Opinion | Move over Google? ChatGPT and its like will change how we search online
- Search engine optimisation or paid searches, ubiquitous on search engines today, will decline or have to evolve
- ChatGPT delivers results in paragraphs that read well, making it more user-friendly, but experts who can craft complex prompts will have an edge
ChatGPT is a large language model-based AI. The output generated by a searcher’s prompt is textual, appearing in natural language. It relies on a neural network – machine-learning algorithms that mimic the functioning of neurons in the human brain – that has been trained on 300 billion words using textual content scrapped from the internet.
It also relies on human validators who rank answers generated by the neural network, which are then fed into the AI to generate search results of greater precision. ChatGPT uses contextual prediction, attempting to offer answers based on the context of the prompts entered.
Internet searches used to be driven by tech giants like Google and Microsoft, with their proprietary algorithms that pull together the most relevant web links and display them in ranked order.
Google’s search algorithm has become a multibillion-dollar industry on the back of the rise of “search engine optimisation” and “paid search”. Using certain keywords and paying to be found online help boost a web page’s discoverability.
ChatGPT is a classic example of how new entrants disrupt, or even potentially replace, incumbents that are too slow to react. Even our language has shifted in recent months from “search(ing)” to “prompt(ing)”. How will AI using a large language model (LLM), such as ChatGPT, change the search industry?
