According to TapTechNews on June 11, Todd McKinnon, the CEO of the network security company Okta, said in an interview with CNBC on Friday that Google is striving to avoid outsourcing research and development in order to defend its dominant position as a search engine. He also mentioned that Microsoft has outsourced the research and development of all its advanced AI tools and software to OpenAI, which may be beneficial to Google.
He pointed out that the core technology behind today's generative AI technology - the Transformer model - all comes from Google, and Microsoft's position in the field of artificial intelligence is at risk of being reduced to a 'consultant'. Many of Microsoft's recent products, such as Copilot and AIPC, have begun to integrate OpenAI's technology.
He also mentioned that Microsoft has invested billions of dollars in OpenAI, with a total investment amount that may be as high as 13 billion US dollars (TapTechNews note: currently about 94.336 billion yuan). Microsoft had stated last year that its investment will 'accelerate AI breakthroughs and ensure that these achievements can be widely shared with the world.'
Todd McKinnon said, 'This is so strange. Imagine the situation at Microsoft where all the exciting things come from OpenAI, and Microsoft seems to be on the verge of becoming a consulting firm.'
However, through investment and cooperation with OpenAI, Microsoft has actually become a leader in the field of basic AI models. At the same time, Google's own artificial intelligence projects have also been repeatedly questioned by the public. In fact, since Google launched its Gemini last year, it has faced intense criticism, even leading to a continuous decline in its stock price.
McKinnon pointed out: Unlike fields such as personal computers and cloud computing that rely on organic investment in new product cycles for development, artificial intelligence requires a large amount of financial support from large tech giants to make progress, which is quite rare in the tech field.
'This is different from other technological iterations such as the PC. Back then, it wasn't the largest companies in the world that had the advantage because the essence of the PC is disruptive, and they are almost like toys.'
But currently 'there are no new AI models like toys. The reason why OpenAI has been successful is largely because they have received huge amounts of research and development funds, including the 10 billion US dollars provided by Microsoft.'
However, he also added that the huge investments made by tech giants in artificial intelligence have raised some concerns in terms of competition. He believes that problems such as false information caused by internet giants in the field of AI will become the 'biggest risk' faced by the cybersecurity industry in the future. 'The potential of artificial intelligence is indeed very high', 'I expect that the regulatory efforts will continue to increase, and in the end only the largest and strongest companies will be able to truly control AI.'