OpenAI’s search tool already made a mistake

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Whenever AI companies present a vision for the role of artificial intelligence in the future of internet search, they tend to highlight the same points: instant summaries of relevant information, ready-made lists tailored to the needs of searchers. No to point out that generative AI models are prone to providing incorrect and sometimes outright made-up information — and yet it keeps happening. Earlier this afternoon, OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT, announced a prototype of an AI tool that can search the web and answer questions, appropriately called SearchGPT. The release is designed to hint at how AI will transform the ways people navigate the internet — except that, before users have had a chance to test out the new program, it already seems prone to errors.

In a pre-recorded demo video accompanying the ad, a fictional user writes Music Festivals in Boone, North Carolina, in August in the SearchGPT interface. The tool then brings up a list of festivals it claims are happening in Boone this August, with the first being An Appalachian Summer Festival, which the tool says will host a series of arts events from July 29 through August 16 this year. However, someone in Boone hoping to buy tickets to one of those concerts would be in trouble. In fact, the festival started on June 29 and will have its last concert on July 27. Instead, July 29 through August 16 are the dates when the festival box office will officially be closed. (I confirmed these dates with the festival box office.)

• The real problem with AI hallucinations: “Boldness can quickly become a liability when builders become detached from reality,” Charlie Warzel wrote this week, “or when their arrogance leads them to believe they have the right to impose their values ​​on the rest of us in exchange for building God.”
• Generative AI cannot cite its sources: “It’s unclear whether OpenAI, Perplexity, or any other generative AI company will be able to build products that consistently and accurately cite their sources,” I wrote earlier this year, “let alone direct audiences to original sources like news outlets. Currently, they struggle to do so consistently.”