Google Deploys AI To Find Search Answers

Uploaded on 2024-04-29 in TECHNOLOGY-Key Areas-Artificial Intelligence, FREE TO VIEW, BUSINESS-Services-IT & Telecoms

Google has begun running a trial of producing search answers written by Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the UK, after the feature was tested in the US in 2023. Initially, only a small proportion of logged-in UK users will see an AI-generated "overview" at the top of some search results.

While Google is the most popular search engine, Microsoft's rival Bing already integrates its Copilot AI. But some publishers worry AI answers may reduce visits to their sites. They fear longer chatbot-style responses will satisfy users' curiosity without having to visit their websites, while AI answers will also contain fewer links and ads.

The "Search Generative Experience", as Google dubs the feature, has been available for nearly a year in the US, but only to users who signed up via Google Labs. The new Google can do some useful things, although there are criticism that it sometimes also makes up facts, misinterprets questions and delivers out-of-date information

Even worse, researchers are finding the AI often indiscriminately references unreliable sources as authentic.

The UK experiment will involve only a small segment of UK search traffic, selected from logged-in users and according to the Financial Times Google is considering offering subscriptions for some premium AI search features, however, the company has denied it was "working on or considering an ad-free search experience".

The leader of Google's generative AI search project, Hema Budaraju, told the BBC its new search results will continue to display links and ads. She said it was a "priority" to continue to send traffic to creators, and claimed AI-powered search results were "actually showing more links to a wider range of sources".

The AI-generated "overview" will be shown only in response to certain queries, where current trials have suggested they were helpful. Google is aware of the common risk, that AI systems can sometimes generate content that is harmful, offensive, display racial and gender bias, or simply factually wrong. Ms Budaraju said the tech giant wanted to maintain "information quality", and it would "put in a lot of care and attention to do this in a responsible way".

As a consequence, Budaraju says that Google has decided to focus on accuracy in producing search answers at the expense of ease of use. For example, it is not generating AI answers to all queries, particularly where there aren't sufficient high quality sources of information.

Google claims that US users have responded positively, but if the trial is successful and AI generated search answers are eventually used by billions of people, there could be further challenges, not least the large amounts of electricity required to run the new generation of power-hungry semiconductors that run AI systems.

Image: Ideogram

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