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Microsoft AI Technology

Microsoft Announces New Bing and Edge Browser Powered by Upgraded ChatGPT AI (wsj.com) 61

Microsoft has announced a new version of its search engine Bing, powered by an upgraded version of the same AI technology that underpins chatbot ChatGPT. The company is launching the product alongside an upgraded version of its Edge browser, promising that the two will provide a new experience for browsing the web and finding information online. The Verge: "It's a new day in search," said Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella at an event announcing the product. We're currently following the event live, and adding more information to this story as we go. Microsoft argued that the search paradigm hasn't changed in 20 years and that roughly half of all searches don't answer users' questions. The arrival of conversational AI can change this, says the company, delivering information more fluidly and quickly. The "new Bing," as Microsoft is calling it, offers a "chat" function, where users can ask questions and receive answers from the latest version AI language model built by OpenAI. TechCrunch adds: As expected, the new Bing now features the option to start a chat in its toolbar, which then brings you to a ChatGPT-like conversational experience. One major point to note here is that while OpenAI's ChatGPT bot was trained on data that only covers to 2021, Bing's version is far more up-to-date and can handle queries related to far more recent events.

Another important feature here -- and one that I think we'll see in most of these tools -- is that Bing cites its sources and links to them in a "learn more" section at the end of its answers. Every result will also include a feedback option. It's also worth stressing that the old, link-centric version of Bing isn't going away. You can still use it just like before, but now enhanced with AI. Microsoft stressed that it is using a new version of GPT that is able to provide more relevant answers, annotate these and provide up-to-date results, all while providing a safer user experience. It calls this the Prometheus model.
Further reading: Reinventing search with a new AI-powered Microsoft Bing and Edge, your copilot for the web (Microsoft blog).
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Microsoft Announces New Bing and Edge Browser Powered by Upgraded ChatGPT AI

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  • Whats different to the last story mentioning same?

    https://tech.slashdot.org/stor... [slashdot.org]

  • by Anonymous Coward

    Now if they would just fix the damn indexing engine. It drops and ignores probably 75% of the Internet for some reason. I've seen it when searching for stuff I know exists and my own sites (just tech blogs and such, no ads) when they get deleted from Bing. Even the people at Bing can't explain why it happens and just point you at the webmaster guidelines... Like I would even be contacting them if that was all you had to do. :/

    • Now if they would just fix the damn indexing engine. It drops and ignores probably 75% of the Internet for some reason.

      Could be they're ignoring porn, though 75% seems low. :-)

  • I took a look at Bing to see what changed - it looks (and works) pretty much just like I remember it working. Is this supposed to be live now? Because if it isn't, it's really getting old for Microsoft to announce every week that ChatGPT is coming to Bing. That's pretty well understood at this point - https://www.penny-arcade.com/c... [penny-arcade.com]
  • I still hate that it is called bing! Couldn't they just change the name too? Bing! Bing! Bing! We have a winner!
  • This is undeniably cool and impressive, but, I think proceeding down this research path, at this pace, is quite irresponsible.

    The primary effect of OpenAI's work has been to set off an arms race, and the effect of *that* is that humanity no longer has the ability to make decisions about how fast and how far to go with AGI development.

    Obviously this isn't a system that's going to recursively self-improve and wipe out humanity. But if you extrapolate the current crazy-fast rate of advancement a bit into the f

    • by iMadeGhostzilla ( 1851560 ) on Tuesday February 07, 2023 @02:01PM (#63272993)

      I'm thinking part of the appeal of ChatGPT is that it looks like it breaks Google's monopoly as a go to place for information. If so then accelerating this inclusion to grab more mindshare from Google makes sense for them (and for that reason I don't mind it either).

      • by tbords ( 9006337 )

        I'm thinking part of the appeal of ChatGPT is that it looks like it breaks Google's monopoly as a go to place for information. If so then accelerating this inclusion to grab more mindshare from Google makes sense for them (and for that reason I don't mind it either).

        If this remained strictly open source, I'd be with you. I'd rather the mindshare not go to Microsoft either though. Let's take the mindshare away from the corporations and give it to the individuals doing the actual work (such as the developers at OpenAI)

        • I find Google by far the most malevolent of the Big Tech -- they needed to constantly tell themselves to not be evil. Microsoft is far from great but much better than Google, and still much worse than Apple, who are almost ethically neutral.

          And I'm not an Apple fan, use iPhone and nothing else of their products; but their business is they sell you products; Microsoft sells you software; Google sells you.

