Generative AI’s Impact on the Tech Industry
Introduction
People have long feared the day that artificial intelligence becomes capable enough to take their jobs. For some, these fears were worsened by the impressive performance of ChatGPT, an AI chatbot that quickly gained attention after its public release in November. ChatGPT is an example of generative AI, a type of AI that is trained on large amounts of data in order to generate new content. Other types of AI tend to simply analyze or act on existing data. In particular, GPT-3, the machine learning model behind ChatGPT, is trained on massive sets of text from the Internet. So far, it’s shown that it can perform a variety of tasks, like writing code or responding to questions. It still has limitations, so it will likely be some time before the bot can compete with humans for certain occupations. For now, one thing that ChatGPT seems to be good at is finding answers on the web.
Google Vs. Bing
For a long time, Google has been the go-to search engine for most users of the Internet. Other engines like Bing just haven’t been able to match Google’s performance in terms of speed or relevancy of search results. Recently, though, Microsoft, which created Bing, invested $10 billion into OpenAI, the company that created ChatGPT. Since the bot is able to answer questions based on the data it is trained on, Microsoft decided to integrate it into their search engine, allowing users to get better answers without having to spend a lot of time looking for the right websites on Google. For example, if I wanted to ask Google how to take care of my new dog, I might have to spend several minutes looking for relevant information and finding a trustworthy website. However, asking ChatGPT would (theoretically) give me a single comprehensive and accurate answer, saving my time.
An example response from ChatGPT
In response to Microsoft’s actions, Google has launched a similar AI program called Bard. It’s important to note that neither Bard nor ChatGPT are fully functional yet—accuracy in responses is a big issue. Still, the introduction of generative AI may drastically change how all search engines will work in the future.
The Future
Microsoft is now launching GPT-4, which is a significant development. This is because GPT-3 has only been able to give text responses, while GPT-4 will be able to go beyond that and make videos based on user prompts. It’s not exactly revolutionary in that aspect; for instance, other well-known bots like Midjourney can generate images and art. However, GPT-4 will be more adaptable than GPT-3, and much better at generating content. ChatGPT and other AI projects will probably get even better in the future, so they are worth keeping an eye on.