The AI war between Google and OpenAI is still raging as the former just announced upcoming upgrades. The leading search engine intends to make its service more "visual, snackable, personal, and human" using artificial intelligence.
Google Makes a Move
The tech giant is planning to make the search engine more visually appealing and easier to use for the younger generation globally. The usual upgrade that Google makes takes a turn as this becomes more of a design upgrade rather than a functional improvement.
Search results may soon be replaced with human voices, as opposed to the result of search results that show "ten blue links," as mentioned in Interesting Engineering. This could the beginning of hands-free web browsing, especially with Google's "Magi."
Magi's purpose is to make a user's search engine experience more tailored to their needs. Since Google will be more intuitive, the search results will be more specific to what the user intends to find, accompanied by sources to further immerse the searcher in information.
Although the tech giant still has no announcement regarding the release of the project, it's expected to be unveiled during the Google I/O developer conference. This could put Google ahead of the generative AI contest against OpenAI and Microsoft.
The race started when Microsoft announced that its search engine will be getting an improvement. With the billion-dollar partnership with OpenAI, ChatGPT would be integrated with Bing, Microsoft's search engine, threatening the standing of Google.
Google responded by releasing its own chatbot, Bard, although that didn't exactly achieve the success that the company hoped for. Magi is among Google's many AI-related projects, perhaps to redeem itself after Bard.
Once Magi is released, a million users in the US will be experiencing the improvements brought by Magi first. The company will then gradually expand its availability to approximately 30 million around the world before 2023 ends.
Tech Companies May Need to Slow Down
The AI race appears to be going at hyperspeed as the companies are attempting to one-up each other at every turn. However, not everyone is happy about how fast things are progressing, and one of those is the godfather of AI himself, Geoffrey Hinton.
Hinton, along with two of his graduate students from the University of Toronto in 2012, created the foundation that AI technology would be built upon. Despite that, he recently joined the group of tech critics that believe AI's fast progress may be dangerous.
He had quit his job at Google and said that he regret his life's work, as mentioned in The New York Times. Given that he was one of the most respected people in the field of AI, and had a hand in its progression, his wariness might actually hold weight.
One of the known tech minds in the industry who is also against the advancement of AI is Elon Musk. He, along with many other tech developers and critics who know their way around artificial intelligence share the same concern about its dangers.
