Google's Chatgpt Competitor Was Hesitant To Launch For Several Reasons, According To Alphabet Chairman John Hennessy

In his remarks on Monday, Alphabet Chairman John Hennessy said that Google's Bard announcement last week demonstrated its technology is similar to the ChatGPT chatbot.

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The reason Google didn't want to productize this was that it didn't feel like it was ready for a product yet, but Hennessy, who has served as the chairman of Google since 2018, said that it is a great demonstration tool. In addition, he stated that generative artificial intelligence is still between one and two years from becoming a real public-use tool.

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The Stanford University president has had a long history in technology, including as a professor, researcher, company founder, and Stanford's president from 2000 to 2016. Hennessy spoke at a summit of venture capital firm Celesta Capital in Mountain View, California.

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A few minutes into his presentation on key trends for 2023, Hennessy briefly spoke briefly about Google being caught up in the sudden onslaught of interest in generative artificial intelligence and chatGPT. 

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The company launched a conversation technology called Bard last week as a response to ChatGPT. Investors punished Alphabet stock for its hurried announcement, sending it down 9% for the day, as it appeared that the announcement was rushed to match Microsoft's inclusion of ChatGPT technology in Bing.

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There has often been inaccurate information provided by Google and companies like YouTube and Search, which is why it took so long for it to roll out a ChatGPT competitor.

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It seems the company is being cautious because of its past.

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The CEO responded to employees' questions in December when they asked if the company was falling behind ChatGPT by saying that you don't want to put out a system that says either the wrong thing or sometimes the toxic thing. According to him, the tech industry needs to be “a little more cautious” about how it affects civil society.

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As far as bringing these models into a product stream, Hennessey told Trade Algo, "I think it's still in its infancy - the industry's still struggling with how to do it while remaining sensitive to correctness and toxicity concerns."

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Vint Cerf, one of the original developers of the internet's underlying technology, wasn't aware that people would use it for evil purposes, according to a Google executive.

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“I grew up when spamming someone made you a social pariah. My spam message count is now 10 to 10. The world has changed, and we need to take into account how technology can help us maintain a functioning democracy, to make sure that people can live together and work together, and not experience hatred or some other toxic things. Those things need to be addressed.” I think we really ought to do so.”

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Despite anticipating a slow pace, Hennessy said ChatGPT's abilities have exceeded his expectations.

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My initial impression is that the natural language ability of the tool both interprets a query as well as responds to it - it's a generative function, which appears to work quite well at least superficially."

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Google Bard's announcement last week received a mixed response from the public, according to Grint.

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According to Hennessy, Silicon Valley startups can benefit from the current layoff cycle by recruiting talent from Big Tech.

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A great thing about Silicon Valley is that you can never rest on your laurels because there will always be a new startup coming along and really holding you accountable. "I think startups have such a vital role to play and one of the best things about Silicon Valley is you never know what you're going to get up against," he added.