Exploring the Potential of Google’s AI Language Models: How it Could Take on ChatGPT

Sundar Pichai, senior vice president of Android, Chrome and Apps (Manu Fernandez/AP)

Google may soon allow the public to play with its response to ChatGPT, the viral chatbot that uses AI to answer questions and complete tasks.

The tech giant is under pressure to find an answer to the tool that threatens to overshadow its dominant services, including Google search.

ChatGPT users have asked the free bot for help with a range of issues, from writing emails to helping with their homework, much to the chagrin of the teachers. It has even passed exams at law and business schools in the US.

As interest in the tool doesn’t wane, Google plans to allow people to “directly interact” with its “most powerful” AI language models as a complement to search, according to CEO Sundar Pichai.

It’s unclear how the tool will work and how users will be able to interact with it in search. The most immediate difference between ChatGPT and Google search is that the former answers your question directly, while the latter provides search results that you can search. According to The Verge, Google’s latest AI model could even make an appearance at an event the company is hosting on February 8th.

“Join us to learn how we’re giving people everywhere better access to information through search, maps and more,” the company says.

During Google’s last conference call, Pichai said the first model people can use will be LaMDA, the company’s conversational AI model. The company previously tested LaMDA as part of a writing tool that might produce prose, and through an app which allow a limited number of users to chat with the chatbot.

Although Google has added new AI models to its search engine in the past, these tend to work behind the scenes, resulting in little fanfare for its longstanding useful service. For example, the company’s Multitask Unified Model (MUM) was designed to reduce the number of searches required to answer your question. According to Google, it can also recognize both text and images and up to 75 different languages ​​to provide more refined results.

In comparison, AI company OpenAI immediately caused a stir by allowing anyone to sign up to use its free ChatGPT service when it launched late last year. Users quickly began sharing their impressive responses on social media, which started a snowball effect. The bot snapped a million users in the first five days, according to founder Sam Altman. Recent analysis suggests the number may have increased since then 100 million users.

OpenAI investor Microsoft took the opportunity to compete with Google and recently began adding ChatGPT’s features to its enterprise-grade tools, including its azure Cloud service and a premium version of it teams Chat software for the workplace.

Still, it’s still too early to exclude Google from the chatbot race. As Pichai noted, its AI models will provide “up-to-date, more factual information,” which ChatGPT is currently unable to do as it has limited knowledge of world events after 2021.

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