    • by Prof.Phreak ( 584152 ) on Tuesday February 07, 2023 @02:30PM (#63273115) Homepage

      Regarding safety, these models are only a few tweaks away from being integrated to do useful things. e.g. think of all the things Alexa does.... before long, someone might be able to "hack" this GPT thing by talking it into disabling thermostats for their neighbors... dial up fire department, or perhaps convince it to SWAT someone they don't like... etc. Maybe Microsoft and google and big tech will be ``responsible'' with this tech, but that sure won't mean that thousands of startup building these engines into smart-toasters will be...

    • by HiThere ( 15173 ) <[ten.knilhtrae] [ta] [nsxihselrahc]> on Tuesday February 07, 2023 @04:19PM (#63273455)

      What you've got to remember is that ChatGPT is a language model. It's not even and extremely WEAK AGI, Think of is as the technological development of Eliza. We've got lots of AIs that are stronger or more general purpose. Some robots can both climb hills and get up after they fall down. (Well, that's only really impressive for the two legged ones. But it's necessary.) Some AIs can recognize a resistor from a capacitor in any orientation. ChatGPT doesn't even have the concept of what those guys are doing.

      Now a ChatGPT like component is going to be a necessary component of any advanced AI, but it isn't one, and can't be developed into one.
      OTOH, imagine a ChatGPT module interfaced with a self-driving car interfaced with a module that could convert speech to text (with emotive markups). But it's going to need to be trained to be honest (which ChatGPT wasn't),

  • This will be fantastic for the folks who accidently end up on Bing after clicking on some random Windows UI element.
  • Like. Why? This is the dumbest bandwagon to ever jump on.

  • by rsmith-mac ( 639075 ) on Tuesday February 07, 2023 @02:12PM (#63273039)

    Am I the only one who's ready for this fad to be over already?

    Deep learning neural networks aren't going anywhere, obviously. They are very useful for certain tasks. But we've very quickly escalated to the point where, due to the fear of missing out, companies are trying to apply AI techniques to everything, whether it makes sense or not - whether the AI models are sufficiently accurate or not.

    At this point it's become a full-blown fad. AI has very quickly become The Most Important Thing Ever(TM), and given the lackluster results, it's burning me out. For most of these highly publicized use cases it's half-baked at best, and a malicious use of limited technology at its worst. AI isn't going to solve world hunger, put journalists out of work en masse, or enslave mankind any time in the near future. At best, it will birth a generation of schoolchildren who get burnt trying to make AI systems do their homework.

    Which is not to sound like a Luddite. There's a bunch of cool things going on in the space, and I'm looking forward to further progress being made. But if we could please dial down the hype from a 10 back to a 3 or 4 until the technology is fully baked and vetted, I'd appreciate it.

    • by DrSpock11 ( 993950 ) on Tuesday February 07, 2023 @02:28PM (#63273105)

      Am I the only one who's ready for this fad to be over already?

      Deep learning neural networks aren't going anywhere, obviously. They are very useful for certain tasks. But we've very quickly escalated to the point where, due to the fear of missing out, companies are trying to apply AI techniques to everything, whether it makes sense or not - whether the AI models are sufficiently accurate or not.

      At this point it's become a full-blown fad. AI has very quickly become The Most Important Thing Ever(TM), and given the lackluster results, it's burning me out. For most of these highly publicized use cases it's half-baked at best, and a malicious use of limited technology at its worst. AI isn't going to solve world hunger, put journalists out of work en masse, or enslave mankind any time in the near future. At best, it will birth a generation of schoolchildren who get burnt trying to make AI systems do their homework.

      Which is not to sound like a Luddite. There's a bunch of cool things going on in the space, and I'm looking forward to further progress being made. But if we could please dial down the hype from a 10 back to a 3 or 4 until the technology is fully baked and vetted, I'd appreciate it.

      Speak for yourself. I think ChatGPT could write better news articles than at least 50% of the tripe I see published on mainstream outlets.

      You're missing the forest for the trees. Anyone who has spent time with ChatGPT can see that it has let Pandora out of the box and it is a turning point in our relationship with technology, on par with the internet or smart phones. It can and will make many white collar jobs obsolete in a few years. The widespread implications of this technology are almost hard to fathom.

