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If you encounter a problem and need to go online to get the answer, would you rather open the search engine input box or the AI ​​tool dialog box?

This issue is not only related to the user habits of the next era, but also the focus of the current competition between OpenAI and Google. Google CEO Pichai once said that integrating AI into search engines will be the most significant change in the search field in 25 years.

On July 25, local time, OpenAI announced that it was testing a prototype product called SearchGPT, which integrates search functions into AI chat. Just two months ago, Google's search engine launched the "AI Summary" function. The two giants in the fields of AI and search have extended their tentacles into each other's core territories, and the competition between the two sides is becoming increasingly fierce.

After the announcement of the internal beta of SearchGPT, the stock price of Google's parent company Alphabet fell 3% in an instant, and the cumulative decline in the past month was nearly 8.5%.

▲OpenAI CEO Altman

SearchGPT internal testing draws attention

"Visual answers" will also be provided in the future

It is reported that a group of technology media and publishing partners are already participating in the internal testing of OpenAI's product. Ordinary users can also sign up to join the candidate list. It is reported that the entire internal testing will eventually invite about 10,000 people to participate.

OpenAI said SearchGPT is designed to provide users with "quick and direct answers, with complete and clear sources" with one click.

An article on its official website points out that if users search on traditional websites, they will only get a series of web links. If things don’t go smoothly, they may need to search dozens of times before they find the exact answer they need. SearchGPT can directly extract available, ready-made answers for users from an authoritative and reliable database.

▲OpenAI said that SearchGPT can directly extract available ready-made answers from authoritative databases

The OpenAI official website also gave two examples: when users searched for "August music festivals in Boone, North Carolina", the answers returned clearly included the time, location and introduction of each eligible music festival, and attached links to reliable sources; and when interested enthusiasts searched for "tomatoes", SearchGPT was able to conduct continuous conversations "with contextual memory", showing the nutritional content of tomatoes, their planting history, and the flavor and taste of local varieties.

It is also reported that OpenAI revealed that SearchGPT will also provide "visual answers" in the future, but no relevant case demonstrations have been seen yet.

Google was once“AI Hallucination” Failure

OpenAI for thisA more expensive approach

OpenAI CEO Altman posted on social media on July 25: "We have always believed that search engines still have a lot of room for development, so we launched the SearchGPT prototype." This declaration is tantamount to "issuing a declaration of war" to Google, the world's dominant search engine.

As early as May 14 this year, Google released the "AI Summary" feature, which fully integrated AI into its search engine. When users search, the first thing that appears in front of them is no longer a web link, but a long summary of the content compiled by AI. Google CEO Sundar Pichai said at the time that this was the most significant change in the search field in 25 years.

However, netizens soon discovered that Google's "AI summary" was full of errors and omissions, and contributed many hilarious jokes.

For example, when a user encountered the problem of cheese sliding off when making pizza, the solution given by Google's "AI Summary" was to "add some glue" - "mix about 1/8 cup of Emers glue with the sauce to make non-toxic glue."

▲Google's "AI Summary" suggests users add glue to pizza

For example, "AI Summary" recommends that users eat at least one stone a day to supplement vitamins and minerals; it says that "fluoride bleach and white vinegar" can be used to clean the washing machine, but in fact these two ingredients will produce harmful chlorine gas when mixed.

An American netizen posted that when he was frustrated and searched for a solution on Google, the "AI Summary" actually suggested that he jump off the Golden Gate Bridge. A user asked "Is it safe to leave a dog in a hot car?" Google's "AI Summary" answered: "It is safe to leave a dog in a hot car, especially in hot weather."

According to reports, Google AI is good at capturing the latest real-time information, but it cannot determine whether the massive amount of online information is true and reliable. For example, the paragraph "adding glue to pizza" is suspected to come from a netizen's sarcastic answer more than ten years ago.

In this regard, Google CEO Pichai believes that "AI hallucination" (that is, AI fabricates answers that are coherent but logically incorrect) is an inherent problem of the AI ​​language model and cannot be fundamentally solved.

This time, in order to solve the "AI hallucination" problem, OpenAI adopted a more costly method: the content library used by SearchGPT will all come from high-quality materials from cooperating publishers, and will be completely isolated from the massive corpus used to train ChatGPT.

Public opinion believes that OpenAI's move can be described as "killing two birds with one stone". It not only solves the problem of content quality, but also establishes good relations with media and publishing houses that produce high-quality content in advance, avoiding future copyright disputes.

Be the first to connect with the media

Build a “high-quality content library”

OpenAI spokesperson Kaiar Wood said that SearchGPT was developed with a number of authoritative news partners, and is currently collecting feedback from these partners to further enhance SearchGPT's functionality. In addition, OpenAI has also opened up the option for news media - the media has the right to choose not to have their content directly copied into the answers provided by SearchGPT, but can still have their own URLs appear on the search results page.

OpenAI's official website states: "SearchGPT aims to help users connect with publishers by highlighting citations and linking publishers. The answers given have clear logical connections and specific attribution publisher links, so users will know where the information comes from and can quickly get more results in the sidebar with source links."

Copyright disputes surrounding AI have been occurring in recent years. Recently, the US AI search company Perplexity AI was sued by Forbes magazine for illegally crawling content behind a paywall. The News Media Alliance, a trade organization representing more than 2,000 US publishers, said, "If AI companies cannot stop large-scale crawling, we will not be able to profit from valuable content or pay journalists."

Previously, some well-known American publishers have sued a number of AI companies for infringement. Some AI companies believe that they should be able to use public information published on the Internet for free. OpenAI has been trying to gain the cooperation and support of publishers and has taken the initiative to offer paid content. OpenAI has reached payment agreements with content platforms and producers such as Reddit and Springer Publishing Group (the world's largest publishing company). Through the joint development of SearchGPT, OpenAI is also expected to establish long-term cooperative relationships with more mainstream news media and content producers.

Red Star News reporter Zheng Zhi

Editor Pan Li Responsible Editor Li Binbin