The current technology Buzz of AI around Google Gemini and Perplexity is characterized by competition for users, strategic partnerships, and legal issues concerning AI’s use of copyrighted material.

ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini are leading AI tools. They each have different strengths: ChatGPT excels at creating content. Perplexity is best for fact-checked research with citations. Gemini is best for integrating with the Google ecosystem and for multimodal tasks. The best choice depends on the user’s task. Comparison

● ChatGPT: writing and debugging code, creative writing, brainstorming, and general, versatile conversational tasks where maintaining context over a long session is valuable.

● Perplexity AI: academic or professional research, fact-checking, and when you require precise, accurate answers with transparent, verifiable sources.

● Gemni: tasks that benefit from deep integration with Google apps, complex reasoning using various input types (text and images), and enterprise-level work within a structured environment.

History of the beginning of the AI World

The formal field of artificial intelligence (AI) began at the Dartmouth Workshop in 1956, where the term “artificial intelligence” was first coined by John McCarthy. The theoretical groundwork was laid earlier by visionaries like Alan Turing, who proposed the concept of a “thinking machine”.

● Ancient Foundations: The idea of mechanical beings and automatons goes back thousands of years in myth and folklore, with early inventors creating basic moving mechanical devices.

● Theoretical Foundations (1940s-1950s) In 1943, Warren McCulloch and Walter Pitts introduced a mathematical model of artificial neurons, a foundational concept for neural networks. In 1950, British mathematician Alan Turing published his influential paper, “Computing Machinery and Intelligence,” which proposed the Turing Test (or “imitation game”) as a way to measure machine intelligence.

● The Birth of the Field (1956: The Dartmouth Summer Research Project on Artificial Intelligence, organized by John McCarthy, Marvin Minsky, and others, is considered the official birth of AI as an academic discipline. It was here that the term “artificial intelligence” was first used.

● Early AI Programs (Late 1950s-1960s): Allen Newell and Herbert A. Simon developed the Logic Theorist in 1955, considered the first AI program, capable of proving mathematical theorems. Arthur Samuel developed a checkers-playing program that could learn from experience and improve its performance over time.

● Growth and Setbacks (1970s-1990s): The field experienced cycles of optimism followed by “AI winters,” periods of reduced funding and interest when ambitious promises were not met due to limited computing power and data.

● Despite this, key innovations emerge: Expert systems, such as MYCIN for medical diagnosis, demonstrated practical applications of AI. The backpropagation algorithm, crucial for training neural networks, was developed and refined. In 1997, IBM’s Deep Blue computer defeated the world chess champion, Garry Kasparov, in a highly publicized match, a significant milestone in game AI.

● Modern AI Boom (2000s-Present): The rise of big data, increased computing power (especially GPUs), and advancements in algorithms like deep learning have led to the current AI renaissance. Voice assistants like Siri and Alexa became mainstream. In 2011, IBM’s Watson won the TV quiz show Jeopardy against human champions.

Breakthroughs in computer vision (ImageNet challenge) and natural language processing (GPT models, AlphaFold for protein folding) have accelerated progress dramatically in recent years.

About ChatGPT

ChatGPT is an artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot developed by OpenAI and released in November 2022. It uses natural language processing (NLP). It is based on a Generative Pre-trained Transformer (GPT) model (currently GPT-4 or GPT-5.1, depending on plan) to engage in human-like conversations and perform a wide variety of tasks.

Key Features and Capabilities

ChatGPT is a versatile tool used by millions for various personal and professional tasks. ● Human-like Text Generation: It can produce coherent, context-aware, and natural language responses to user prompts.

● Content Creation Users can generate articles, social media posts, essays, stories, poems, and emails in various styles and tones.

● Coding Assistance: It can write, debug, and explain code in numerous programming languages.Multimodal Inputs: Paid versions allow interaction through text, audio (Voice Mode), and images (uploading pictures for analysis or generating new images).

● Language Translation: It can translate text between multiple languages.

● Data Analysis: The platform offers a secure environment to run code and analyze data from spreadsheets and other structured formats.

● Personalization: features like “Memory” allow the model to remember preferences and facts to personalize future interactions (this can be toggled on/off in settings).

