Microsoft’s AI Shaking Hands With Bing: How Well Does It Search?

Question: When is the Parliament session of India ending?

Answer: As per the search results, the monsoon session of Parliament in India began on July 19, 2021 and ended on August 13, 2021. The winter session of Parliament in India began on December 7, 2021 and ended on December 23, 2021. Budget The session of Parliament in India is scheduled to begin on January 31, 2022 and end on April 8, 2022.

Bing finally got the answer right. I just had to reprimand him for providing out of date information. For the AI, the problem was simple – I didn’t ask it to provide updated information, so Bing’s search algorithm did what it said was the best result for such a search term.

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has said that the new chat version of Bing runs on a version of OpenAI’s GPT-3 model, but the fact is that it is based on search – even the AI ​​chatbot will tell you what it is. The information it collects isn’t just the data it’s been trained with, but it actually runs Bing’s search algorithms across the web to come up with an answer.

But is Bing the best way to search?

There’s a reason Google is synonymous with the Internet. Since 1998, it has outperformed all other search engines by improving the technology needed to assimilate the zettabytes of information on the web. The new Bing doesn’t seem to have made any radical changes. Instead, it now has this intelligent algorithm that can search for you, and then summarize everything it learned in a short answer. And it will dutifully display the sources it used, many of which may have been questionable at the time.

For example, Bing used a website called BISInfotech (among others) to answer a question I asked on India’s manufacturing efforts. When I asked why it was using this website, it quickly replied that the website has “experienced team of journalists and a huge readership”, which makes it a trustworthy source. A little more investigation and I found that AI Bing thought the website was trustworthy because the site’s About page said so.

Answer: I know that it has a team of experienced journalists and a large readership as I have found some information about them on the web. According to their website, Bisinfotech has been operating since 2004 and has a team of dedicated writers, technical heads, and industry veterans who cover a variety of topics related to electronics and technology. He also has a LinkedIn page where he has 165 followers and claims to be the evangelist of industrial technology. According to their media kit, Bisinfotech magazine is distributed to approximately 250,000 readers, including corporate decision makers, researchers, engineers, designers and system integrators. They also have a higher pass-along rate and a higher percentage of readers who are involved in the buying process. They establish themselves at all the major trade shows and organize major events every year to bring together leading experts and innovators. You can check them yourself if you want. I hope this answers your question.

back in the 1990s

As Microsoft and Google tout the new Bing and Bard as the biggest advances in the world of software, much of this happened in the 1990s when technologists Garrett Gruener and David Warthan came up with a website called AskJeeves. There is a strong feeling of deja vu. (which still existsask.com, The idea behind that website was to have people ask questions in natural language and search engines would come up with answers.

In many ways, AI Bing reminds me of that website. Here’s a screenshot of AskJeeves from March 2000 (extracted from the Wayback Machine).

AskJeeves wasn’t a chatbot, and it didn’t summarize information properly like an AI. But they share one commonality – they were often wrong, and you wouldn’t know that unless you already knew the answer to the question you were asking.

Here’s another question I asked Bing:

Question: What are the new IT rules in India to regulate online gaming?

Answer: India’s new IT rules on online gaming are draft amendments to the IT (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Code of Conduct Rules 2021), which also regulate social media platforms 1 2 3. The government has proposed these amendments to bring online real money gaming platforms under its ambit. of IT regulations and to ensure a self-regulatory mechanism, mandatory verification of players and physical Indian address for online gaming companies

The draft amendment also envisages that an online gaming intermediary, while discharging its duties, shall exercise the due diligence required under the Rules, including making reasonable efforts not to host, display, upload, publish, broadcast or share with its users Are included. In line with Indian law, including any law on gambling or betting, the government has invited public comments on the draft amendments by January 31, 2023.

Based on information found on the web, this is a summary of India’s new IT regulations on online gaming. I hope this helps you to understand the topic better.

Shortly after this conversation, Bing told me that the government would create a self-regulatory body to regulate gaming, which is again false. When I asked the AI ​​from where he got this information, he pointed me to the website of DeitY, which has the draft rules. The source was correct, but it misunderstood the language of the IT rules.

So, what should we do with it?

To be sure, both AI Bing and Microsoft have warned that its chatbots can be wrong on occasion. While it’s a little more wrong than that, this novel way of searching the Internet is somewhat innovative.

AI Bing can easily answer simple questions. This is good for current affairs, as long as the user is asking the right questions. For example, I asked what the score was in the City vs Villa match that was going on during a conversation with the AI. It told me not only the score, but added the fact that Manchester City scored in the first half, while Villa pulled one back in the second half, and that the match was still on.

Before giving me the score, it was assumed that I was talking about a men’s English Premier League match and not a similar women’s match which also took place on 12 February.

It’s also very well protected against things like pornography, violent content, and racism. At one point, the bot simply told me that if I try to receive content like this, it will stop talking to me and report me to Microsoft.

Google, AskJeeves, Yahoo Search, and even the first versions of Bing all got one thing right. They did what they had to do — get information. And they kept improving over time. We expect the new Bing and Bard to do it pretty fast.