Why you – yes you!
‘Bingen’, I don’t think I’ve ever said or heard the verb before. That’s how strongly Google’s search engine is intertwined with everyday reality. But what if Microsoft suddenly comes up with a ‘killer feature’: a function in the Bing search engine that everyone wants to use? Something that really gets Google into trouble.
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Code red
You might be cozying up on the sofa right now, keeping up with the latest technology news. You may be reading this on the train, totally annoyed next to someone video calling out loud. Well, that frustration doesn’t make up for the stress Google must be feeling today and in the months to come. It’s code red!
This means that several teams within the company have dropped their work to develop a product as quickly as possible. In this case, an AI bot that can compete with OpenAI’s ChatGPT. By the time of the Google I/O conference, usually in May, the company should release more information about its own chatbot, according to Google insiders.
Unprecedented success
ChatGPT is still in preview, but the AI system is conquering our digital lives like no other. Okay, chances are your neighbor or mother-in-law has never heard of it, but ChatGPT is currently growing faster compared to services like Facebook, Netflix and Instagram in their first weeks after launch.
And if you are that neighbor or mother-in-law who is not quite up to speed with ChatGPT: it is a smart language bot that works on the basis of artificial intelligence (AI). The system is fed with an enormous amount of data and can therefore provide complex answers to all your questions or requests. Those answers appear in beautiful Dutch sentences. For example, ChatGPT has already come up with titles for Androidworld articles, it explains quantum mechanics step-by-step and it can even program apps for you. It’s too genius for words. In this article you can read all about it and then testing is the message.
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Bing, the only place where ChatGPT is free
Microsoft is the largest investor in OpenAI, as it put down more than $10 billion to get a 49 percent stake, according to Forbes. Subsequently, it also gets the rights to apply ChatGPT and the other OpenAI smart tools in its own software. And that brings us to Bing. A search engine that does almost exactly the same as Google and can therefore barely grow, according to figures from Statista. But that could change if Microsoft goes ahead with its plans to integrate ChatGPT into its search engine.
Anyone who has already tested ChatGPT will probably have discovered its biggest pain point: the language bot has been trained with data that has not been updated since September 2021. So it cannot help you if you ask questions about more recent topics, and that also explains why the AI sometimes makes mistakes in its answers.
The moment Microsoft trains the GPT language model with the current data from Bing, something very beautiful can arise. In time, Bing will become the only place where you can still use ChatGPT – a current version – for free, because make no mistake. The free preview version that millions of people use today is going to disappear sooner or later. It’s an old marketing move: let people use your service for free first, and then apply a revenue model. In this case, that will be the ads that Bing shows.
ChatGPT comes up with titles for its own Androidworld article
Everyone binge
But if Bing can provide answers to all your questions thanks to the GPT model, will that really lure people away from Google? Count on it! And you better get used to the verb ‘binge’. How often do you find yourself scrolling through that endless list of Google search results, without coming across the right websites? Or ask the Google Assistant. “I don’t understand” – those are words you can hear in your head.
If Bing works faster and better, people will use it. And with all those “bingers” wanting faster answers to their questions, Microsoft’s advertising revenue is going to grow. Can you already smell the sweat of fear at Google if you know that about 80 percent of the entire turnover is due to advertising (via Statista)?
Dressed-up language bot
Much will depend on how quickly Google can work on its own answer to the GPT model. It’s also interesting that Google itself is reportedly already thinking about some less strong aspects of ChatGPT, because make no mistake: there are still a few problems.
The language model sometimes dares to come up with false information answers itself and sometimes toxic moments also occur. Somehow ChatGPT remains a fancy language bot that tries to pretend to be smarter than it really is. Of course, toxicity and false information are two things a search engine can miss like a toothache, but does Google have the solution ready?
AI in Word, Outlook and PowerPoint
Either way, Microsoft’s investments in OpenAI are a masterstroke. The synergy with ChatGPT and the other smart tools doesn’t have to end with Bing either. Suppose you type a formal email in Outlook in which you want to cancel your car insurance. GPT, could recognize that pattern and help you complete that mail in one-two-three.
Finding the right words in Word can be much faster. On the other hand, Dall-E 2, OpenAI’s other tool, can generate unique images for your PowerPoint presentations. Microsoft 365 can suddenly become much more powerful.
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Images generated by Dall-E 2
You come up with the solutions
The question that arises is how we will deal with these innovations as a society, because you can think of some problems. Students already use ChatGPT today to do their homework, NOS recently wrote.
It is a new technology that presents us with new challenges, but it is up to each of us to respond quickly to potential problems. To take teachers as an example again: they already have to come up with solutions today to prevent their students from completing homework with ChatGPT. Do not wait for guidelines from the management or from a political angle. New laws will be needed with the rise of AI, but they always come too late.
The world has changed. The millions of users of ChatGPT already understand this, but for billions of others it is far from obvious. How can ChatGPT help you? What solutions will you come up with to counteract the negative consequences of the smart language bot? Let us know in the comments.
