ChatGPT will take time to replace Google, says NYU professor – 02/28/2023 – Tech

ChatGPT will be slow to replace Google due to a risk aversion that is human nature: people avoid the new because it is unknown. This should occur even after the tool is mature enough to technically play the role of a search engine.

The assessment was made by Arun Sundararajan, professor of entrepreneurship and technology at New York University (NYU). He made a presentation this Tuesday (28) at the Mobile World Congress, a technology event taking place this week in Barcelona.

“Google is a search engine that has been around for 20 years. It will take a while for us to get used to using something else,” said Sundararajan. “The risks are still not entirely clear, and people tend to shy away.”

The expert explained that this is the natural way to adopt new technologies. They start to gain space at the edges, before reaching broader markets. In the case of ChatGPT, this could be the use in answering robots, for example.

The prediction also applies to autonomous cars. “Once they become better drivers than humans, it will be a long time before adoption,” he said.

Being the first to enter that market, however, gives you a competitive edge. As these artificial intelligence systems also learn from user behavior, cutting edge means having access to more data for improvement.

“There are cases of necessary improvements that will be super specific, difficult to detect,” said Sundarajan. Again in the case of autonomous cars, he exemplifies citing a situation in which a problem occurs when the light hits the car at an exact angle. In that case, it may not show up in tests and become known only when a lot of people are using the technology.

REPLACEMENT OF WORKERS

In Sundararajan’s assessment, artificial intelligence will certainly bring a major disruption to work. Whether it will create unemployment, however, is not a question of technology but of policy, he says.

“It’s important to have a system that allows people to transition mid-career,” he says.

He cites the example of the moment of entry into the labor market. At that time, there are several options available for education, meeting people and to help in choosing the paths to be followed. When professionals pass their 30s, he says, there is no similar mechanism for outplacement. This measure may be necessary to assist workers in functions extinguished by technology.

Journalist traveled at the invitation of Huawei