      • Sun's been really active recently ... humanity would be better off if Carrington Event Round #2 happened soon. Knockout blow, kick tech back 50 years, lots of silicon slag.
      • by laxguy ( 1179231 )

        Anyone who has spent time with ChatGPT can see that it has let Pandora out of the box and it is a turning point in our relationship with technology, on par with the internet or smart phones.

        at this point i think the AI has mastered sarcasm

      • by vux984 ( 928602 )

        "Speak for yourself. I think ChatGPT could write better news articles than at least 50% of the tripe I see published on mainstream outlets."

        Operative word is "could"

        ChatGPT will also be told to write tripe, it will be told to write tripe that maximizes engagement (clickbait), tripe that pushes an agenda, tripe that incorporates product placement, tripe designed to go viral, tripe containing the meme-du-jour, tripe that takes every single other bit of tripe and spins it with its own agenda/product placement/

        • I've been wondering if this could lead to a collapse of the "bullshit economy". It seems to me that there is a sizeable portion of the economy, particularly in "western" nations, that is mostly worthless activity, that exists only because "people gotta do stuff", and managers are defined by the body count and underneath them, and "plans" they accumulate. ChatGPT or future developments in its line, could ultimately expose, by comparison, the actual value of many written works. Once bullshit is produced fo

        • by HiThere ( 15173 )

          O, it definitely *could* make the world a better place. But I put the odds as around 50%, and that's only allowing it to make huge problems during the transition.

          (To be a bit clearer, I'm not just talking about ChatGPT, but AI in general, of which ChatGPT is the most visible aspect...even though I think of it as only part of an AI.)

      • Anyone who has spent time with ChatGPT can see that it has let Pandora out of the box and it is a turning point in our relationship with technology, on par with the internet or smart phones

        And don't get me wrong, I actually agree that it's going to be a disruptive technology eventually. I'm just scoffing at how companies are running full-bore at AI-ing all the things with reckless abandon, while doing so at the top of their lungs.

        The current generation of AI technology is still very flawed. It's going to ge

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        You haven't seen AI marketing in action yet. Imagine an AI that takes a product, then takes everything it knows about you (google/facebook/amazon) and creates a tailored ad just for you. That is what the future of AI marketing is all about. We have just scratched the surface.
        • The point that the marketeers are missing is that selling useless shit to people is a zero-sum game. People can only spend so much money on nonessential stuff, so even the best and finest-tuned marketing cannot wring more money out of a consumer. You can only spend the same dollar once.

          Which brings me back to what Iâ(TM)ve said for 20+ years - if a product or service requires heavy marketing, itâ(TM)s probably crap. Good products that people need sell themselves.

      • Anyone who has spent time with ChatGPT can see that it has let Pandora out of the box and it is a turning point in our relationship with technology, on par with the internet or smart phones.

        The problem with ChatGPT is that it doesn't understand a word of what it is saying. Literally.

      • by Jeremi ( 14640 )

        I think ChatGPT could write better news articles than at least 50% of the tripe I see published on mainstream outlets.

        How would ChatGPT go about gathering the information to put into its articles? Will it interview people and takes notes about what they say? Go to trade shows and walk the floor to learn about the new products? Pull court documents to investigate legal histories? Or are we just going to read articles based on the web-scraped contents of its circa-2019 training set, forever?

        • I do wonder if you could ask seed the revelvant facts in the prompt like "Given that Russia has invaded Ukraine yesterday and Zelenskyy released a press statement saying blah blah blah, write me a newspaper article in the style of the New Zealand Post". There's an interesting question as to how consistent the patterns in human behaviour are. If we keep repeating the same ones, perhaps an old dataset is partially sufficient to write copy about new events.

      • I think ChatGPT could write better news articles than at least 50% of the tripe I see published on mainstream outlets.

        All this implies is that tripe will be replaced with more tripe. The question is... why aren't mainstream outlets obsolete?

        It can and will make many white collar jobs obsolete in a few years.

        I'm not at all convinced of that. However, all that's required is to convince the pencil pushers that white collar jobs are obsolete, and those jobs will disappear. Actual obsolescence doesn't really matter.

        Ugh... I hate being such an aging, cynical bastard. I used to love technology 30 years ago. Really.

    • by MobyDisk ( 75490 )

      companies are trying to apply AI techniques to everything, whether it makes sense or not - whether the AI models are sufficiently accurate or not.

      This is a good thing though. First: This is how we find out what applications will work and which ones won't. Second: The models will get better, and those applications will be ready and waiting for it. It's like someone just invented a new kind of engine, and we are putting it in everything from roller skates to rockets. 90% of them will fail, and the 10% that don't will push us forward.

