Could an AI-Powered Bing Beat Google at Search?
OpenAI’s AI-powered chatbot, ChatGPT, was made freely available to the public in November 2022 for testing. Within a few days, it was already a blockbuster–over a million people had signed up.More recently, Microsoft partnered with OpenAI to work on implementing artificial intelligence in some of its services. One notable inclusion is Bing, with plenty of rumors swirling around. But just how might that look, and would it stand any chance against Google?
Microsoft Could Add ChatGPT to Bing
ChatGPT is an AI chatbot that relies on information collected from the internet to answer questions like a human being. However, ChatGPT is only aware of information developed before 2021. Due to its training model, ChatGPT doesn’t have information after this date, nor can it search the web.
According toThe Information, Microsoft might integrate OpenAI’s chatbot ChatGPT into Bing before the end of March 2023. This would presumably enable the search engine to answer search queries in succinct and precise prose, in addition to the traditional list of links and ads.
Microsoft is hopeful that integrating AI into Bing will help it catch up to Google. According toStatista, Google had an 84% share of global search in December 2022, compared to Bing’s 9%. Clearly, there’s quite a bit of catching up to do.
Could an AI-Powered Bing Beat Google Search?
We asked ChatGPT this question, but it wasn’t sure. It hedged:
It is possible that an AI-powered Bing search engine could outperform Google in some respects, but it is also possible that Google could maintain its advantage in other areas.
Since ChatGPT won’t commit one way or another, we’ll have to take this one. Let’s take a look at if a ChatGPT empowered Bing could ever beat Google.
1. AI Is an Algorithm, Not a Search Engine
ChatGPT is not designed to endlessly scrape the internet like a search engine does, so Bing will still continue to produce most search results. However, Bing could potentially add a search box linked to ChatGPT, which would throw up responses generated by the chatbot alongside Bing’s usual list of links.
This has the potential to produce superior search results, and thereby eat into Google’s market share. However, Microsoft would also have to step up its marketing efforts and hope that Google does nothing, which is unlikely. In fact, Google went into “code red” mode in response to the ChatGPT launch, according toThe New York Times.
2. Google Has Its Own AI
Google CEO, Sundar Pichai, has asserted that Google’s own AI programs (of which there are several) are just as good as ChatGPT. According toThe Verge, these include BERT, MUM, and LaMDA, and arealready subtly incorporated into Google Searchto give you super accurate results. Google is simply taking longer than OpenAI before launching its own full-blown chatbot.
If we take Sundar Pichai at his own word, then one may very well expect that Google has the means to neutralize the ChatGPT threat before it becomes terminal.
Close, but No Cigar: ChatGPT Is Not Ready Yet
According to Elon Musk, “ChatGPT is scary good”. As most other users would attest to, this is pretty true–ChatGPT is terrifyingly good.People have used ChatGPT to do several practical things, including write code that actually works. And it can hold a conversation with you very comfortably. However, it stillhas a few problems.
Criminals have used ChatGPT to write malware, and users have bypassed ChatGPT’s safety guidelines by telling it to simply imagine it’s a bad AI. ChatGPT gets a wide range of issues wrong, such us making up historical and biographical data.
This is why Google is taking its time before launching its own version. Sam Altman is OpenAI’s CEO, and even he thinks ChatGPT is not ready yet for the big leagues.
In addition, it is safe to assume that Google has something in the toolkit that is as good as or better than ChatGPT (possibly LAMDA). Since Google remains absolutely dominant in search, it could overwhelm ChatGPT and Bing when it launches its own rival chatbot.
ChatGPT Has Shown the Way to AI-Powered Search
Despite not quite being ready for a rollout into Bing, ChatGPT is still mightily impressive. It’s given us a glimpse at the idea of AI-powered search engines in the near future, which is definitely something we see on the horizon.
It’s likely still a little way off, however–so you’ll have to stick with using the chatbot for now. There are plenty of tips you can use to get the best results from ChatGPT.
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