“To put it bluntly, it felt at times like watching a 12-year-old use my computer.”
That’s Dr Junade Ali’s assessment of the new OpenAI browser, which was released on Tuesday evening.
The browser, called Atlas, appears designed to challenge Google Chrome and potentially supplant the most profitable segment of Google’s parent company, Alphabet.
But after testing out Atlas, AI experts have told Sky News one of its key elements feels “very clunky”.
As well as fully incorporating ChatGPT into the browser so it follows you around the internet, the “most exciting part” of the browser is its AI agent, according to Dr Andrea Barbon from the University of St Gallen.
The feature is currently only available in “preview mode” for certain users.
“When you activate the agent, you can ask it to do something, and then it will take control of your computer or your mouse,” he explained after trying it out.
“It will start clicking around on the website to perform the task that you requested,” he said – but the feature left him disappointed, and he stopped using the browser within minutes.
“I tried a couple of websites where the workflow is a bit complex and ChatGPT was just not able to handle it, not at all,” he said.
“After a few minutes, I closed the browser and I didn’t uninstall it, but I could – I’m not going to use it, right?
“Maybe I will use it in the future, if they release versions that are actually working,” he said.
Dr Ali, a fellow at the Institute of Engineering and Technology, said the AI agent would “struggle around a little bit to try and do the task in the most effective way and it would sometimes get stuck”.
“It definitely seemed very primitive – but it is a really neat concept,” he said.
OpenAI said its agent mode is “an early experience and may make mistakes on complex workflows”.
“We’re rapidly improving reliability, latency and complex task success.”
File pic: iStock
Will it topple Google?
Despite being underwhelmed by the browser, Dr Ali said OpenAI has already shown it can cause Google problems.
“We do see Google struggling to keep up with the advances that OpenAI are doing,” he said.
OpenAI has already made a “massive dent” in the web traffic Google would usually be able to make money from, he said, through ChatGPT and people using the AI bot as a search engine.
“So in that aspect, it has already been able to disrupt Google.”
“Google is going to respond,” said Dr Barbon. “For sure, Google is gonna integrate more AI into Google Chrome. So it really depends on who is faster at achieving a working prototype. I think OpenAI is not there yet.”
OpenAI’s new browser, Atlas. Pic: OpenAI
Will this change how we use the internet?
When Google launched in 1998, it changed the flow of information around the world, disrupted business models and revolutionised advertising.
OpenAI are hoping Atlas has a similarly sweeping impact. During last night’s launch, chief executive Sam Altman said: “AI presents a rare once-in-a-decade opportunity to rethink what a browser can be about.”
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For Dr Luke Roberts, from the Centre of Science and Policy at the University of Cambridge, an AI-integrated browser could trigger societal change.
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Can we trust ChatGPT?
“The bigger question behind this is really [about] the shift from the attention economy to the answer economy,” he told Sky News.
“If the conversations previously were [about] how much technology grabs your attention, I think the biggest societal shift we’re gonna see is people just want the answer now.”
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With AI making answers quicker and easier to access than ever before, Dr Roberts warned there is a risk we will become complacent about the source and veracity of that information.
“We don’t necessarily scrutinise the answers we’re being given, we just accept them at face value,” he said.
“I think there’s some really big shifts about to happen that we’re going to need to really think quite deeply as a society.”
