From “technocracy.news”
Microsoft is first-to-market by embedding ChatGPT into its search engine Bing and its browser, Edge. It has been upgraded to version 4 of OpenAI’s GPT software. Competitors are racing to catch up. Apple is holding back, which is its traditional practice, but when it announces, its offering may well leapfrog everything else. ⁃ TN Editor
As exciting as some tech innovations may initially sound, their real-world impact is often hard to really notice. But when the developments are in something like internet search that we all use multiple times a day and the changes are dramatic, well, that’s something that’s bound to gain attention.
Such is the case with the latest version of Microsoft’s Bing search engine, which is now accelerated with artificial intelligence, thanks to a connection with the very hot ChatGPT content generation tool. (You can learn more about ChatGPT here.)
Instead of just getting back a list of links for potentially relevant websites when typing in a question, the new version of Bing can provide an easily comprehensible summary of all the information written in simple English (or one of over 140 other languages).
But, as with CHATGPT in general, accuracy is not guaranteed.
What is Microsoft Bing with ChatGPT used for?
Imagine doing a shopping-driven search for a big screen TV or planning the day-by-day itinerary for a 5-day vacation—two real-world examples the company used in its demonstration yesterday—and actually getting back everything you want to know in a single screen. That’s what this new version of Bing can do.
In the case of the TV, not only does it provide recommendations, AI-powered Bing also explains why it made the choices it did, describes what features are important, etc. It’s a dramatically better experience than clicking on multiple individual links trying to read the articles or product reviews and making sense of it all. In fact, it can even put together a chart comparing the key specs if you ask for it.
The travel itinerary is even better. It showed recommendations of where to go, eat, and stay and then provided the relevant links to make the reservations or buy the tickets. The time savings are fantastic, and the quality of the experience is magical.
As great as all of this may sound, there are a few key points to remember. First, of course, is the fact that Microsoft’s Bing holds a tiny, single digit share of the search engine market – the vast majority of people continue to use Google for their searches.
And, not to be outdone, Google has already announced an AI and natural language enhanced version of its Google search engine called Bard that will be available very shortly – though it’s already run into challenges with accuracy.
In addition, the initial version of the enhanced Bing search only works on PCs and Macs – a mobile version for smartphones will be coming later.
Bing waitlist
Microsoft is also launching with a limited trial for the service, and you’ll have to join a waiting list before the company opens it up to millions of others. Also, while you don’t have to use the upgraded Edge browser to use the experience, certain functions including the interactive chat features, are only available with it.
Finally, as with ChatGPT, not all the results of the summarized data are guaranteed to be fully accurate in this early version—there can still be errors.
Still, what becomes clear after you start using it is that this AI-powered Bing experience finally feels like computers are getting smart. In other words, they understand what you want, not necessarily what you typed.