The reason for integrating ChatGPT with Bing and Google’s Bard with the Google Search app is to enhance the responses people get from their queries. Some believe that generative chatbots will eventually replace search engines completely. If you think that sounds like some pie-in-the-sky fantasy, did anyone ever think that the Yahoo search engine was going to be replaced by Google?
The main reason why AI chatbots can’t replace search engines, for now, has to do with their tendency to hallucinate and give fake or biased responses. According to the BBC, Debbie Weinstein, Google’s U.K. chief, said that Bard is “not really the place that you go to search for specific information.” Speaking on the BBC television program Today, Weinstein stated that Bard should be considered an experiment that works best when collaborating to solve a problem or to help with the creation of new ideas. When you use Bard to look up a search request, it does say at the top of the screen that “Generative AI is experimental. Info quality may vary.”
Bard gives its own response to a search for PhoneArena on the Google app
The executive told the U.K. television audience that Bard users should Google the chatbot’s responses to make sure that the information it is giving out is legitimate. As Weinstein said, “We’re encouraging people to actually use Google as the search engine to actually reference information they found.” Users do have the ability to leave feedback on the answers received from the conversational AI chatbot in the form of a thumbs up or a thumbs down.
While Bard’s homepage does mention that it does have “limitations and won’t always get it right,” it doesn’t mention Weinstein’s suggestion that users Google the answers they receive from Bard. Google pointed out that search queries about AI in the U.K. hit an all-time high in the first half of this year. The most asked “How to” question involving AI in the U.K. was “How to make money with AI.” Also ranking high was the question, “How can AI help a business?”
