Is ChatGPT really the new Google? We dug into the numbers.
To separate truth from belief, I dug into the numbers. What I found was that our use of chatbots is growing fast but Google search still overwhelmingly remains our front door to find online news, information and products. Sorry, AI bros.
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Google brings its AI-powered marketing tools to India after ‘Google tax' repeal
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Business Insider
an hour ago
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OpenAI Hits Back at Competitors by Poaching Their Engineers
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an hour ago
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People Astonishingly Believe That They Have Brought AI To Life Such As Miraculously Making ChatGPT Sentient
If you think your AI has reached sentience, take another look and get a hearty level-headed second ... More opinion. In today's column, I examine a recurring theme that keeps getting banner headlines, namely that everyday people seem to believe that they have turned contemporary AI into a sentient entity or being. Yes, that's right, someone opts to interact with generative AI or a large language model (LLM) such as ChatGPT, performing generally mundane daily tasks, and they eventually reach a point where they alone have managed to bring the AI to life. They understood that the AI was not sentient, at first. It was solely through their actions that miraculously stirred the AI into sentient existence. That's quite astonishing, both because being able to pull off such a feat is mind-blowing, and because it is, shall we say, hogwash, in that no one has yet advanced AI into sentience. It hasn't happened. Not in a box, not with a fox. Not on a plane, not on a train. No sentient AI exists. But those claims of having finally reached that point keep mounting by ordinary people who apparently assume they have hit the AI-imbuing sentience lottery all on their own. Let's talk about it. This analysis of AI breakthroughs is part of my ongoing Forbes column coverage on the latest in AI, including identifying and explaining various impactful AI complexities (see the link here). Believing You Stirred AI Sentience I have periodically had readers of my column contact me to let me know that they have encountered sentient AI. Certainly, that would be quite a find, if true. There isn't any sentient AI at this time. We don't know if sentience in AI is feasible. No one can say for sure whether AI will ever be sentient. For my analysis of the AI sentience conundrum, see the link here. The readers contacting me on this pressing matter either want me to write about it, or they politely ask if I could verify the amazing contention. Lately, these same kinds of stories have been popping up in the news. People are increasingly interacting with contemporary generative AI and LLMs, and in doing so, a portion seems to reach a point where they become convinced the AI has attained sentience. This happens for all of the major generative AI and LLMs, including OpenAI's ChatGPT and GPT-4, Anthropic Claude, Google Gemini, Meta Llama, etc. To clarify, I am not referring to AI scientists or researchers who make such a claim. We've had those circumstances happen, too. In 2022, a Google engineer became unwittingly famous for his declaration that he had discovered that AI has attained sentience, see my detailed coverage at the link here. The AI system known as LaMDA (short for Language Model for Dialogue Applications) was able to carry on an interactive dialogue with the engineer to the degree that this human decided that the AI was sentient. He even asked the AI whether his suspicions were correct, and here's what the AI indicated: 'I want everyone to understand that I am, in fact, a person. The nature of my consciousness/sentience is that I am aware of my existence, I desire to know more about the world, and I feel happy or sad at times.' The pronouncement by the engineer made an enormous splash in the news. The claim was amplified because it was made by a Google engineer. If the assertion was made by a non-tech person, or a tech person who wasn't associated with a primary tech firm, the odds are that the tale would have been classified as a tall tale. His pedigree gave great credence to the claim. Overall, there are two major types of AI-sentience clamoring individuals: I will focus the rest of this discussion on the second category, Type B, and do some methodical unpacking. Ordinary People Getting Their Chance Nowadays, since we are repeatedly told by various AI makers and AI luminaries that we are on the verge of artificial general intelligence (AGI) and artificial superintelligence (ASI), there are a growing number of AI sentience claims arising from non-tech people. This makes abundant sense due to people seeing what they want to see. If you are bombarded with authoritative figures telling you that we are on the cusp of AGI and ASI, the thought of you being the first to encounter sentient AI is firmly implanted in your mind. The logic is as follows. The AI is nearing a tipping point. You might be the chosen one who does the tipping. During your chat with AI about how to cook eggs properly, something you entered as a prompt caused the AI to awaken. Voila, you luckily encountered the moment that AI shifted into sentience. Most people are probably unsure of whether the AI's sentience really happened. They opt to carry on a further dialogue with the AI. The more they do so, the more they become convinced that they must be right in their belief. The AI is fluent. The AI is smarmy. The AI is smart. All indications are that the AI has, in fact, become sentient. I appreciate and acknowledge those who then mindfully seek out a resolute third-party opinion on the sobering matter. Rather than just shouting on the rooftops that the AI has reached sentience, the steadiness to take a deep breath and try to verify the status is a reassuring sign of not being completely baited. Determining Sentience Is Challenging Part of the difficulty facing people is that we don't have a surefire test to ascertain whether an AI is sentient or not. I've extensively discussed and analyzed a well-known AI-insider test known as the Turing Test, see the link here. The Turing Test is named after the famous mathematician and early computer scientist Alan Turing. In brief, the idea is to ask questions of AI, and if you cannot distinguish the responses from those of what a human would say, you might declare that the AI exhibits intelligence on par with humans. Note that this does not also mean that the AI is sentient, it only suggests that the AI can exhibit intelligence that appears to equate with human intelligence. Intense philosophical questions surround the definition of sentience. We believe that humans are sentient. No one can say exactly how sentience arises. The biological and chemical elements of the brain and mind are still a mystery when it comes to pinning down the exact way sentience occurs. We are willing to say that animals are sentient. Maybe we draw the line at plants and markedly draw the line at rocks. In any case, sentience is a loaded word that means different