AI search chatbots and regulators
Google is very wise to apparently be moving with deliberate but not
overly rushed speed toward question answering AI search chatbots and
related systems. Because an AI that gives *wrong* answers is far worse
than a conventional search engine, since the AI chat interactions tend
to give an air of authenticity to the responses, even when they're
dead wrong.
Keep in mind that regulators (especially in the EU, but now in the
U.S. as well), have for years expressed concerns about search engines
highlighting a single recommended "best" answer at the top of a list
of result links, feeling that it creates an anticompetitive situation
and suppresses people from looking at other results.
Personally I have found, for example, Google's top of list "Knowledge
Panels" to be immensely useful, but when they occasionally are in
error it can be very confusing, and getting those errors corrected
when the KP info is sourced from a third party like Wikipedia can be
difficult or even impossible in a practical sense.
Clearly, AI search chatbots risk incurring even more concern from
regulators if they are seen as increasingly replacing traditional
SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages) in the context of how most people
search for various topics.
Not only is the accuracy of AI search chatbots a key factor, but the
very existence of such chatbots as a potentially "distorting" factor
in surfacing of search results will be simultaneously sure to be the
focus of regulators and politicians around the world.
So yeah, "don't move too fast" is good policy in this realm. -L
- - -
--Lauren--
Lauren Weinstein
[email protected] (https://www.vortex.com/lauren)
Lauren's Blog: https://lauren.vortex.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/laurenweinstein
Mastodon: https://mastodon.laurenweinstein.org/@lauren
Founder: Network Neutrality Squad: https://www.nnsquad.org
PRIVACY Forum: https://www.vortex.com/privacy-info
Co-Founder: People For Internet Responsibility
Tel: +1 (818) 225-2800
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