Introduction: Google CEO Sundar Pichai recently hinted that the company may be entering the AI language model arena and could soon be launching a new language model that would allow users to “interact directly” with its newest and most powerful language models as a companion to search. This would be a major move for Google, a company that has been researching AI for years and producing a significant amount of research in the field. However, Google has not yet had a public answer to popular language models like ChatGPT and DALL-E.
Google’s AI Research: Pichai stated during an earnings call that Google is planning to “unlock the incredible opportunities AI enables” and that AI technology is “reach[ing] an inflection point.” He also credited Google’s early AI research for helping to spawn the generative AI applications that are becoming more prevalent today.
Google’s Plans for AI: Pichai announced that the company has been preparing for this move since early last year and that Google will be doing a lot within the next few months. The first model users can interact with is LaMDA, Google’s conversational AI model. However, the form that this interaction will take is still unclear.
LaMDA: LaMDA is not a new concept for Google, as the company has been working on it for some time now. The Verge’s Victoria Song got to demo a writing app powered by LaMDA last year, and Google’s AI Test Kitchen allowed a limited number of users to interact with it after they got through a waitlist. However, there has not been a widespread public release of LaMDA like there has been with ChatGPT.
Competition with ChatGPT: With some people talking about how ChatGPT could replace Google search, it’s no surprise that Google has felt pressure to do something with all the AI technology it has. Google reportedly has employees testing its AI-powered chatbot rivals to ChatGPT right now. It wouldn’t be surprising if it was doing something similar with its internal tools for turning text into images or video.
Launching AI with Responsibility: However, Google may be cautious with its AI launch. CEO Sundar Pichai stated that the company is pursuing AI with a “deep sense of responsibility” and will be “careful” in launching AI. Pichai stated that AI will be launched “more as labs features in certain cases, beta features in certain cases, and just slowly scaling up from there.”
Market Readiness for AI Products: Despite this cautious approach, Pichai believes that the market is ready for these AI products. Whether society is ready is an open question, but it is clear that people are interested in playing with AI and that Google is ready to make its version available.
Conclusion: In conclusion, Google’s potential entry into the AI language model arena is an exciting development. It will be interesting to see how the company competes with popular models like ChatGPT and DALL-E. With Google’s significant resources and experience in AI research, the company will likely make a big impact in this space. However, the company’s cautious approach and commitment to launching AI with a “deep sense of responsibility” is also commendable and shows a commitment to ethical AI practices.