Technology and Access

ChatGPT utilizes the GPT (Generative Pre-trained Transformer) architecture, an LLM trained on extensive internet data. OpenAI provides a free basic version and a paid subscription, ChatGPT Plus, for access to advanced models and features. It is accessible via web, mobile apps, and a Windows desktop app. ChatGPT’s rapid adoption contributed to the recent AI boom and inspired competing products.

Key Limitations and Concerns

ChatGPT can generate inaccurate information (“hallucinate”) and may exhibit biases from its training data. Fact-checking is recommended for important information.

Perplexity AI

Perplexity AI is an “answer engine” and research assistant that provides direct, comprehensive, and up-to-date answers to user queries by synthesizing information from the web in real-time. Unlike traditional search engines that return a list of links, Perplexity delivers a summarized response with clear, clickable source citations.

Core Features

● Cited Sources: Every response includes numbered citations linked directly to the original web sources (news articles, academic papers, forums, etc.), allowing users to verify the information and fact-check the AI’s output.

● Real-Time Information Perplexity accesses the live internet for every query, ensuring answers are current and relevant to ongoing events, unlike some models limited to their training data cutoff.

● Conversational Interface: Users can interact using natural language and ask follow-up questions within the same thread, as the tool maintains conversation context.

● Focus Modes: users can refine their searches by selecting specific sources, such as “Academic,” “News,” “YouTube,” or “Reddit,” to get more targeted answers.

● Multimodality & File Uploads: Prplexity Pro users can upload various file types (PDFs, images, spreadsheets) for the AI to analyze and incorporate into its responses.

● Spaces: This feature allows users to organize research queries into personalized, collaborative folders and projects.

Products and Plans

Perplexity offers several tiers to suit different user needs:

● Free Plan: Provides basic search functionality with limited daily “Pro Searches” and general web sources.

● Perplexity Pro ($20/month or $200/year): Unlocks advanced features, including access to powerful models like GPT-5 and Claude 4.5 Sonnet, “Deep Research” mode, unlimited file uploads, and image/video generation capabilities.

● Perplexity Enterprise Pro: A plan designed for businesses and organizations, offering enhanced data privacy, team collaboration tools, and internal knowledge search features.

The Company PerplexityAI, Inc. was founded in 2022 by Aravind Srinivas, Denis Yarats, Johnny Ho, and Andy Konwinski. The company has grown rapidly and has introduced other products, including the Comet AI browser, which integrates the answer engine directly into the browsing experience.

Controversies

The company has faced legal challenges and scrutiny regarding its data collection methods, with several media organizations, including The New York Times, BBC, and Dow Jones, alleging copyright infringement and unauthorized content scraping. Perplexity has stated it is open to revenue-sharing programs with publishers.

GEMINI AI

Gemini is a family of powerful, multimodal AI models from Google. It is also the name of its conversational chatbot. Gemini is designed to integrate with the Google ecosystem. This allows for interaction across apps like Gmail, Docs, Maps, and YouTube.

Key Features and Capabilities

● Multimodality: Gemini can understand and reason across text, images, audio, and video simultaneously.

● Google Integration Gemini connects to Google services. Users can ask Gemini to summarize emails, find information in Google Drive documents, or add tasks to Google Tasks.

● Reasoning and Explanation: Gemini provides answers with reasoning and explanation, using the information indexed by Google Search.

● Coding Assistance: It can generate, explain, debug, and refactor code in programming languages such as Python, Java, and C++, with features available through Gemini Code Assist.

● Deep Research: A feature in the paid tier allows the AI to analyze large files to create comprehensive reports.

● Mobile App: A Gemini app is available on Android and within the Google app on iOS. It functions as an on-device assistant capable of setting alarms, controlling music, and making calls.

Gemini Models and Tiers

Google optimizes its models for different use cases:

● Gemini Nano: This is an efficient model for on-device tasks, used directly on smartphones.

● Gemini Flash: This is the lightest and fastest model, optimized for speed and scaling across a range of tasks at a low cost.

● Gemini Pro. This is a model for complex and sophisticated reasoning tasks. It is available in the free web version of the chatbot.

