外刊听读| 经济学人 ChatGPT将要取代谷歌？
Leaders
社论
The battle for search
搜索之战
What do ai chatbots mean for the lucrative business of searching the internet?
人工智能聊天机器人对利润丰厚的互联网搜索业务意味着什么？
FOR MORE than 25 years, search engines have been the internet’s front door. 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. 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. Google is not merely a household name; it is a verb.
25年多来，搜索引擎一直是互联网的门户。AltaVista是第一个可以搜索网站全部文本的搜索引擎，但很快就被谷歌赶下了台，自那以后，谷歌一直统治着该领域。谷歌的搜索引擎仍是公司业务的核心，使其母公司Alphabet成为世界上最有价值的公司之一。Alphabet 2022年收入为2830亿美元，市值1.3万亿美元。Google不仅仅是一个家喻户晓的品牌；它还是一个动词。
But nothing lasts for ever, particularly in technology. 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. Now tech firms are salivating over an innovation that might herald a similar shift—and a similar opportunity. Chatbots powered by artificial intelligence (AI) let users gather information via typed conversations. Leading the field is ChatGPT, made by OpenAI, a startup. 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.
但没有什么是永恒的，尤其是在科技领域。问问曾经统治商业计算机的IBM，或者曾经引领移动电话的诺基亚就知道了。他们笨拙地处理了重大的技术变革，因而被赶下了商业舞台。如今，科技公司正垂涎一项可能预示着类似变革和机遇的创新。由人工智能(AI)驱动的聊天机器人让用户通过打字对话从而获取信息。引领该领域的是由初创公司OpenAI开发的ChatGPT。瑞银集团(UBS)称，截至1月底也就是ChatGPT上线两个月后，已有超过1亿人使用，使其成为“历史上增长最快的消费者应用程序”。
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. 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. 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. Many things that people use search engines for today, in short, can be done better with chatbots.
AI已经在许多产品的幕后发挥作用，但ChatGPT通过让人们直接与AI聊天，将AI放在了重要的位置。ChatGPT可以写各种风格的文章，解释复杂的概念，总结文本和回答琐碎的问题。它甚至可以(勉强)通过法律和医学考试。它可以综合应用来自网络的知识:例如，列出符合特定标准的度假地点，或者推荐菜单或行程。如果被问到其原理，它可以加以解释并提供细节。简而言之，今天人们使用搜索引擎的做的许多事情都可以通过聊天机器人达到更好的效果。
Hence the flurry of announcements, as rival firms try to seize the initiative. 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. For its part, Google has announced Bard, its own chatbot, as a “companion” to its search engine. It has also taken a $300m stake in Anthropic, a startup founded by ex-OpenAI employees, which has built a chatbot called 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.
因此，当竞争对手试图抓住主动权时，一系列的公告接踵而至。2月7日，在OpenAI上投资超过110亿美元的微软发布了其搜索引擎Bing的新版本，该版本整合了ChatGPT。微软老板Satya Nadella认为这是他挑战谷歌的机会。就谷歌而言，它已经宣布自己的聊天机器人Bard是其搜索引擎的“伴侣”。它还收购了Anthropic的3亿美元股份，Anthropic是一家由前OpenAI员工创办的初创公司，该公司开发了一款名为Claude的聊天机器人。被称为中国谷歌的百度宣布将在3月份发布名为Ernie的聊天机器人，其股价大幅上涨。
But can chatbots be trusted, and what do they mean for search and its lucrative advertising business? Do they herald a Schumpeterian moment in which AI topples incumbent firms and elevates upstarts? The answers depend on three things: moral choices, monetisation and monopoly economics.
但聊天机器人可信吗？它们对搜索和利润丰厚的广告业务意味着什么？它们是否预示着一个熊彼特时刻（指熊彼特的“五种创新”理念），即人工智能是否会颠覆现有企业，涌现新贵企业？问题的答案取决于三件事:道德选择、货币化和垄断经济。
ChatGPT often gets things wrong. It has been likened to a mansplainer: supremely confident in its answers, regardless of their accuracy. Unlike search engines, which mostly direct people to other pages and make no claims for their veracity, chatbots present their answers as gospel truth. Chatbots must also grapple with bias, prejudice and misinformation as they scan the internet. There are sure to be controversies as they produce incorrect or offensive replies. (Google is thought to have held back the release of its chatbot over such concerns, but Microsoft has now forced its hand.) ChatGPT already gives answers that Ron DeSantis, Florida’s governor, would consider unacceptably woke.
ChatGPT经常出错。它被比作一位居高临下的说教者:对自己的答案极度自信，不管其准确性如何。与搜索引擎不同，搜索引擎大多将人们导向其他页面，不声称其真实性。聊天机器人却将自己的答案视为真理。聊天机器人在浏览互联网时，还必须努力应对偏见、成见和误传。因为它会产生不正确或者冒犯性的回答，这肯定会引起争议。(人们认为谷歌出于这种担忧推迟了聊天机器人的发布，但微软逼迫谷歌不得不采取行动。)ChatGPT已经给出了佛罗里达州州长罗恩·德桑蒂斯认为不可接受的答案。
Chatbots must also tread carefully around some tricky topics. Ask ChatGPT for medical advice, and it prefaces its reply with a disclaimer that it “cannot diagnose specific medical conditions”; it also refuses to give advice on, say, how to build a bomb. But its guardrails have proved easy to circumvent (for example, by asking for a story about a bombmaker, with plenty of technical detail). As tech firms decide which topics are too sensitive, they will have to choose where to draw the line. All this will raise questions about censorship, objectivity and the nature of truth.
