Thinking Citizen Blog — Will ChatGPT Do to Google What Google Did to Yahoo?
Thinking Citizen Blog — Tuesday is Economics, Finance, and Business Day
Today’s Topic: Will ChatGPT Do to Google What Google Did to Yahoo?
How big a deal is ChatGPT? Will it really change the world? Have you used it? For what? What is the best historical analogy? Today, a few excerpts from an article in the New York Times that caught my eye. Experts — please chime in. Correct, elaborate, elucidate.
WHAT CAN CHATBOT GPT DO? WHY DID GOOGLE MANAGEMENT DECLARE A “CODE RED”? (below Sam Altman, CEO of OPEN AI)
1. “It can serve up information in clear, simple sentences, rather than just a list of internet links.”
2. “It can explain concepts in ways people can easily understand.”
3. “It can even generate ideas from scratch, including business strategies, Christmas gift suggestions, blog topics, and vacation plans.”
NB: At Google declaring a code red is “like pulling a fire alarm.” ChatGPT could upend its business. “For more than 20 years, the Google search engine has served as the world’s primary gateway to the internet.” Is this the era’s death knell?
BUT THE TECHNOLOGY BEHIND CHATGPT WAS DEVELOPED AT GOOGLE SO WHY IS GOOGLE SO RELUCTANT TO DEPLOY IT? (Photo below is of Clayton Christensen, the guru of “disruptive innovation”)
1. “It is not suited to delivering digital ads, which accounted for more than 80% of the company’s revenue last year.”
2. “No company is invincible; all are vulnerable. For companies that have become extraordinarily successful doing one market-defining thing, it is hard to have a second act with something entirely different.” (Margaret O’Mara, University of Washington.”
3. This seems like the perfect case study in “disruptive innovation” analyzed by Clayton Christensen in his classic text, “The Innovator’s Dilemma: When Innovative Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail” (1997).
NB: See second link below for a summary of Christensen’s book. The incumbent has the luxury of a huge customer set but high expectations of yearly sales. New entry next generation products find niches away from the incumbent customer set to build the new product. The new entry companies do not require the yearly sales of the incumbent and thus have more time to focus and innovate on this smaller venture.”
BRAND RISK WITH THE FACT AND FICTION THING
1. “Because these new chat bots learn their skills by analyzing huge amounts of data posted on the internet, they have a way of blending fiction and fact. They deliver information that can be biased against women and people of color. They generate toxic language, including hate speech.”
2. “All that could turn people against Google and damage the corporate brand it has spent decades building.”
3. “As OpenAI has shown, newer companies may be more willing to take their chances with complaints in exchange for growth.”
NB: “Even if Google perfects chat bots, it must tackle another issue: Does this technology cannibalize the company’s lucrative search ads? If a chat bot is responding to queries with tight sentences there is less reason for people to click on advertising links.”
A New Chat Bot Is a ‘Code Red’ for Google’s Search Business
The Innovator’s Dilemma — Wikipedia
QUOTE OF THE MONTH
“Whenever you are wrong, admit it. Whenever you are right, shut up.” - Ogden Nash
ATTACHMENTS BELOW:
#1 A graphic guide to justice (9 metaphors on one page).
#2 “39 Songs, Prayers, and Poems: the Keys to the Hearts of Seven Billion People” — Adams House Senior Common Room Presentation, 11/17/20
PDF with headlines — Google Drive
YOUR TURN — Please share:
a.) the coolest thing you learned this week related to business, economics, finance.
b.) the coolest thing you learned in your life related to business, economics, finance.
c.) anything at all related to business, economics, finance.
d.) anything at all
