AIs such as ChatGPT could cost a lot more to run than search engines.
Microsoft has pulled off a great coup with the rapid integration of a ChatGPT-derived chatbot into its search engine. But if the public now sees the Redmond company as the number 1 in this field of the future, the question of the cost of operating the technology will quickly arise.
It costs 10 times more
Google is, for once, behind in the development of AI, and sees Microsoft taking off. But if the tech giant strongly urges its teams to quickly catch up with the firm founded by Bill Gates, it should in the future encounter other, more prosaic problems. Problems that can be summed up in one word that speaks to everyone: money.
Indeed, running a chatbot is expensive, as OpenAI boss Sam Altman had already pointed out. An assertion that has just been confirmed by the chairman of the board of directors of Alphabet, John Hennessy. According to the latter, using an AI for research would cost 10 times more than the same activity using keywords on a search engine. An explosion of costs that could not be compensated by advertising revenues.
More microchips and electricity
The Morgan Stanley bank, for its part, tried to quantify the additional costs potentially induced by the implementation of a chatbot like ChatGPT at Google. This fee would increase depending on the number of words produced by the AI for an answer, but also on the percentage of searches performed on Google that would be processed by the chatbot, and not by the traditional search engine. And these additional expenses would easily add up to several billion dollars.
The reason ? AI, unlike the search engine and its index, works by “inference”. By reproducing the functioning of the human brain with her neural network, she infers the answer to a question by calling on previous training. A method that requires much more computing power, and therefore requires very costly additional investments in electronic chips, while lengthening the electricity bill. And the concern should, “ at worst according to John Hennessy, last a few more years.
Download
- Chat in different languages, including French.
- Generate, translate and get a text summary.
- Generate, optimize and correct code.
Developed by OpenAI, ChatGPT is a conversational agent based on the GPT-3 language model. This chat platform uses deep learning and artificial intelligence to understand and interpret user queries, then generate relevant responses.
Developed by OpenAI, ChatGPT is a conversational agent based on the GPT-3 language model. This chat platform uses deep learning and artificial intelligence to understand and interpret user queries, then generate relevant responses.
Source : Reuters
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