Gmail creator Paul Buchheit believes that the days of Google Search Engine are numbered and will soon be replaced by an artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot. The engineer is of the opinion that the search engine just has a year of two left before becoming irrelevant.
The announcement comes close on the heels of the release of ChatGPT, which is a creation of OpenAI company started by Elon Musk in 2015.
The Evolution of ChatGPT
ChatGPT has managed to pique the interest of over one million users since its release.
- The AI chatbot is capable of writing essays, drafting marketing pitches, framing stories, writing scripts, computer code, and poetry.
- The chatbot’s capabilities have led tech experts in Silicon Valley to question Google’s monopoly in the Search Engine space.
One such person is 45-year-old former Gooogle worker, Paul Buccheit. He took to Twitter to back up his claims with relevant evidence.
Google may be only a year or two away from total disruption. AI will eliminate the Search Engine Result Page, which is where they make most of their money.
Even if they catch up on AI, they can't fully deploy it without destroying the most valuable part of their business! https://t.co/jtq25LXdkj
— Paul Buchheit (@paultoo) December 1, 2022
One thing few people remember is the pre-Internet business that Google killed: the yellow pages! The Yellow Pages used to be big business, but then Google got so good that everyone stopped using the Yellow Pages. AI will do the same with web search,” Buchheit said.
He mentioned that Google’s Search Engine will take a hit as the AI powered chatbox will complete tasks instantly, which will take minutes for a human to do. Previously, US executives have even affirmed that investing in AI gives better returns.
Risks of ChatGPT
On the other hand, while ChatGPT is the new darling of social media users, some experts have pointed out the obvious flaws that come with AI assistants.
- The bot has been generating plausible but false responses. For example, when asked to write a biographical essay about a public figure, the AI chatbot has inserted incorrect biographical data into the result.
- ChatGPT is especially notorious for giving confident but false data to queries related to coding. Many users pointed out that the comprehensive responses have a high rate of being incorrect and although they look good, are anything but.
This led to the go-to question-and-answer site for coders and programmers, Stack Overflow, temporarily banning users from sharing responses generated by AI chatbot ChatGPT.
Giving plausible but false information is a popular failing of AI text generation models, also called large language models.
Although ChatGPT has high potential to replace every other AI assistant, it is not without glitches. Experts in the AI community are torn over the results and are debating the value of large language models. Artificial intelligence is set to change the way we work, play, and function in the coming years.
Google’s AI plans
Meanwhile, Google recently announced that it is shutting down Duplex on the Web. The tech company is focusing on building its own AI capabilities, especially in the voice and conversational search space. It has even acquired DeepMind, an AI company to bolster its capabilities.
Earlier this year, Google also put processes in place to filter out unwanted data in search engine results. Its processes will now prioritize quality over quantity and will sort posts by relevance.
In the past, the tech giant has admitted that it uses AI to improve its Search Engine capabilities. “AI plays a major role in showing you helpful results, even at the outermost edges of your imagination,” wrote the company in a blog post.
Over the years, Google’s Search Engine has finetuned its AI capabilities to understand that even small words have big meanings and deliver results accordingly.
