Chat GPT is a hot topic lately. I first started writing about it last year, and I aim to share some regular items on Chat GPT AI and similar LLM (Large Language Model) technologies.

Microsoft is currently investing billions (American dollars billions) into Chat GPT and integrating it into their search engine Bing. Chatterbox offers a connection to Chat GPT without long delays during busy times - and with a local flavour - for $20 a month.

There are going to be costs whatever way you go.

Currently, Google - Alphabet is the parent company - make billions in advertising connected to the search results they provide to people submitting queries. They are naturally worried about Chat GPT's sudden popularity. Their response - Bard - did not have an auspicious first outing, but it is sure to improve.

Perplexity is an answer engine that delivers accurate answers to complex questions. Users can ask questions or use keywords to generate an answer compiled from multiple sources, with the warning that users shouldn’t enter personal information.

Perplexity.ai has introduced its new conversational search engine designed to provide information through a chatbot-style interface and large language model (LLM) similar to how OpenAI’s ChatGPT works. The difference is that Perplexity uses current information, including footnotes with links to the data sources.

PerplexityAI offers practically real-time results about what is happening in the world, as well as offering a source of where this information comes from.

NeevaAI provides a synthesised single answer with linked sources pulled together from the most relevant sites for a query, allowing users to determine the authenticity and reliability of the cited sources.

NeevaAI thus offers current information by crawling hundreds of millions of pages daily and serving from its independent index of billions of pages.

By combining AI with Neeva's in-house search stack that blocks ads and advertisers, results are fast, timely, bias-free and relevant.

Neeva blocks third-party website trackers, and will not sell or share customer data with anyone. Neeva also makes it easy to search within personal email accounts, calendars, and cloud storage platforms, surfacing the most important information from the same familiar search box. The company was founded by former executives from Google and YouTube. Learn more and start searching today at neeva.com

NeevaAI pro plan costs around $79 per year - a subscription model that allows them not to need or use ads for revenue.

ChatGPT is powered by Open AI—an artificial intelligence research laboratory in San Francisco, California—the chatbot has given way to headlines claiming that it can write college-level essays, successfully debug code, and even pass the Bar exam.

Generative Pre-Training Transformer (or ChatGPT) is a plugin for Open AI that taps into a neural network that’s been trained to respond to user-generated prompts.

While the opportunities for using ChatGPT are seemingly endless, here are some of the ways that you can experiment with it:

Generating recipes
Recommending gifts
Coming up with ideas for AI art
Writing music (lyrics and melodies)
Writing comedy routines
Translating languages

ChatGPT still isn’t able to fact-check any of its responses. They might sound correct, but the underlying language model is merely guessing which words sound correct, rather than actually finding the definitive correct answer to your query. That’s why you shouldn't rely on ChatGPT to write your term paper for you. (Well, that and plagiarism).

ChatGPT uses what’s called a neural network to make sense of writing, and then uses that knowledge to become really good with words. “Neural” networks are algorithms trained to replicate how neurons in the human brain communicate with each other. Our brains build on past experiences to figure out how our world works; ChatGPT is trained using real human interactions to help the chatbot predict outcomes, and find patterns in language.

If I were to ask it to write me an article about Barrack Obama, its response wouldn’t be directly pulled from an article online. When you ask it a question, it’s not actually looking up the answer. ... It’s just trying to guess what looks like the correct answer.

One of the big concerns then, is that Chat GPT could easily be influenced by the large amount of "conspiracy theory" information that at times, floods a topic on the internet.

For these reasons, and others, I have found PerplexityAI and NeevaAI to be excellent alternatives to my previous reliance on Google as my search engine.

I have one browser set up with NeevaAI as the default search engine, another with PerplexityAI as the default search engine, and a third that defaults to Google, and Google Scholar.

As I have personally discovered in the past, it is easy to get things wrong. Even when you apply rigour to your information searches, it is possible to get things wrong. AI used wisely, can help me in my quest to source and share reliable, accurate, verified information that is peer-reviewed by experts in a particular field.

As a post script, I asked PerplexityAI, NeevaAI and Chat GPT to answer a question I already knew the answer to:

PerplexityAI

NeevaAI

Chat GPT

Superb Swim Day: