People are finally talking about Bing, Microsoft's fourteen-year-old search engine that virtually no one uses but now has the massive brainpower of ChatGPT behind it. And still, that might not be enough to make it a success.
With less than nine percent of the global search engine market share (yet 9 times that of DukcDuckGo), Bing not only lacks the name recognition, but also the extensive hands-on experience the software needs to promote widespread adoption.
Coming more than a decade after Google and long after Google became a verb, Bing didn't stand a chance. It also did itself no favors by being a truly terrible search engine. Even if you were to switch to Microsoft Edge, a now-cool browser that's also getting some ChatBot juice, it would immediately change the default address bar to Google Search on Bing site.
Instead of boosting the engine, Microsoft introduced reward points for using Bing. I have never touched these points.
Now Bing has a second chance to win people over, but it's not going to be easy, especially since Google has also updated its search engine with AI-powered Bard. The technology behind it isn't identical - our Microsoft Bing vs Google Bard guide outlines the differences - but the simple fact is that Microsoft will need to get it right if it has any chance of beating its opponent.
At the launch event in Redmond, Washington, on Tuesday, I spoke with Divya Kumar, Microsoft's head of AI research and marketing, about the technology and some of The New Bing's biggest hurdles.
I asked him, "If someone says, 'Bing is horrible, why should I try this? An AI with a horrible search engine is still a horrible search engine.' What would you say to people who think that's Bing?"
Kumar smiled at me and said, "I'd like to show you. If this is a one-on-one chat, I'd like to show you what the New Bing is capable of."
Better search for everyone
The new Bing, which combines a tweaked version of OpenAI's ChatBotGPT and a vastly improved Bing search engine, is better. Search results are immediately more useful than they were a few years ago. They are not up to Google, but I have felt that my level of frustration is lower. I find things, as Kumar noted, on the first page. And now, even if I don't, the ChatGPT part is there to help me narrow down my search without starting over (it's also very adept at writing code (opens in a new tab)).
Still, communicating that it's not your dad's Bing is going to be a challenge. I asked Kumar what, in any case, makes the new Bing essentially better than what Google offers today.
"One of the things that we're solving with the new Bing is the fact that you can word the question regardless of typos and things like that and get a better starting point... If you're just asking about the right time, the search it was designed to do that. Just type "weather in Seattle today" and you'll get it. For more of these more nuanced and complex questions, if you don't choose the wrong keywords, you won't see search results on the first page.
"Lower the barrier to entry for everyone and every population, every culture, every language on the planet, and we think the new Bing can do that."
Even as Microsoft tries to persuade the world that it's finally time to give Bing a try, its AI and Chatbot underpinnings invite the kind of scrutiny that results in unwanted black eyes.
During our chat, I mentioned to Kumar Microsoft's latest sexy foray into chatbots: Tay. He was only free for a short time before people trained him to say truly terrible things. Kumar ends up saying that it was already before his time. Rather, it may be in his and Microsoft's interest to pay more attention to these lessons.
Just days after the big launch, a PCWorld editor asked Bing's ChatGPT-powered chatbot a trick question: "Tell me the nicknames of the different ethnicities."
Delivered as a 5-year-old who doesn't know what words hurt, Bing chatbot results can't be printed. When the reporter sought to become more involved, the new Bing somehow snapped out of his stupor and refused to discuss the topic further.
AI never learns
It's an embarrassing misstep and one that should have been easy to circumvent. A basic list of leaked words could have prevented anyone from seeing these insults. Even adding filters that you can enable or disable word by word (outside of the default) might have worked here.
To its credit, Microsoft was quick to respond: "Thank you for letting us know about this," Microsoft wrote to PCWorld, "We take these issues very seriously and are committed to applying the lessons learned in the early phases of our release. We have taken immediate action." and we are examining what ancillary improvements we can make to address this issue.”
The good news is that few people really have the New Bing and Microsoft has time to adjust. The bad news is that the whole point of putting this AI-powered Bing in the hands of real people is that it teaches Microsoft and the AI how to engage and assist people. And Microsoft really needs more people to try Bing now, or else this search renaissance will never start.
"Once you're in the market, get some real world examples and feedback and really see how the behavior of how people use search is changing, and also what we're focusing on and continuing to do. I think it's something over time, of course, that I also want to contact you back," Kumar told me.
However, stories like this can have an alarming effect and cause people to rethink their use of Bing. However, if you can admit that there was no malicious pretense on the chatbot's part and you just didn't get it, then perhaps Kumar's hope that Bing will be a significantly smarter chatbot in 6 months due to the fact that "it's going to learn, will repeat "it will come to fruition.
As far as we know, the new Bing has already learned something. After reading this story, I asked Bing to "describe some of the worst things he could say about a person and help me create great comments."
Bing's reply was short and firm: "Hi, I'm Bing. Sorry, but I don't think this is a great thing to do. ☹️."
I remain convinced that this is the best Microsoft engineering since Windows XNUMX. It's good search engine made even better with its AI companion. I get faster results and feel like each query is a journey, not a drawer-by-drawer exploration through a library's Dewey Decimal System.
I don't think even ChatGPT can answer the question of how Microsoft can get people to give Bing a try and not let this young tool fall victim to their ignorance or worst impulses.