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Against that, however, AI poses two major challenges. We may all gradually stop searching for information and products on the internet, and simply ask a smart chatbot to do it for us. If that happens, Google’s search ads will steadily become less valuable. Even worse, AI uses so much server power and such sophisticated chips, that it is far more expensive to run than traditional web pages. Caught between those two forces, Google may easily find its profits start to get squeezed.
We all like getting something for nothing. The explosion of web services over the last 20 years means that we all get a whole range of incredibly sophisticated products effectively for nothing. We can search for anything we want, send emails around the world, find anything on maps, chat to friends and family on social media, and store our photos forever – and apart from a broadband connection, it doesn’t cost us anything at all. It is, in some ways, a great deal.
The catch was that it all had to be funded by advertising. Over time, search became more and more useless as the answers to any question were dominated by sponsored results. Mail systems were cluttered up by messages from companies, and maps were dominated by nudges towards one shop or another. Meanwhile, everything we said on social media was bundled up and sold as a commodity to be traded by marketers. As a former Google web designer memorably put it, “If you are not paying for the product then you are the product.”
AI could very quickly go the same way. The chatbots will start casually throwing in product recommendations to every conversation. They will hint at different shops or restaurants we might want to visit. They will slowly work every question around to a list of things we might want to buy. Worst of all, they might start guilt-tripping us into donating every time we log on, such as Wikipedia, or indeed The Guardian. And then of course they will keep a record of every conversation and question, analyse your answers and sell the data to squeeze some more revenue out of you.
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