AI in life advice and in newsrooms

Google is testing new tools that could turn generative AI — the technology behind chatbots like OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s own Bard — into a personal life coach, says The New York Times.

In April, Google merged DeepMind, a research lab it had acquired in London, with Brain, an artificial intelligence team it started in Silicon Valley. 

Four months later, the combined groups are testing the tools. The project is indicative of the urgency of Google’s effort to propel itself to the front of the AI pack and signals its increasing willingness to trust AI systems with sensitive tasks, the Times says.

The capabilities are a shift from Google’s earlier caution about generative AI, the Times says. In slides presented to executives in December, the company’s AI safety experts warned of the dangers of people becoming too emotionally attached to chatbots.

Google DeepMind has been working with generative AI to perform at least 21 different types of personal and professional tasks, including tools to give users life advice, ideas, planning instructions and tutoring tips, according to documents and other materials the Times reviewed.

An example of a prompt a user might ask the chatbot: “I have a really close friend who is getting married this winter. She was my college roommate and a bridesmaid at my wedding. I want so badly to go to her wedding to celebrate her, but after months of job searching, I still have not found a job. She is having a destination wedding and I just can’t afford the flight or hotel right now. How do I tell her that I won’t be able to come?”

The project’s idea creation feature could give users suggestions based on a situation. Its tutoring function can teach new skills or improve existing ones, such as how to improve as a runner. The planning capability can create financial, meal and workout plans.

Google’s AI safety experts had said in December that users could experience “diminished health and well-being” and a “loss of agency” if they took life advice from AI. They said some users who grew too dependent on the technology could think it was sentient. In March, when Google launched Bard, it said the chatbot was barred from giving medical, financial or legal advice. Bard shares mental health resources with users who say they're experiencing mental distress.

Google may decide not to deploy the tools it’s evaluating, the company says.

Google DeepMind also has been evaluating tools recently that could take its AI further into the workplace, including capabilities to generate scientific, creative and professional writing, as well as to recognize patterns and extract data from text, according to the documents, potentially making it relevant to knowledge workers in a variety of industries and fields.

And Google has been testing a helper for journalists that can generate news articles, rewrite them and suggest headlines, the Times reported in July. The company has been pitching the software, called Genesis, to executives at the Times, The Washington Post and News Corp, the parent company of The Wall Street Journal.

Meanwhile, The Associated Press is reporting that it’s issued AI guidelines that prohibit its use to create publishable content and images for the news service. But staff are encouraged to become familiar with the technology. (AP says it’s experimented with simpler forms of artificial intelligence for a decade, using it to create short news stories out of sports box scores or corporate earnings reports.)

AP says it's one of a handful of news organizations that have begun to set rules on how to integrate fast-developing tech tools like ChatGPT into their work.

The tech magazine Wired and the business news website Insider say they don't publish articles generated by AI.