●Gemini Ultra (via Gemini Advanced This is the largest and most capable model for complex tasks. It is accessible through the paid Google AI Pro plan.

Access and Privacy

Gemini is available for free for general use. A paid “Pro” subscription offers access to the most advanced models and features. User data in Google Workspace with Gemini is protected. It is not used to train the models or for ad targeting.

Gemini vs ChatGPT vs Perplexity

The use of AI is safe in most current applications where robust safety measures and human oversight are in place, offering significant benefits. However, the technology poses genuine and evolving risks that require careful management, regulation, and ethical oversight to prevent harm.

Benefits of Safe AI Use

When developed and deployed responsibly, AI offers numerous advantages :

● Improved Efficiency and Productivity: AI automates repetitive tasks, allowing humans to focus on more complex and creative work.

● Enhanced Decision-Making AI can analyze vast datasets to provide insights and predictions in fields like healthcare and finance, leading to better-informed decisions.

● Safety in Dangerous Environments: AI and robotics can perform tasks in hazardous conditions, such as bomb disposal or managing radioactive materials, protecting human life.

● Solving Global Challenge: AI can assist in addressing complex issues like climate change and disease prediction.

Potential Risks and Safety Concerns

Experts and leaders in the field have identified several significant risks that need mitigation:

● Algorithmic Bias and Discrimination: AI systems learn from the data they are trained on. If this data contains historical or societal biases, the AI can perpetuate or amplify discrimination in areas like hiring, loan approvals, or predictive policing.

● Privacy Violations and Surveillance: AI systems often require access to large amounts of personal data, raising significant privacy concerns. This data can be misused or exposed in data breaches.

● Misinformation and Deepfakes: Generative AI makes it easy to create realistic fake images, audio, and videos (deepfakes), which can be used for social manipulation, fraud, and disinformation campaigns.

● Cybersecurity Threats: Malicious actors can use AI to automate and scale cyberattacks, making them faster and more sophisticated, such as creating self-propagating malware or highly convincing phishing emails.

● Lack of Accountability and Transparency: Many advanced AI models are “black boxes,” meaning their decision-making processes are difficult to understand. This makes it challenging to determine who is accountable when an AI system makes a mistake.

● Autonomous Weapons: There are concerns about the development of lethal autonomous weapons systems (LAWS) that can identify and engage targets without human oversight, potentially escalating conflicts.

● Long-Term/Existential Risks: A major, though more speculative, concern among some tech leaders and researchers is the risk posed by potential artificial general intelligence (AGI) that surpasses human control or pursues goals misaligned with human values, which some experts compare to risks like pandemics or nuclear war.

Safety and Mitigation Measures

Governments, organizations, and researchers are working to develop frameworks and regulations to ensure AI safety, including:

● Regulation: The European Union’s EU AI Act is one example of a risk-based legal framework for AI.

● Human Oversight: Ensuring that a human remains “in the loop” for critical decisions is crucial to prevent harm.

● Testing and Auditing: Rigorous testing, including “red teaming” (simulated attacks) and third-party audits, helps identify and mitigate vulnerabilities before deployment.

● Ethical Frameworks: Companies are adopting ethical guidelines focused on fairness, transparency, and accountability to guide AI development.

Summary

The safe use of AI is a shared responsibility, requiring ongoing attention to its development and deployment to maximize its benefits while managing its inherent risks.

ChatGPT, Perplexity AI, and AI on Google Search, powered by the Gemini family of models, are prominent AI tools. Each has different strengths.ChatGPT, from OpenAI, is suited for creative content, conversation, and coding. Perplexity AI provides verifiable research with real-time answers from the web. Gemini excels in the Google ecosystem and handles different inputs, like text, images, and audio.

The field of AI began at the 1956 Dartmouth Workshop. The field saw periods of limited progress. The 2000s brought deep learning, leading to powerful modern systems.AI use presents benefits and risks.

Safety measures and ethics are important to prevent harm from bias, misinformation, and privacy issues. When developed responsibly, AI can improve efficiency. Current safeguards include regulation, human oversight, and testing to manage risks and maximize positive impact [eur-lex.europa.eu]. The best AI tool depends on the user’s needs, while its safety relies on ethical development.