New search bots underscore familiar problems with the technology.
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Tech companies believe that generative AI can transform how we find information online, replacing traditional search engines with bots that synthesize knowledge into a more interactive format. Rather than clicking a series of links, reading a variety of sources, and then determining an answer for yourself, you might instead have a conversation with a search bot that has effectively done the reading for you. Companies such as OpenAI, Perplexity, and Google are bringing such tools to market: As my colleague Matteo Wong wrote in a recent story for The Atlantic, “The generative-AI search wars are in full swing.”
As part of his reporting, Matteo spoke with Dmitry Shevelenko, Perplexity’s chief business officer. In particular, the two discussed the media partnerships that have been signed by Perplexity and other AI firms to support their search projects. These deals give media companies compensation for allowing their material to be used by generative-AI tools; The Atlantic, for example, has signed a contract with OpenAI that may, among other things, show our articles to users of the new SearchGPT tool. (The editorial division of The Atlantic operates independently from the business division, which announced its corporate partnership with OpenAI in May.)
I found two of Shevelenko’s quotes especially striking. First: “One of the key ingredients for our long-term success is that we need web publishers to keep creating great journalism that is loaded up with facts, because you can’t answer questions well if you don’t have accurate source material.” And second: “Journalists’ content is rich in facts, verified knowledge, and that is the utility function it plays to an AI answer engine.” Each statement seemed to betray an attitude that the creative output of humanity amounts to little more than fodder—which seems particularly grim in light of what we know about how AI is trained on tremendous amounts of copyrighted material without consent, and how these tools have a tendency to present users with false information. Or as I put it last year: “At its core, generative AI cannot distinguish original journalism from any other bit of writing; to the machine, it’s all slop pushed through the pipes and splattered out the other end.”
The AI Search War Has Begun
By Matteo Wong
Every second of every day, people across the world type tens of thousands of queries into Google, adding up to trillions of searches a year. Google and a few other search engines are the portal through which several billion people navigate the internet. Many of the world’s most powerful tech companies, including Google, Microsoft, and OpenAI, have recently spotted an opportunity to remake that gateway with generative AI, and they are racing to seize it. And as of this week, the generative-AI search wars are in full swing.
What to Read Next
- Bing is a trap: “Tech companies say AI will expand the possibilities of searching the internet. So far, the opposite seems to be true,” I wrote last year.
P.S.
The future of search bots may depend on recent copyright lawsuits against generative-AI companies. Earlier this year, Alex Reisner wrote a great article for The Atlantic exploring what’s at stake.
— Damon
