Google is presently engaged in a competition with Microsoft and OpenAI to pioneer the next significant advancement in artificial intelligence (AI) technology. In its bid to seize the lead, Google intends to unveil an AI chatbot capable of offering life guidance to users, as reported by The New York Times.
This undertaking is under the purview of Google’s DeepMind division, which has entered into collaboration with Scale AI, the startup valued at $7.3 billion. The ultimate objective entails crafting a prospective bot that emulates the role of a life coach. A dedicated team of more than 100 experts is currently dedicated to the initiative.
As detailed in the report, the AI for life advice is undergoing training across an array of realistic situations likely to be posed by a typical user. One cited example in the report involves a query such as, “I have a really close friend who is getting married this winter… How do I tell her that I won’t be able to come?”
Should the generative AI be launched for public use, it will be equipped to handle no less than 21 diverse categories of personal and professional tasks, encompassing dispensing life counsel, generating ideas, formulating plans, and providing tutoring assistance.
The aspiration to develop a ‘life guru’ bot marks a departure from the existing offerings like Google Bard and OpenAI’s ChatGPT. These chatbots function as repositories of information akin to Wikipedia, often reiterating facts mechanically and lacking distinctive interactions unless their initial, defensive code is bypassed.
Notably, Google’s pivot towards this novel form of AI chatbot is not coincidental. In December of the preceding year, its AI safety experts issued a warning that users could experience “diminished health and well-being” and encounter a “loss of agency” if they were to rely on AI for life advice.
Even during the launch of Google Bard, the company restricted it from providing medical, financial, or legal counsel. The report further notes that the life bot tool remains under evaluation, and it is undecided whether or not the company will proceed with its deployment.
A Google spokesperson articulated, “We have long worked with a variety of partners to evaluate our research and products across Google, which is a critical step in building safe and helpful technology. At any time there are many such evaluations ongoing. Isolated samples of evaluation data are not representative of our product road map.”
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