OpenAI would be interested in buying Google’s Chrome if antitrust enforcers are successful in forcing the Alphabet (GOOGL.O), opens new tab unit to sell the popular web browser as part of a bid to restore competition in search, an OpenAI executive testified on Tuesday at Google’s antitrust trial in Washington.
ChatGPT head of product Nick Turley made the statement while testifying at trial in the case where U.S. Department of Justice seeks to require Google to undertake far-reaching measures restore competition in online search. The judge overseeing the trial in Washington found last year that Google has a monopoly in online search and related advertising.
Google has not offered Chrome for sale. The company plans to appeal the ruling that it holds a monopoly.‘BETTER PRODUCT’ Turley testified earlier in the day that Google shot down a bid by OpenAI to use its search technology within ChatGPT. OpenAI had reached out to Google after experiencing issues with its own search provider, Turley said, without naming the provider. ChatGPT uses technology from Microsoft’s search engine, Bing.
“We believe having multiple partners, and in particular Google’s API, would enable us to provide a better product to users,” OpenAI told Google, according to an email shown at trial.
I am conflicted about this.
At one hand, this would severely limit the reach of Google. They probably would implement some sort of AI feature anyways.
However, giving OpenAI access to their API is honestly terrifying and could lead to them dominating the AI market in the same way Google has already for browsers and search engines.
Round and round we go.
Maybe after a decade this will repeat itself with Open AI on trial for being monopolistic with their AI everywhere.
Chrome will continue to be useless for folks like us.
isn’t it entirely possible that the value of Chrome is worth more then OpenAI as a company? I am not seeing how unless Chrome is forced to sell at way under its value OpenAI would even be a player in its purchase.
From what I can tell OpenAI is valued around ~$30 Billion USD and Chrome could be worth anywhere from $20 - $50 billion.
I think it’s $300 Billion
oh wow - I did not realize how crazy its valuation has gotten since 2023.
Not sure about liquidity though. They might rely on money raised by investors/VCs or take a page out of Elon Musk’s book by taking out loans
Since they got $40 Billion in cash last month I think that’ll go a long way towards the Chrome purchase lol
Edit: But I assume they’ll want to do some stock deal with Google.
I really hope the judge forbids such sale if it harms the competition. But can it though?
The judge can’t predict how it would harm competition in 10 years today. So it will not happen.
Also, there’s no telling if Open AI will hire some of the Chrome execs from Google to run it for them instead.
In this case, what’s the difference really?
I meant can the judge impose restriction if it orders Google to divest from Chrome, for example ensuring any potential buyer retain Chromium as open-source.
There are still going to be too many loop holes with any ruling like this. It’s not going to work.
But hey, let time tell us how it’s going to be
The main reason why OpenAI would want Chrome is likely easy access to desperately needed fresh training data, i.e. everything the user does with their browser.
IMHO that would make Chrome even more dangerous to data privacy than it is right now.
Yes, at best it would push AI integrations everywhere which would be terrible for Security, if not for Privacy. (Surprisingly, Google hasn’t introduced much AI in their browser)
How about the chromium project (and with it all Chromium-based browsers)
Not to cite Google’s past argument about security updates here, but would a company like OpenAI maintain a constant release of security updates?
Ironically, I’m only thinking about this problem because Google has purchased a cybersecurity firm called Mandiant (think CrowdStrike adjacent), which was quite well known in threat intelligence.
[ puts on tinfoil hat ]
the real question is whether OpenAI is incentivized to not provide security updates, since virtually any data being made public is useful for their training needs lol
is merely “not stopping” hackers a plausibly deniable way for OpenAI to obtain all your data via leaks/breaches without having to hack you yourself?
/mostly joking 
I hate Google a lot but I think giving Chrome to OpenAI is them unleashing a worse privacy hell than where we are right now.
“Hi! Welcome to OpenAI Chrome! We just launched this product alongside our new offering: the 8th level of Hell with our new product vice-president, Lucifer.”
I mean come on, our standards with Google were low but holy f*ck, please not Sam Altman. I meam atleast Google is open sourcing stuff. Meanwhile Sam Altmanfried is doing the opposite and close sourcing OpenAI
Cmon man, stop giving them ideas! 
Everyone wants to buy Chrome!
Of course it is the key to siphoning everything…
… what ?
I remember this is AI dev company