What Is Generative AI? ChatGPT, Copilot, and Gemini Give Their Best Answers.
For all the excitement about artificial intelligence, and more specifically the generative AI technology used to power chatbots, there still seems to be a lot of confusion about what, exactly, generative AI is.
To help clear things up, we went straight to the source and asked the chatbots themselves to explain the technology, which is projected to bring in some $28 billion a year in global revenue by 2030 for the chatbots alone.
Here’s what three popular bots from
Alphabet
’s
Google,
and OpenAI had to say.
What Is Generative AI?
Google Gemini answer:
“A branch of AI that focuses on creating new content, like text, images, music, and even videos. It’s essentially like having a super-powered copywriter, artist, or musician that can learn from massive amounts of data and use that knowledge to generate entirely new things.”
Microsoft Copilot answer:
“Machine-learning models that are specifically trained to create new data rather than merely making predictions based on existing data. Unlike traditional AI models that focus on prediction tasks (like determining whether an X-ray shows signs of a tumor or predicting loan defaults), generative AI systems learn to generate more objects that resemble the data they were trained on.”
Advertisement – Scroll to Continue
OpenAI ChatGPT answer:
“A subset of artificial intelligence techniques focused on creating new content or data, often mimicking human-like creativity. It involves algorithms and models that can generate new examples of data that are similar to a given dataset. This can include generating images, text, music, or even entire pieces of software code.”
And the winner is: Google Gemini. Formerly known as Bard, Gemini gave the clearest, most succinct answer with the most writerly panache. While satisfactory, the answers from rivals Microsoft and OpenAI were bogged down in tech jargon (“machine-learning models,” “prediction tasks,” “algorithms and models”) that overcomplicated their answers.
Notably, Google Gemini requires you to log into a Google account before spitting out an answer—a drawback for anyone not fully immersed in the Google-verse.
Advertisement – Scroll to Continue
To Microsoft Copilot’s credit, it was the only chatbot that provided background sourcing with clickable links in its answer. That’s important since AI companies are facing several lawsuits over alleged unauthorized use of copyright material. With chatbots expected to be a huge moneymaker over the next decade, safeguarding against legal challenges could prove crucial.
Lastly, you might think that because Microsoft is a large investor in OpenAI their chatbots would produce identical answers. Not so. As Microsoft explains on its website, while it incorporates OpenAI technology into Copilot, its chatbot is designed to function as an “AI-powered digital assistant” by drawing on data from other Microsoft apps, making it a distinctive offering of its own.
Note: All chatbot answers were generated on April 29, 2024.
Write to Anita Hamilton at anita.hamilton@barrons.com
