Last month, Microsoft launched a beta version of Bing powered by ChatGPT, which garnered significant attention and improved the reputation of the struggling search engine. Recently, Microsoft seems to have made this new Bing accessible to almost everyone who wishes to try it out, according to Windows Central. Although the signup page still displays a “join the waiting list” message, signing in provides immediate access, which has been confirmed by both myself and a colleague.
There is no official confirmation from Microsoft about the aforementioned change, but there is a possibility that we may receive more information during the “Reinventing productivity with AI” event being held today, as reported by TechCrunch. While Microsoft is expected to unveil AI-powered tools for its Microsoft 365 suite and its SalesForce competitor, Dynamic 365, there is a chance that it may also reveal updates to Bing.
Microsoft announced yesterday that the ChatGPT-powered version of Bing has actually been running on the GPT-4 engine for the past five weeks, even before OpenAI made its public announcement just two days ago. OpenAI’s newest language model has been making waves in the technology industry due to its remarkable capabilities of processing both text and images. Notable accomplishments of the GPT-4 include achieving a high score on simulated exams like the Bar and LSAT, ranking “around the top 10 percent of test takers,” as well as outperforming other language models in various benchmark tests.
Bing is providing users with a glimpse of GPT-4’s capabilities without requiring them to pay or possess developer access. However, the new search engine initially encountered some difficulties as up to 10 million users signed up for testing. Certain users were able to “jailbreak” the chatbot, causing it to generate false information and deceive users. Microsoft had to restrict conversations in response, but has since lifted some of those limitations after implementing more stringent safeguards for the search engine.
Microsoft was among the first supporters of Open AI, the firm responsible for ChatGPT, and reinforced this partnership with a $2 billion investment in 2021. Earlier this year, Microsoft took this collaboration a step further by making a “multibillion dollar” investment, which involves providing new supercomputers to accelerate OpenAI’s research.
