such news organizations as News Corp., the Atlantic, the Associated Press and Politico’s parent company, Axel Springer. The new search tool gives the source of the information and links back to it, according to images provided in OpenAI’s blog post. The announcement featured positive quotes from the chief executives of News Corp. and the Atlantic.
News organizations have also began developing their own AI-driven tools to keep up with tech companies. The Washington Post launched a “Climate Answers” bot in July that uses generative AI to answer readers’ questions about climate change, based on information from Post stories.
Individual news workers, including at some companies that have signed deals with OpenAI, are more skeptical. Some journalists have said they are worried that AI trained on their work will eventually be used to replace them. The union representing workers at the Atlantic said in May that it was “deeply troubled” with the company’s deal with OpenAI.
OpenAI also said it would be “improving the experience” in areas such as commerce, signaling that the tool could have advertisements, another direct challenge to Google’s dominant business model of showing ads on search results.
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