Chatbots have got much better thanks to what's called "generative" or "conversational AI". This technology comes from feeding billions of real texts (and images) into a machine-learning system, which is able to generate its own speech, essentially by learning which words are most likely to go together in a sentence on any given topic. The result is language that sounds surprisingly intelligent and life-like.
There's great excitement that AI might disrupt the lucrative search-engine market — in 2021, Google earned nearly $150 billion from search ads. For the past 25 years, Google has been the online gateway for most people, but an AI chatbot might be better and could become the standard way we use the internet, doing things like booking flights or arranging meetings for us.
However, early in 2023, an open letter signed by more than 1,000 tech leaders said that AI developers were "locked in an out-of-control race to develop and deploy ever more powerful digital minds that no one — not even their creators — can understand, predict or reliably control".
Jon Henshaw, technical director of SEO at Vimeo, told The Economist: "Google already uses machine learning and AI for accuracy; for factual information... Conversational AI doesn't do that." He's not the only critic to say chatbots aren't reliable because they don't check facts. When they produce false information, it's called a "hallucination" — it sounds realistic but has no factual basis.
Generative AI offers a wide range of significant benefits. Will they outweigh the potential risks?