Google was an early leader in the artificial intelligence market and has been trying to catch up in the 18 months since OpenAI released ChatGPT. The tech leader reorganized its team, released a new artificial intelligence model and began to integrate production artificial intelligence functions into its core search products. The founders of Google, who quit before, are also re-involved. At the same time, OpenAI is developing its own search product and is said to be poaching people from Google.
The contest was at its best this week. The day before Google's long-planned developer conference, OpenAI temporarily announced that it would hold its own product launch. Over the past year, Google and OpenAI have finally achieved similar results in the same field with extreme secrecy: artificial intelligence assistants. It can process text, audio or images in real time and have voice conversations with you, just like a Siri with superpowers.
But the two companies have taken a very different approach to how to position their products in a new world full of artificial intelligence personal assistants. OpenAI pays more attention to personal elements, while Google pays more attention to accessibility.
OpenAI says its new voice assistant can understand people's emotions and express them. Artificial intelligence voice can laugh, sing, and express their so-called feelings. It also seems to have accosted the employees who used the tool on the stage twice-- praise.VirtualpinballHe dressed and said to him, "Hey, stop it."Virtualpinball! You make me blush. "on social platforms, many people think the assistant's voluptuous sound is similar to Scarlett Johansson's voice in the dystopian film Her-a comparison that CEO Sam Altman seems to have mentioned in his post.
In contrast, Google takes a more practical approach. The top priority announced by Google that day was not the voice assistant, but the transformation of search around artificial intelligence. Even Google's more futuristic, voice-based AI assistant basically avoided anything emotional in the presentation. Its artificial intelligence assistants help people find glasses, check license plates and plan a trip to Miami. When I talked to senior Google officials, they said it was a well-thought-out choice.
"you can make these technologies emotional if you want," said Sissie Hsiao, vice president of Google and general manager of Gemini experience and Google assistant business. "but I think super useful and super practical are the focus of our products."
OpenAI has achieved great success in competing with big competitors such as Google, in part because its products demonstrate the broad potential of artificial intelligence. Despite all the flaws, ChatGPT's ingenious response instantly changed our relationship with artificial intelligence and made the public aware of the rapid development of the technology. The idea that artificial intelligence assistants can express emotions also attracts our attention and imagination, and OpenAI's gradual updating of its artificial intelligence model may not achieve this effect.
However, there are risks in building artificial intelligence that can imitate and express feelings. These techniques are still error-prone when dealing with basic facts, let alone grasp the nuances of human emotions. Google has paid more than OpenAI for this, whether it's the controversy over the failure of its artificial intelligence image generator to return photos, or the fact that Bard's mistakes in the initial presentation wiped billions off the company's market capitalization.
It may make sense for Google to make a more measured bet. But the risk is that users may be indifferent and turn away.