Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

On March 8, Beijing time, there is an old Chinese saying, "be careful to sail a ship for ten thousand years." Google, the US search giant, knows this, too, but excessive caution has led it to "squander" a decade of first-mover advantage in artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots, instead making its old rival Microsoft.

In fact, more than two years ago, two Google researchers, Daniel De Freitas and Noam Shazeer, started pushing the company to release a chat robot that uses more powerful technology than any other product at the time. The conversational computer programs they developed can confidently debate philosophy, joke about their favorite TV shows, and improvise puns about cows and horses.

Google cautiously declined to disclose that Mr. de Freitas and Mr. Shazer told colleagues that chatbots like Google have been enhanced by the latest technological advances in AI and will revolutionize the way people search the Internet and interact with computers. They pushed Google to provide outside researchers with access to the chat robot, tried to integrate it into Google Assistant, a virtual assistant, and later asked Google to provide a public demo.

However, Google executives have repeatedly rejected their requests, at least once saying the project does not meet the company's standards for the security and fairness of AI systems, according to people familiar with the matter. As a result, the two researchers resigned in 2021 to start their own companies to study similar technologies. They told their colleagues that they were frustrated that they could not bring Google's AI tool to the public.

Now Google, which helped usher in the modern AI era, is finding that its cautious approach to the technology is being tested by its old rivals. Last month, Microsoft announced plans to integrate the technology of ChatGPT, a popular chat robot, into its Bing search engine, which shocked the world with its human-like conversation capabilities. ChatGPT was developed by OpenAI, which was co-founded by Elon Elon Musk. The company is seven years old and has taken advantage of Google's early AI advances.

Why are you so cautious? Google's relatively cautious approach stems from years of controversy over its AI efforts, from internal arguments about bias and accuracy to the public dismissal last year of an employee who claimed that its AI was already perceptive.

The incidents have raised concerns among Google executives that public demonstrations of AI products could pose risks to the company's reputation and search advertising business, according to former and current Google employees and other people familiar with the matter. Last year, search advertising accounted for a large portion of Google's parent Alphabet's revenue of nearly $283 billion (CTOnews.com Note: currently about 1.97 trillion yuan).

"it is difficult for Google to find a balance between how much risk it takes and maintaining its position as a world ideological leader." Gaurav Nemade, a former Google product manager, says he works on Google's chat robot project until 2020.

A Google spokesman said that the work of Shazer and de Freitas was interesting at the time, but there was still a big gap between prototype research and reliable products that people use safely on a daily basis. Google added that it must be more thoughtful than small startups in releasing AI technology.

It turns out that Google's approach is indeed more cautious. Microsoft said in February that users reported that its chatbot's answers were inaccurate and sometimes misanswered when the app reached its limit, and that they would impose new restrictions on the chatbot.

And Google doesn't seem to be obsessed with pre-empting products. Google CEO Sandal Pichai (Sundar Pichai) said in an email to Google employees last month that some of the company's most successful products were not the first to market, but won the trust of users over time. " It's going to be a long journey for everyone in the field, "he says." the most important thing we can do now is to focus on developing a great product and develop it responsibly. "

Ten-year first mover advantage Google's efforts in chatbots can be traced back to 2013. At the time, Google co-founder Larry Page hired computer scientist Ray Kurzweil, who helped popularize the idea that machines would one day surpass human intelligence, a concept known as the "technological singularity".

Kurzweil later said he began developing several chatbots at Google, including one named Danielle, named after a novel he was working on at the time. Kurzweil through Kurzweil Technologies (Kurzweil Technologies Inc.) The spokesman declined the interview request. He founded the software company before he joined Google.

Google also acquired DeepMind, a British AI company, which set a similar mission to create universal AI or software that reflects human thinking.

Microsoft has a head start at the same time, scholars and technical experts are increasingly worried about AI. For example, it is possible to achieve large-scale monitoring through face recognition software. They put pressure on companies such as Google to promise not to pursue specific uses of the technology.

In part to cope with Google's growing popularity on the AI, a group of technology entrepreneurs and investors, including Mr Musk, launched OpenAI in 2015. OpenAI, originally a non-profit organization, said it wanted to ensure that AI would not be a victim of corporate interests, but would be used for the benefit of mankind. However, Musk left the OpenAI board in 2018.

It was OpenAI that launched the popular global chat robot ChatGPT at the end of last year. As a result, Microsoft sees an opportunity to challenge Google search. Microsoft was an early investor in OpenAI, investing $1 billion in OpenAI in 2019 and is said to have added another $10 billion this year. Microsoft announced an agreement with OpenAI to integrate ChatGPT in Bing search.

Google is under pressure to be forced to respond quickly to Microsoft. Since Microsoft reached a new agreement with OpenAI, Google has been trying to reaffirm its identity as the founder of AI.

On the eve of Microsoft's event to introduce Bing's integration of OpenAI technology, Google launched its own chat robot bard in February this year. Two days later, Google said at an event in Paris that it had planned to discuss more regional search functions. The company once again made Bud and the wider public see Bud and a search tool that uses LaMDA-like AI technology to generate text responses to search queries.

Google is still careful to say that it often re-evaluates the conditions for product launches. Because chatbot technology is so exciting right now, they want to release Bud to testers, even if it's not perfect.

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