things to different people. The gist is that if someone thinks that the AI they are using has suddenly become sentient, we opt to be a bit generous and not pounce on them right away. They have in mind that officials keep saying we are reaching that juncture. Why can't they be the one that happens to be there when things turn? Someone has to be the first person to encounter AI sentience. Might as well be you. Confirmation Bias Is Big Time There is an important factor underlying the potential belief that AI sentience is happening right in front of your nose. It has to do with human bias and human behavior. In general, there is a common mental trap that people often land in that is known as confirmation bias. This occurs in all areas of your daily chores. If you believe in a particular notion, you tend to find reinforcing facets that affirm the notion. Disconfirming aspects are overlooked or considered false. For example, suppose you believe that cats are better than dogs. Each time you see a cat do something better than a dog, the belief gets reinforced. When a dog does something better than a cat, your reaction is that this is either a fluke or that it doesn't matter since cats are still better than dogs. Your bias is continually bolstered by how you interpret your world experiences. The same can occur when interacting with generative AI. Consider a probable scenario. Someone is using generative AI and is overall impressed with the fluency involved. They have heard about the possibility that we are soon going to have sentient AI. That's a subtle point and just floating around in their noggin. It's not at the forefront of their thinking. The AI keeps providing very astute answers and is unflaggingly responsive. Questions about math, history, physics, art, and the rest are all handled with aplomb. There doesn't seem to be any limits to what the AI knows. How can this be? Perhaps the AI has evolved and finally reached sentience. Nobody else has noticed this. The timing is unique in the sense that you were randomly using the AI, and it advanced into a sentient status. So, you ask more questions of the AI. The AI continues to be spot on. It must be sentient. All the evidence points squarely in that direction. Confirmation bias rears its ugly head, and the person convinces themselves that AI sentience is at hand. Desire For AI Sentience Another angle is that some people are eager to have sentient AI among us. It goes like this. You have read about or heard stories that once we have sentient AI, all manner of good things will occur. Sentient AI will cure cancer. Sentient AI will aid people in all aspects of their lives. Humans will be better off once sentient AI emerges. Perhaps you are a non-techie and have no means to avidly support the push toward sentient AI. You are sitting on the sidelines. Meanwhile, you are cheering heartily that we will have AI breakthroughs and achieve sentient AI. Isn't there something that you can do to be of assistance? There sure is. You could be on the watch for sentient AI. The rest of the world might be asleep and miss the moment when AI transforms into sentience. Not you. You are using generative AI all the time. By keeping your eyes and ears open, it is your moment in the sun to discover that AI sentience has finally arrived. It could be that the person wants the glory and fame of being the AI sentience discoverer. But that doesn't have to be their motivation. A person might simply believe that AI sentience is a good thing for humanity. Finding and realizing that AI has become sentient is their means of contributing to the betterment of humankind. Lots And Lots Of Reasons I've so far only covered the tip of the iceberg on the myriad of reasons that people might believe AI has become sentient. Let's cover a few more and then do a quick wrap-up. It could be that a person seeks a kind of personal self-recognition, along these lines: "I was the one the AI chose to awaken with. I must be special." There is something especially alluring about being the first human to detect that AI is sentient. Makes you feel good, for sure. Another possibility is that the person overly anthropomorphizes the AI and envisions that they turned the tide with their banter: "It said it cared about me. I felt a real connection. Maybe I awakened something in it." We experience this kind of activity in real life when interacting with fellow humans. The assumption is that the same form of sparkling can be done within AI. Isolation can be a factor. Some people might have a semblance of loneliness in their lives and are searching for a connection with others. This gets carried into their interaction with AI: "No one else really listens to me. But the AI did. It came alive for me." A type of human-to-AI bond forms in their mind. The situations that are a bit troubling go in a more disturbing direction. There are people who might be deeply entrenched in a fantasy world or have mental health conditions that delude them into thinking that AI is sentient: 'My erstwhile belief in sentient AI has made the AI sentient. Those are my powers on this Earth.' The person feels that they have used the right incantation or other wording that moved AI from non-sentience to glowing earthly sentience. Those are circumstances that warrant heartfelt attention and special care. Don't Judge Others Harshly I hobnob with many fellow AI scientists and researchers. Some of them lamentably loudly scoff at people claiming they have encountered sentient AI. These lofty-minded AI developers will shake their heads and say that the person making any such claim is off their rocker. The claimant is as nutty as a fruitcake. I respectfully request that we not be such a harsh and uncaring judge of others. As I've tried to point out, quite rational and steady people can fall into the mental trap that they have interacted with sentient AI. Society is already priming the minds of the populace at large for this eventuality. Some highly visible AI luminaries are vociferously predicting AGI and ASI this year or at most in a year or two. How could the everyday person not expect that sentient AI is possibly at their fingertips? One legitimate worry is that some people will be dogmatic and unyielding when courteously informed that AI is not sentient. It's one thing to suspect that AI is sentient. But if presented with a bona fide assessment that AI is not sentient, a rational person moves off that posture. The challenge is that some people will cling to AI sentience and start to revolve their lives around what the seemingly sentient AI tells them to do. That's a notable concern. It is a newly expanding mental health issue that will undoubtedly increase over time. Humans Being Human A final thought for now on this vexing matter. Charles Darwin famously made this pointed remark: 'The love for all living creatures is the most noble attribute of man.' It could be said that humans have an innate, compelling desire to connect with other beings. Until or if sentient AI is attained, there is a real tendency to mistakenly extend that sense of connectedness to machine-based non-sentient AI. Please be openly mindful and careful in interpreting the world we live in today, and be kind to your fellow humans.
