Microsoft is introducing the AI chatbot ChatGPT into its Bing search engine from March, in partnership with the software’s developer OpenAI
In an attempt to compete with Google in the search engine space, Microsoft aims to improve the user experience of Bing through more intuitive chatbot capabilities, while looking to maximise value of its $1bn 2019 investment in OpenAI, reported The Information.
Since its launch in November 2022, ChatGPT has demonstrated widespread capability to answer queries from users with immediate answers — akin to Amazon‘s Alexa digital assistant — which may include business plans, language translations, and even jokes, depending on the initial input.
The software was released on a short-term basis as a research tool, while development of the core “large language model” GPT continues.
While trained by millions of terms from the Internet and managed by ranking of responses by human staff, its developer OpenAI has insisted that the bot can be incorrect, with its knowledge base currently not extending beyond 2021.
OpenAI, claims to be a “capped profit” company, with profits limited to 100 times investment, and funding from Microsoft has allowed for commercialisation of its software.
Elon Musk and Sam Altman established OpenAI as a research institute in 2015, with the aim of ensuring that artificial general intelligence can be rolled out safely at scale to benefit society.
Musk left OpenAI in 2018, citing a conflict of interest with AI developments at Tesla.
>See also: The ethical implications of chatbots
Disrupting the search market
Google currently oversees over 80 per cent of the search engine market, and around 90 per cent of all search queries globally, compared to Bing’s approximately 3 per cent.
However, it’s believed that the option of optaining more accessible, individual pieces of information as opposed to a list of web links could be key to moving more users in Bing’s direction.
A similar conversation tool called LaMDA has been in the works at Google since 2017 — claimed to be sentient by an engineer — and a 2021 blog post from the company said there was more work to do to ensure that the software was fully compliant with its standards.
Microsoft are yet to comment on the pending integration of the AI software into Bing.
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