Google DeepMind has been working with generative AI to develop at least 21 different tools for life advice, planning and tutoring, New York Times reported on Wednesday.
Google’s safety experts presented a slide deck to executives in December. They claimed that users taking life advice from AI tools could experience “diminished health and well-being” and a “loss of agency”, per the New York Times.
The tech giant has reportedly partnered with the contractor Scale AI, the $7.3 billion startup. It is focused on training and validating AI software, to test the tools. A team of over 100 experts has been working on the project.
The AI chatbot is being trained on queries including, “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 chatbot can give users suggestions or recommendations based on a situation. It is adding new skills and improving existing ones, like how to progress as a runner; and the planning capability can create a financial budget for users as well as meal and workout plans.
However, Google AI safety experts had warned of the dangers of people becoming too emotionally attached to chatbots.
A Google DeepMind spokeswoman told New York Times, “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.”
Meanwhile, Google is also working on a new AI tool to assist journalists. The tool will help journalists generate news articles, rewrite them and suggest headlines.