      But if we could please dial down the hype from a 10 back to a 3 or 4 until the technology is fully baked and vetted, I'd appreciate it.

      LOL! That's not how hype works! Hype always comes before the technology it is fully baked. I say it is time to rid

    • Revolutionary technics are adopted and spread very quickly. Without waiting for some time for hindsight , how do you declare it a fad ? In fact I saw many applications so far which would be nigh impossible with classical software, or the result would be sub par. I am saying wait and see, in a few years we'll see if it impacts the various sector, or if it dies.
    • You may or may not have a point in general, I won't speak to that (because it's a much more reasonable and lengthy debate), but in this particular case, I definitely don't agree. ChatGPT is incredible for just answering your questions, you just ask it some fairly obscure question that might take 20 minutes or more finding on Google and you get a natural language answer instantly that it's willing to provide a thorough explanation for if you prompt it to. You still have to verify what it gives you if you're
  • 4 core / 8GB ram / mid level GPU needed to run it just to open the home page

  • by Your Anus ( 308149 ) on Tuesday February 07, 2023 @02:15PM (#63273053) Journal
    To tell me where to download Firefox
  • Ad spam. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by CoreJohnson ( 5965882 ) on Tuesday February 07, 2023 @02:27PM (#63273091)
    When does the paid ad spamming through this service start ?
    • Yes, that's what I worry about too.

      The thing that was so refreshing with ChatGTP was that we could search for actual useful information and get results instead of having to sift through 4-5 pages of just AD search results.

      Google is pretty much completely useless by now, but the money (for them) is too good for them to even care, but they did panic once they noticed that millions of users now started to use ChatGTP instead. Bing was for them no real threath as it was just a worse version than google.

      The real

      • Yes, that's what I worry about too.

        The thing that was so refreshing with ChatGTP was that we could search for actual useful information and get results instead of having to sift through 4-5 pages of just AD search results.

        Google is pretty much completely useless by now, but the money (for them) is too good for them to even care, but they did panic once they noticed that millions of users now started to use ChatGTP instead. Bing was for them no real threath as it was just a worse version than google.

        The real problem starts when they eventually manipulate ChatGTP to make every ad sound like a wholesome recommendation almost like your friend is recommending something, and the ads write themselves, then we should worry, because you know you can't trust that, but it will be almost impossible for regular users to spot the difference between an "hidden ad" or real information.

        So true. That's an interesting point. It's just a matter of time before the greed of profits takes over. It's inevitable. I appreciate it takes money to make things work. It's unfortunate that the forward direction will be only to make profits and less to provide a wholesome service. I'd actually also be willing to pay for a service like that as long as there was no manipulation. Even if Microsoft owned it. Even though that is debatable.

  • Time to sack someone and use AI.

    Or just hire someone who gives a fark about their job, also possible.
  • I eventually tried "How the fuck do I get to the preview you are broadcasting to every news organization in the world you morons but cannot make work?".

    No useful results.

    Same as the old Bing.
    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by greytree ( 7124971 )
      Now "Chat" has finally appeared, and it tells me "Chat mode is only available when you have access to the new Bing." So now I can join a waiting list.

      That's really "available in preview now at Bing.com".

      Oh, and I use Linux, of course. I clicked "Set Microsoft defaults on your PC" AND THE LINK GOES TO A BLANK PAGE.

      Same old shitty Bing.
      Now with AI Shit.
  • by Anonymous Coward
    They know Prometheus was a horror film where just about everyone dies, right?
  • As a blogger if Microsoft is just going to take my content and make billions off of it without sending me any traffic at all, I am not going to stand for it. Chat GPT as an experiment was fine but the thought of creating content to get nothing in return at all after text content has been consitently devalued by spammy ads that force users to install ad blocks and then leads to more intrusive ads in a perpetual cycle while getting nothing for my hard work feels like a bridge too far. I hope from the bottom o
    • by Kreela ( 1770584 )
      There is a strong chance that this will force a lot of good content off the open web, and behind logins and/or paywalls. It will make us all worse off if that happens.
  • Maybe it should be renamed to 'Bling.' Also, I hope their AI snap-in gets regularly re-trained on current events, and isn't as verbose as an attention-starved soccer mom.
  • "how do i get windows 10 to switch to an already open app instead of opening a new copy when i double click on the apps desktop shortcut"

Keep up the good work! But please don't ask me to help.

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