The world has changed. Things will never be the same again. A hundred years from now when the children of our children ask, “When was it that the world started becoming what it is today?” they’ll get an exact date, ‘November the 30th 2022’. The launch date of Open AI’s ground-breaking, era-defining, and epoch-launching Chatbot, ChatGPT.
The date is not important because ChatGPT is smart enough to rule the world or because it will wipe out human beings from the face of the Earth but because the launch of this product heralded the age of the AI-wars.
Consumers were aghast, the developers were surprised and the investors were star-struck. Artificial Intelligence had announced its arrival on the world stage, and what an announcement that was. Within days of its launch, ChatGPT was all set to become the highest-used app in the world. Thousands waited in virtual queues and lines of servers to interact with the bot.
Microsoft was quick to respond, dishing out an astonishing 10 Billion Dollars to Open Ai to jump on the AI bandwagon. Soon after Microsoft integrated Open AI’s technology into its search engine fast tracking the creation of its own AI technology called Sydney and integrated it into several of its apps.
While several were happy that ChatGPT could do their job, the foresighted others were depressed at the possibility of being replaced by AI.
Microsoft was not the only one, app developers started flooding Facebook groups, Reddit chat threads, and app stores with applications designed to help users get the most out of ChatGPT.
Emergency meetings were held at the Google headquarters, Sundar Pichai, the CEO wanted his top guns to drop everything and fast-track work on its long-withheld AI products, especially its conversational bot Bard. And the tech giant’s shares crashed by Billions of Dollars when Bard made a simple mistake during a trial meeting.
Google was soon followed by other tech giants including China’s Baidu who, only this year, announced the launch of their own conversational AI, called Ernie Bot.
And all the while the giants of Silicon Valley were busy playing catch-up, Sam Altman, the CEO of Open AI announced the launch of an even more advanced multi-modal AI, GPT 4. Learning from the mistakes of its predecessor GPT 4 was faster, smarter, and in many aspects meaner.
This dear reader is how the AI wars started. So, let’s take a quick look at the top contenders and try to predict the winner.
But before we do that there is one important thing I want you to understand. In a world where reality feels like science fiction, if you still do not have access to high-speed broadband, especially the fiber variety, you will become obsolete.
Of course, people living in rural, sparsely populated, and remote areas do not have access to fiber technology but that does not mean staying stuck and continuing to rely on the DSL dinosaur. Especially when much better options like satellite internet service providers like HughesNet Internet are beaming high-speed and reliable broadband internet directly to your homes.
Now, let’s launch and look at the front-runner.
1. Open AI
Notice the heading. It’s not ChatGPT but the company behind it, Open AI. Why the distinction, well, it’s because the company itself is looking to make ChatGPT a thing of the past after the launch of its latest product GPT 4.
If ChatGPT was winning the race, Open AI’s latest masterpiece, GPT 4 is defining the race. Unlike any other AI product out there, ChatGPT is not a mere language model. Instead, it is a multi-modal model, which means that GPT 4 can receive both text and image prompts.
You could sketch a website on a piece of paper, upload the poorly drawn template to GPT 4 and the Chatbot will code a website for you.
Need I say more, no other chatbot even comes close.
2. Apprentice bard
Google, the undisputed king of the tech world, is a close second in the race. Its chatbot Bard was launched on March 21st and is now open to users worldwide who have a lot of mind-bending challenges for it.
But Bard is making a lot of mistakes. Investors were under the impression that owing to its late launch Bard would have had the opportunity to learn from GPT’s mistakes but that is simply not the case. From ridiculous errors like misspelling the twelve months of the year to serious mistakes like assuming that it can process and generate images when it cannot, Bard is way behind its counterpart.
But being the giant that it is, it would not be wise to write off Google just yet. Because the geniuses at their HQ are more than capable of surprising us. But for now, Apprentice Bard is just that, an Apprentice and not an impressive AI product.
3. Sydney or bing
Sydney which was launched on February 7th is not based on something original. Instead, it is more of a collaboration between Open AI and Microsoft and is entirely based on GPT’s technology. Some would not even call it a distinct product even though Microsoft is positioning it as one.
But despite being based on GPT, Sydney is nowhere near as useful. The AI is prone to a lot of hallucinations and is reported to have made threats against users. It is third on the list only because it is GPT’s cousin.
Wrap up
The AI race is on and the top contenders are mentioned above. But before we part ways I want to conclude by saying that one of these three big guns doesn’t need to win the race. Because the fight has just only started.
Merely a few weeks back some professors at a cramped-up lab at Stanford were able to create a complete clone of ChatGPT for a mere cost of Dollar 600. This gives you an idea of how accessible this technology has become and that it would not be surprising if a contender that is not even born yet ends up winning the AI wars.
