Google has plunged the internet into a “spiral of decline”, the

Google has plunged the internet into a “spiral of decline”, the
co-founder of the company’s artificial intelligence (AI) lab has
claimed.

[1]Mustafa Suleyman, the British entrepreneur who co-founded DeepMind,
said: “The business model that Google had broke the internet.”

He said search results had become plagued with “clickbait” to keep
people “addicted and absorbed on the page as long as possible”.

Information online is “buried at the bottom of a lot of verbiage and
guff”, Mr Suleyman argued, so websites can “sell more adverts”, fuelled
by Google’s technology.

Mr Suleyman was one of three people who set up pioneering AI lab
DeepMind in London 2010. The company was bought by Google for £400m and
it has become the cornerstone of the search giant’s AI operations.

Mr Suleyman, 39, quit Google 18 months ago and has since set up a rival
venture, Inflection AI. The company is developing a conversational
chatbot, similar to ChatGPT, amid a race by AI companies to usurp
Google’s dominance of the web.

The entrepreneur has developed a chatbot called Pi, which he says can
act as a kind of AI confidante or coach. He has raised more than $1.5bn
for the new technology.

The criticism of his former employer came as Mr Suleyman told the
Telegraph about plans for a new international body to monitor AI
threats.

Mr Suleyman, along with billionaire former Google chief executive Eric
Schmidt, plan to present proposals for an International Panel on AI
Safety at Prime Minister [2]Rishi Sunak’s global summit on the
technology next month.

The DeepMind co-founder said the panel could be “modelled on the IPCC”
– the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change – to “establish the
scientific consensus around the current capabilities” of AI.

Mr Suleyman said the IPCC, which was first set up in 1988, was a “good
inspiration” for establishing a “rigorous body” for making predictions
about AI risks. Other backers of the plan include Reid Hoffman, the
billionaire LinkedIn founder, and Florentino Cuéllar, president of the
Carnegie think tank.

The AI panel would provide governments with regular assessments on the
level of danger posed by the technology.

The UK’s AI Safety Summit is due to take place at Bletchley Park and is
expected to gather world leaders and tech entrepreneurs to address the
challenges of “frontier AI” that might cause “significant harm,
including the loss of life”.

The two-day summit on Nov 1 and 2 is expected to be attended by top
lobbyists from the likes of Meta and Google. Kamala Harris, the US vice
president, is expected to attend, while a Chinese delegation has been
invited.

The leaders will try to find common ground on tackling AI risks.
Officials are also understood to be considering setting up an
international institute for AI safety.

Michelle Donelan, the technology secretary, told the Telegraph the
conference would “consider the biggest risks and biggest opportunities
that come from frontier AI”, bringing together “companies, countries
and also experts”.

[3]Concern about the technology has been sparked by the overnight
success of ChatGPT, which was seen as a wake-up call for world leaders
about the speed at which the technology was being developed.

A new wave of chatbots, built on so-called “large language models”, can
answer questions and have online conversations in an almost uncannily
human way. They can write emails, essays, poetry or music, prompting
concerns they could create upheaval in the jobs market.

Writing in his recent book, The Coming Wave, Mr Suleyman called for a
“containment” of high-risk AI advances, so governments can get ahead of
developments that may threaten jobs, elections and human life.

Mr Suleyman said chatbots could “take on Google” by providing more
accurate information than internet search.

However, despite recent advances, many chatbots suffer from errors and
in some cases may make up false information, creating a hurdle to
taking on search engines.

[4]Google is also developing a rival AI chatbot project, called Bard.

Google was approached for comment.

Meanwhile on Saturday, the Government confirmed 100 winners of £5m in
grant funding for AI start-ups, including a business tackling clothing
waste and a company finding a use for the technology in vineyards.

Ms Donelan also announced a further £32m in grant funding for
high-growth businesses using AI, to be confirmed after the UK summit.

References

1. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2019/12/06/deepminds-founder-leaves-britains-brightest-ai-lab-really-free/
2. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2023/09/23/artificial-intelligence-safety-summit-sunak-ai-experts/
3. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2023/05/23/chatgpt-sam-altman-ai-regulation-risk-fears/
4. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2023/02/13/google-microsofts-ai-bots-will-pollute-internet-digital-effluence/