The release of Chat GPT by Open AI has struck a nerve with just about everyone. Even Google is freaking out, going so far as bringing in their founders to review all of Google’s AI projects
Last month, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Google’s founders, held several meetings with company executives. The topic: a rival’s new chatbot, a clever A.I. product that looked as if it could be the first notable threat in decades to Google’s $149 billion search business.
Mr. Page and Mr. Brin, who had not spent much time at Google since they left their daily roles with the company in 2019, reviewed Google’s artificial intelligence product strategy, according to two people with knowledge of the meetings who were not allowed to discuss them. They approved plans and pitched ideas to put more chatbot features into Google’s search engine. And they offered advice to company leaders, who have put A.I. front and center in their plans.
The re-engagement of Google’s founders, at the invitation of the company’s current chief executive, Sundar Pichai, emphasized the urgency felt among many Google executives about artificial intelligence and that chatbot, ChatGPT.
NY Times
It is not just Google who are realizing how transformative and ‘cage rattling’ tools like Chat GPT. Universities and colleges all around the world are freaking out about how Chat GPT can spit out a well written dissertation about just about anything, raising alarm bells of how students could rely on such technology to help them get their homework done.
Even beyond text, AI is creating art, visuals and virtual worlds that just don’t exist. Check out this Instagram called The Visual Dome. None of it is real.
The irony is that people have been interacting with AI technology for years – think about how you have interacted with most big banks or other companies when you call their Customer Service systems. They have been using AI generated capabilities to handle a wide range of inquiries from people before ever reaching a human representative.
I’ve seen several articles cite technology and business leaders cite the time they first saw and interacted with distinctive and game changing technologies that have fundamentally altered the world – Netscape Navigator, and the iPhone being two of them – and they have all said that Chat GPT is another one of those game changers. The future is the present, folks.