聊天机器人还必须小心处理一些棘手的话题。如果向ChatGPT寻求医疗建议，它在回复前就给出免责声明“无法诊断具体的医疗状况”；比如说，向它询问如何制造炸弹，它也拒绝给出建议。但事实证明，ChatGPT的防范措施很容易绕过(例如，通过询问一个关于炸弹制造者的故事，其中就包含大量的技术细节)。随着科技公司决定哪些话题过于敏感，他们也将不得不做出区分。所有这些都会引发对审查制度、客观性和真理本质的质疑。
Can tech firms make money from this? OpenAI is launching a premium version of ChatGPT, which costs $20 a month for speedy access even at peak times. Google and Microsoft, which already sell ads on their search engines, will show ads alongside chatbot responses—ask for travel advice, say, and related ads will pop up. But that business model may not be sustainable. Running a chatbot requires more processing power than serving up search results, and therefore costs more, reducing margins.
科技公司能从中赚钱吗？OpenAI正在推出ChatGPT的高级版本，每月20美元，即使在高峰期也能快速访问。谷歌和微软已经在他们的搜索引擎上投放广告，还将会在聊天机器人的回复旁边显示广告——比如，询问旅游建议，相关的广告就会弹出。但这种商业模式不一定可持续。运行聊天机器人比提供搜索结果需要更多的算力，因此成本更高，利润更低。
Other models will surely emerge: charging advertisers more for the ability to influence the answers that chatbots provide, perhaps, or to have links to their websites embedded in responses. Ask ChatGPT to recommend a car, and it will reply that there are lots of good brands, and it depends on your needs. Future chatbots may be more willing to make a recommendation. But will people use them if their objectivity has been compromised by advertisers? Will they be able to tell? Behold, another can of worms.
其他商业模式肯定还会出现：可以对广告商收取更多的费用，如果他们想对聊天机器人的答案有着更大的影响，或者在回复中嵌入他们网站的链接。请ChatGPT推荐一款车，回复的好品牌有很多，但最终还是取决于你的需求。未来的聊天机器人可能更愿意承担推荐的职责。但是如果他们的客观性被广告商破坏了，人们会使用他们吗？用户能看出来吗？看，又是一个棘手的问题。
Then there is a question of competition. It is good news that Google is being kept on its toes by upstarts like OpenAI. But it is unclear whether chatbots are a competitor to search engines, or a complement. Deploying chatbots initially as add-ons to search, or as stand-alone conversation partners, makes sense given their occasional inaccuracies. But as their capabilities improve, chatbots could become an interface to all kinds of services, such as making hotel or restaurant reservations, particularly if offered as voice assistants, like Alexa or Siri. If chatbots’ main value is as a layer on top of other digital services, though, that will favour incumbents which provide such services already.
然后就是竞争问题。谷歌被OpenAI这样的新贵保持警惕是个好消息。但尚不清楚聊天机器人是搜索引擎的竞争对手，还是一种补充。考虑到聊天机器人的回复偶尔并不准确，最初将其部署为搜索插件或独立的对话伙伴是有意义的。但随着功能不断完善，聊天机器人可以成为各种服务的接口，例如预订酒店或餐厅，特别是作为语音助手提供服务，像Alexa或Siri。然而，如果聊天机器人的主要价值是基于其他数字服务，那将有利于已经有这种服务的公司。
Googling the future
搜索未来
Yet the fact that today’s upstarts, such as Anthropic and OpenAI, are attracting so much attention (and investment) from Google and Microsoft suggests that smaller firms have a shot at competing in this new field. They will come under great pressure to sell. But what if an upstart chatbot firm develops superior technology and a new business model, and emerges as a new giant? That, after all, is what Google once did. Chatbots raise hard questions, but they also offer an opportunity to make online information more useful and easier to access. As in the 1990s, when search engines first appeared, a hugely valuable prize—to become the front door to the internet—may once again be up for grabs.
然而，今天的新贵，如Anthropic和OpenAI，吸引了谷歌和微软如此多的关注(和投资),这一事实表明，较小的公司有机会在这个新领域参与竞争。他们将面临巨大的销售压力。但是，如果一个新崛起的聊天机器人公司开发了先进的技术和新的商业模式，并成为一个新的巨头，会怎么样呢？毕竟，这是谷歌曾经做过的事情。聊天机器人提出了一些难题，但它们也提供了一个机会，让在线信息变得更有用、更容易获取。正如在20世纪90年代，当搜索引擎首次出现时，一个巨大的价值奖励——成为互联网门户的机会可能会再次出现。
