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In a recent MarketWatch article, I predicted that Alphabet’s
GOOGL,
Google will be forced to put up its digital dukes and provide a worthy challenger to ChatGPT if it wants to remain the king of search engines. That time has come.
Google’s subsidiary DeepMind is preparing to launch Sparrow, touted as a safer, “harmless” and more reliable alternative to Microsoft-backed
MSFT,
ChatGPT. Though the exact date has yet to be confirmed, DeepMind aims for a private beta trial later this year.
“ AI has been learning from the internet, which is often uncouth, biased and incorrect. ”
I’ve been using ChatGPT since it became available, so I’m aware of both its shortcomings and its enormous potential, if one knows how to use it properly.
Its shortcomings are the result of several issues, from inconsistencies in AI model training to dataset-based limitations. Simply put, AI has been learning from the internet, which is often uncouth, biased and incorrect. ChatGPT’s limitations, for instance, include occassionlly providing incorrect information and harmful instructions or biased content.
Sparrow could address many of these issues because it can draw from a much cleaner dataset, thanks to its direct access to Google’s superior semantic search engine and its decades of research.
DeepMind will most likely optimize the dataset and apply filters to fine-tune the model to provide more accurate information that also comes with active backlinks, which is something OpenAI’s model currently cannot do.
As a consequence, it’s also very likely that Sparrow will be more constrained in what it can do. It makes sense as Google is using it to quickly address the threat to its search engine empire rather than to provide a versatile AI model.
In initial evaluations, Sparrow was able to provide a credible response and support it with evidence on 78% of occasions when it was asked a factual question. These performance results are impressive, especially this early in development cycle, and it’s more than likely that Google’s AI model will do extremely well when it’s released.
However, the clash of AI giants is an overture for something much more sinister — for Google at least. The company started developing Sparrow because it fears that people may end up relying on ChatGPT rather than its own engine for their search queries.
Even if Google wins this battle, it will have to take a next step: integrating Sparrow in Google’s search engine/ad serving business. This will be an expensive and risky overhaul.
Sparrow will need to work seamlessly with the current engine, amplify its results and lend a hand to the company’s formidable ad-serving system. Adding an additional AI model to a tightly knit ecosystem and training it continuously on a highly dynamic dataset (so it becomes useful part of the equation rather than a loose cannon spewing dated information and nonsense) will be a challenging and expensive endeavor.
It’s a bullet Google will have to bite, as its competition doesn’t have a $209 billion-per-year ad empire to protect and can “move fast and break things” with fewer repercussions.
Speaking of repercussions, there could be quite a few for Google if things go wrong. If the search engine giant integrates the model too early and it starts providing misleading or biased feedback during sensitive periods, such as elections, or about the divisive social and political topics, it could cause expensive problems for Google — ones that could put in question its reputation and lead to various legal proceedings.
On the other hand, Microsoft’s subpar search engine, Bing, may finally get the boost it needs to be lifted out of irrelevance now that the company purchased an exclusive license to underlying tech behind GPT-3, a predecessor to ChatGPT, back in 2019.
Furthermore, unlike Google, Microsoft doesn’t have to protect its current ad revenue cashflow (with just $7.7 billion in 2020, there’s plenty of room for improvement), and we can expect Microsoft to eagerly and aggressively integrate the model into its pipeline.
While both AI models have their strengths and limitations, the success of Sparrow and ChatGPT will have a significant impact on the future of search engines and online advertising. The battle between these AI giants will also have implications for data privacy, accuracy of information and the role of AI in society.
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