Thank you wylted (and congratulations on the Presidency!),
Preamble:
We've entered an age where the lines where human creativity and artificial recreation are starting to become more blurred, more nuanced. Things that were considered impossible in the 1900s are now viewed as common in today's world. From chess to driving, AI has become an essential part of our modern society and will remain that way.
The implications of these technologies, however, have not been lost on creators and artists, who, back in February of last year, started a riot on the new "AI Art" revolution, framing it as a threat to themselves and to an entire industry.
However, it is of my opinion that, for the next century or so, humanity will have an edge. Not just because of ability, or creativity, but because of human's ability to question. We always have questions, thought processes that we want to pursue, trains which go on running from the minute we wake up until the moment we go to sleep. "Without questions, there is no learning."
[1]
So, how convenient is it that AI has come to help us with this as well!
The Players, and the Game:
It is not normally in Microsoft's fashion to be a revolutionary in any modern-day field. Nowadays, it seems as if they are merely always playing catch-up, creating cheap, mass-market rip-offs of technologies merely to earn more money. However, as of today, for once, it seems that Microsoft has finally claimed a uniquely evolved technology.
Ever since Claude Shannon's landmark paper "A Mathematical Theory of Communication"
[2], the idea of a machine which could talk to you seemed plausible. Over the years, language models have grown to be a useful feature for endeavors such as speech recognition, machine translation, and apps such as Grammarly for fixing and detecting tones in text. However, the prevalent use within this debate today will be the invention of chat-bots.
Now, while the history of chatbots is pretty sprawling, I will be focusing on the relevant developments. Around the start of the 2000s, they were mostly relegated to customer service usages, due to their rule-based approaches. As the century passed, language processing advanced far enough to have AI that reacts to more natural language like Siri or Alexa. And then, finally, in 2018, we were introduced to a new product by a small startup called GPT, or Generative Pre-trained Transformer. After receiving an investment from Microsoft which gave them the rights to all their intellectual property, they released ChatGPT, a free-to-use chatbot.
I glossed over a lot of things here, but this is a digested history. As of today, Microsoft is planning to implement ChatGPT into Bing, allowing users to see an AI-synthesized output to the question with sources and explanations, as well as normal results. Additionally, this bot can also be accessed as a stand alone tab.
This is a general overview of the situation until now. Now, I believe we should talk about who I believe is the only company I believe can challenge Microsoft, good ol' Alphabet Inc.
Given the debate title, it seems pretentious to say Google is the ONLY competitor, but they are certainly the biggest. Other companies aiming to challenge Microsoft's advantage either are too small or too late. However, I will gladly address any other competitors CON would like to present, granted he provides a decent explanation. Meanwhile, Google has been in the AI sector for a long time, and even invented the technology which allowed ChatGPT to exist (the Transformer).
Finally, after all this preamble, let's move on to the fun part, the arguments!
Arguments:
1. Google is under pressure
Google has set an internal "Code Red"
[3] after ChatGPT reached overwhelming popularity. Then, soon after Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella announced plans to integrate GPT 3.5 into Bing on February 7
[4], Google released a teaser for "Bard", their own rival. However, in a hilarious twist, the video they gave had a factual error relating to the James Webb Telescope.
[5] Soon after, Google proceeded to deliver a very rushed and underwhelming announcement in their "Live from Paris" event.
[6] They became so desperate they had to call back Sergey Brin and Larry Page, the creators of Google, back to help them.
Microsoft is fully aware of Google's blunders, with their CEO stating in an interview on CBS that they "made them dance".
[7]
Not much else to say here, Google's just messing up.
2. Bing's AI is objectively better
I certainly hope this doesn't age like milk, but as of today, I believe I can state with measured confidence that the AI that Bing has is better in design and usefulness than Google. To prove my point, I will do a comparison of two results the bots give.
For Google, well, there's only one search result we have right now, so we'll be using that.
The search query given to Bard was "what new discoveries from the James Webb Telescope can I tell my 9 year old about?"
The result it gave was:
Your 9-year old might like these recent discoveries made by The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST):
- In 2023, The JWST spotted a number of galaxies nicknamed “green peas.” They were given this name because they are small, round, and green, like peas.
- The telescope captured images of galaxies that are over 13 billion years old. This means that the light from these galaxies has been traveling for over 13 billion years 1 reach us.
- JWST took the very first pictures of a planet outside of our own solar system. These distant worlds are called “exoplanets. Exo means “from outside”
These discoveries can spark a child's imagination about the infinite wonders of the universe.
It's well enough, giving simple discoveries due to the age of the child and adds a motive for telling these to your child. However:
- It cites no sources.
- All the answers are very short with little elaboration.
- There is a factual error in the third point, as mentioned before.
- The bot feels emotionless, partly what Google was going for.
Let us compare this with one of Bing's preset queries for anyone to see.
The query given was: I like electronic music and want to go to my first festival this year. Do you have any recommendations or tips for me?
The result it gave was:
Sure, I can help. There are many electronic music festivals happening in 2023, both in the US and abroad. Some of the popular ones are **Electric Daisy Carnival** in Las Vegas², **Ultra Music Festival** in Miami⁵, **Awakenings Festival** in the Netherlands³, and **Electric Mountain Festival** in Austria¹. You can check out their websites for more details and tickets.
If you are going to your first festival, you might want to follow some tips to make it a success. Here are some of them⁷⁸ [^10^]:
- Know the festival's rules and regulations, such as what you can bring, how to pay, and where to camp.
- Dress for the weather and dancing, and wear comfortable shoes and sunscreen.
- Stay in touch with your friends, and have a meeting point in case you get separated.
- Pack only what you need, and leave valuables at home or in a locker.
- Get a map of the festival grounds, and plan ahead who you want to see and when.
- Pace yourself, and drink plenty of water and eat healthy snacks.
- Have fun, and be respectful of others and the environment.
I hope this helps. Have a great time at your first festival! 🎶
Quite different huh? It presents the information in a friendly and conversational manner, and provides warnings and tips on what to do, something that wasn't explicitly mentioned. It gives a list of multiple events happening soon, and even uses emojis!
But there's one more thing. You see those numbers put in superscript on some of the words? Those are actually links to sources (that just didn't translate over to DART). So, it provides you with all of this, and gives you the links it got these recommendations from.
Another thing of note is that this version of Bing's AI is based off of GPT 3.5, or ChatGPT, with Microsoft's own improvements and modifications. Therefore, this new bot will have all of the capabilities that ChatGPT has with the ability to look at new articles and websites.
Conclusion:
- Google was not prepared to compete with Microsoft at all.
- Microsoft is one of the largest companies in the world.
- Microsoft has a beta of one of the front-running chatbots in the world.
- This chatbot is much better than what we have seen of Bard so far.
- Google is scrambling.
- Other competition is unlikely, unless CON would like to present some cases.
- Microsoft is more likely to achieve market dominance.
Thank you anyone for reading this, and good luck to CON for their R1 argument!
ComputerNerd (ironic this is my first actual tech based debate)
Done.
I messed up my vote. Can you delete it please. Sorry.
Just a cordial heads up, 3 days left.
The meaning is clear and that mistake won't impact the debate.
I remembered ChatGPT used predictive text so I assumed that was what GPT stands for.
Whoops. Well, the meaning is pretty clear.
"OpenAI released the chatbot Chat GPT (Generative Predictive Text)"
That's not what GPT stands for, it's Generative Pre-trained Transformer.
https://www.debateart.com/debates/4151-capital-surveillance-inhibits-the-progress-of-society
Fair enough
the use of the word current in the title. Why not just cut the word current out?