经济学人 | The battle for search 搜索之战（2023年第

文章来源：《经济学人》Feb 9th 2023 期 Business 栏目

The battle for internet search

互联网搜索引擎之战

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For more than 25 years, search engines have been the internet’s front door.

25年来，搜索引擎一直充当互联网的门户角色。

AltaVista, the first site to allow searches of the full text of the web, was swiftly dethroned by Google, which has dominated the field in most of the world ever since.

AltaVista是第一个实现网页全文检索的公司，但很快被谷歌取代。从此谷歌在世界大部分地区占据了主导地位。

Google’s search engine, still the heart of its business, has made its parent, Alphabet, one of the world’s most valuable companies, with revenues of $283bn in 2022 and a market capitalisation of $1.3trn.

搜索引擎仍然是谷歌的核心业务，它的母公司Alphabet已成为世界上最具价值的公司之一，2022年营收2830亿美元，市值13万亿美元。

Google is not merely a household name; it is a verb.

谷歌不仅是一个家喻户晓的名称，也是一个动词--谷歌即搜索，搜索即谷歌。

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But nothing lasts for ever, particularly in technology.

万物皆无常，技术领域尤是如此。

Just ask IBM, which once ruled business computing, or Nokia, once the leader in mobile phones. Both were dethroned because they fumbled big technological transitions.

问问曾主导商业计算的IBM和手机领域的昔日霸主诺基亚就知道了，如今这两家公司都因错过技术变革而日薄西山。

Now tech firms are salivating over an innovation that might herald a similar shift—and a similar opportunity.

如今，科技公司对一项可能带来同等变革和机遇的技术创新垂涎三尺。

Chatbots powered by artificial intelligence (AI) let users gather information via typed conversations. Leading the field is ChatGPT, made by OpenAI, a startup.

人工智能聊天机器人让用户通过打字的方式，与之进行对话并收集信息。目前这一领域的领头羊是创业公司OpenAI开发的ChatGPT。

By the end of January, two months after its launch, ChatGPT was being used by more than 100m people, making it the “fastest-growing consumer application in history”, according to UBS, a bank.

截至1月底，也就是ChatGPT发布两个月后，用户已超过1亿人。瑞银集团称其为“历史上增速最快的消费应用程序”。

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AI is already used behind the scenes in many products, but ChatGPT has put it centre stage, by letting people chat with an AI directly.

实际上，AI 已是许多产品的幕后功臣，是ChatGPT将AI推到C位，人们可以直接与之对话。

ChatGPT can write essays in various styles, explain complex concepts, summarise text and answer trivia questions. It can even (narrowly) pass legal and medical exams.

ChatGPT可以撰写不同风格的文章，解释复杂的概念，总结文本的要点，回答琐碎的问题。它甚至可以（勉强）通过法律和医学考试。

And it can synthesise knowledge from the web: for example, listing holiday spots that match certain criteria, or suggesting menus or itineraries. If asked, it can explain its reasoning and provide detail.

它还可以综合汇总线上信息：例如，列出符合特定标准的度假地点，或推荐的菜单或行程。如果刨根究底，它还会解释原因且有理有据。

Many things that people use search engines for today, in short, can be done better with chatbots.

简言之，搜索引擎能做的，聊天机器人也能，而且做得更好。

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Hence the flurry of announcements, as rival firms try to seize the initiative.

竞争对手公司想抢占先机，因此发布了一系列声明。

On February 7th Microsoft, which has invested more than $11bn in OpenAI, revealed a new version of Bing, its search engine, which incorporates ChatGPT. Satya Nadella, Microsoft’s boss, sees this as his chance to challenge Google.

2月7日，已向OpenAI投资逾110亿美元的微软发布了新版“必应”，其中就包含了ChatGPT。微软CEO萨蒂亚·纳德拉认为这是必应挑战谷歌的机会。

For its part, Google has announced Bard, its own chatbot, as a “companion” to its search engine.

谷歌也发布了自己的聊天机器人Bard，作为其搜索引擎的“搭档”。

It has also taken a $300m stake in Anthropic, a startup founded by ex-OpenAI employees, which has built a chatbot called Claude.

谷歌还斥资3亿美元入股了Anthropic，这是一家由OpenAI前员工创办的初创公司，该公司已经开发了聊天机器人Claude。

The share price of Baidu, known as the Google of China, jumped when it said it would release its chatbot, called Ernie, in March.

有“中国的谷歌“之称的百度公布，公司将于3月发布聊天机器人Ernie，股价随后飙升大涨。

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But can chatbots be trusted, and what do they mean for search and its lucrative advertising business?

但聊天机器人是否值得信任，它们对搜索及其背后利润丰厚的广告业务意味着什么？

Do they herald a Schumpeterian moment in which AI topples incumbent firms and elevates upstarts?

它们是否会遵循熊彼特的创新理论，预示着人工智能会在革故鼎新过程中起重要作用？

The answers depend on three things: moral choices, monetisation and monopoly economics.

答案取决于3个方面：道德选择、变现方式和垄断经济。