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Published October 29, 2023, 12:55 PM ET
Lawmakers and antitrust regulators are sounding the alarm over Google’s development of advanced AI products – warning that without government intervention, the tech giant’s alleged monopoly on online search will only be further entrenched.
In the landmark antitrust case against Google’s search empire, the Justice Department has focused largely on the company’s past tactics.
Authorities have argued that Google has spent more than $10 billion a year on deals to ensure its search engine is enabled by default on most devices, allowing the company to control about 90% market share.
However, some critics of Google’s business practices, including Rep. Ken Buck (R-Colo.), point out that the company is already pursuing the next evolution of search in the form of AI tools like the company’s Bard chatbot – a so-so – This is called a “large language model” that can provide human-like answers to an endless variety of user queries.
Buck said the competition concerns surrounding Google’s business will “absolutely” get worse as Bard and other AI technology is gradually integrated into the ubiquitous search engine – unless Congress takes action.
“If there’s one thing we’ve learned from Congress’s early legislation in the internet space, it’s that we need to stay engaged,” Buck told The Post. “These companies are very manipulative and very good at preventing competition. We need to make sure we identify those areas and give regulators the power to act there.”
Rep. Ken Buck, R-Colo. is a prominent critic of the business practices of Google and other Big Tech companies.AP
When asked for comment, a Google spokeswoman claimed that there is already “tremendous competition and investment in AI from both new players and existing companies.”
“Some of the world’s leading AI labs, such as OpenAI and Anthropic, started without proprietary data,” the spokeswoman said. “We offer numerous tools to help others innovate and advance research by publishing dozens of datasets, from annotated text to images to videos and more.”
The threat of artificial intelligence taking over online search became a talking point in the trial on October 2, when Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella made a bombshell statement in which he said Google’s standard contracts made the notion of user choice “completely wrong.”
Microsoft has tried to chip away at Google’s lead by investing billions in OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT, and integrating its AI chatbot into Bing search. Google has argued that Microsoft’s investments in AI are a sign of fierce competition in the industry.
But Nadella downplayed the idea that Microsoft’s investments have had a significant impact on the search market, where Bing has a 3% market share compared to Google’s 90%.
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella recently testified about Google’s dominance of search.AP
The Microsoft boss also told the court that AI would lead to an “even worse nightmare for advances in search” if Google increased its advantage by striking exclusive content deals to support Bard while shutting out competitors.
Google said it has no such exclusive deals with publishers and maintains that its AI models are trained primarily on publicly available data.
In less cautious moments, Google CEO Sundar Pichai has dismissed the idea that rival chatbots would hurt Google’s search business, telling the Wall Street Journal that “the scope for opportunity, if anything, is greater than ever before.”
Pichai personally acknowledged the connection between Bard and the company’s long-term ambitions for its search business. In the April interview with the Journal, Pichai said AI would “accelerate” Google search, but did not say when the integration might happen.
Currently, Bard is labeled as an “experiment” on Google’s website and is kept separate from the main search engine.
According to Google, Bard is still an “experiment.” Bloomberg via Getty Images
Users are cautioned that this is a work in progress that occasionally spits out false or inaccurate information – such as a recent incident in which Bard said Israel and Hamas had reached a ceasefire after the recent outbreak of war in Gaza, even though there has not been one The deal happened.
Despite Bard’s initial hiccups, Luther Lowe, a former top policy executive at Yelp, warned last month that companies “like Google and Microsoft are already using their existing dominance to control critical AI applications and data sets” in ways that consumer choice and technology limits innovation.
“Google plans to make Bard a permanent part of its search engine after an initial beta launch, meaning most Americans will have their first serious experience with AI through Google Search,” Lowe wrote in a comment. “The average user probably won’t realize that Google has also quietly made Bard its default chatbot, stifling competition and innovation from the start.”
“After all, how can an AI startup compete with a chatbot embedded in every search query made across the world’s most visited website?” he added.
Google CEO Sundar Pichai recently said that AI would improve the company’s search tool. ZUMAPRESS.com
According to Christine Bartholomew, a professor at the University at Buffalo School of Law who specializes in antitrust litigation, congressional action will likely be needed to adequately address the competition concerns surrounding AI.
“The danger posed by AI tools depends on who uses them. It’s significantly different for Google than for a small start-up to use such technology,” Bartholomew said.
“Antitrust laws are comprehensive enough to address these threats,” she added. “However, judicial interpretation of such laws has become so narrow that I worry whether existing antitrust case law will properly clarify such distinctions.”
Meanwhile, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), another outspoken Big Tech critic and a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, reiterated his long-held view that breaking up Google is the “only answer” to fair market competition ensure AI products prevail.
AI chatbots like Google Bard and ChatGPT are expected to be fully integrated into search engines in the future. Getty Images
“There is no online market that Google is not trying to capture,” Hawley said in a statement to The Post. “Google has vast reserves of Americans’ personal data, and it’s a small step to using that information to train the company’s AI models.” In other words, like so many other tech companies, Google’s power is expanding endlessly himself.”
While the current federal antitrust trial could have significant implications for Google and the rest of the tech industry, such an outcome is likely years away. Judge Amit Mehta will first determine whether Google violated antitrust law in a ruling not expected until early next year.
If Google is found to have violated the law, the second trial will be held to find an appropriate remedy – with possible consequences ranging from a forced cessation of some of Google’s business practices to the company’s dissolution.
“A case like this is a case where a new law may be passed, which then goes to the Supreme Court and then a settlement is considered,” Buck said. “Whatever the judge does here is really the basis for how this case will end.”
“I think the government has actually done a good job of making a strong case,” Buck added.
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