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As Google continues to slowly erode the quality of its search engine, OpenAI seems interested in challenging the company’s ongoing market dominance. The AI firm announced Monday that it is opening up access to ChatGPT Search to all users after previously hiding the feature behind a subscription paywall.
U announcementwhich is the last of OpenAI’s “12 Days of OpenAI” event which saw the announcement of several new products including its Sora video generator and $200 per month Pro subscription planwill allow anyone logged into their ChatGPT account on desktop or mobile to access the search function. The company also said that users will be able to select ChatGPT Search as their default search engine in their web browser of choice.
ChatGPT Search received some rave reviews from early adopters. The platform is built primarily on data provided by publications that OpenAI has partnered with, including the Associated Press, Reuters, and Condé Nast, so theoretically it should be pulled more often from primary sources rather than the kind of content slop that makes his way in. Google AI summaries.
But he also has many skeptics. Michael Ann DeVito, a professor of computer science and communication studies at Northeastern University, questioned the accuracy of the platform, saying Global Northeast News“There’s no actual intelligence yet, just a context-free model based on the language, so there’s always a pretty good chance that some of what’s being spewed out will be misleading or pure nonsense.”
Research carried out from Columbia University’s Tow Center for Digital Journalism found that assessment to be fair. They commissioned a search of ChatGPT to identify 200 quotes, asking the platform to provide attribution including publication, publication date and URL. Is it he failed his mission 153 times. Troublingly, the researchers also found that the service is confident wrong, spitting out their answers with a language assured most of the time, only admitting to be unable to provide accurate information.
Accuracy is kind of a big deal when it comes to research. And people already have a bad taste in their mouths from other AI-infused research products. Microsoft made a big splash when it announced that it would be revamping its search engine with AI-sourced results and a chatbot interface, but failed to gain much, if any market share.
A CivicScience survey found that about half of all people were not interested in AI-assisted research, compared to only a quarter who would be really interested in embracing it. A Pew Research Center survey found that more than half of Americans are worried about the increased use of AI, compared to just 10% who say they are more excited than worried.
Perhaps ChatGPT’s research is what turns it around by confidently pointing people toward the wrong information. But now there seems to be a clear opportunity in the research space, since there is a distinct lack of options that do not suck.
