Google bookended Microsoft's big AI search announcement with underwhelming AI news of its own:
Microsoft has officially taken the lead in the race to build a search engine powered by generative AI. On Tuesday, the company debuted the rumored OpenAI-infused versions of its Bing search engine and Edge web browser, proclaiming them to be the next evolution of the internet — an evolution that so far seems to be crafted by Microsoft. Not Google. And Google seems increasingly concerned about that.
Google has spent the last two decades as the most popular search engine in the world. Search is also Google's biggest revenue stream, thanks to all the ads it places all over search results. So it's unusual to see the company scrambling when it comes to what's always been its bread and butter. Yet, that seems to be exactly what Google is doing in response to Microsoft's plans to integrate AI into Bing, its own search engine, which seem to be further along than Google's. After Microsoft invited journalists to see its new AI products last week, Google scrambled to make announcements and show off demos of its own. In other words, Google, which long since surpassed Microsoft's search and web browsing tools, is now playing catch-up.
[...] Bard and the new Bing seem pretty similar on the surface. But it's hard to say without trying them, and neither is available to the general public yet. They're both rolling out in the next few weeks. But while Bard is built on a "lightweight" version of its generative chatbot for now, Microsoft says the new Bing will use an even more powerful version of ChatGPT that was custom-designed for search. And while Bard was introduced in a short blog post, Microsoft invited a ton of journalists to a splashy live event at the company's headquarters in Redmond, Washington, to show off its AI-powered Bing and Edge. This all suggests that one company thinks its AI search is ready for primetime, while the other is just trying not to be left out of the conversation completely.
[...] If you want to try the new Bing for yourself, Microsoft has a preview on its site, and you can join the waitlist to be one of the first people to try it out for real. Microsoft says that, in the coming weeks, it will roll out to "millions" of desktop users, and a mobile version is coming "soon."
As for which big tech company has the better AI-infused search engine, we'll have to try them and see. Both Microsoft and Google are surely rushing their products out as soon as possible. You don't need a sophisticated generative AI chatbot to tell you how important it is to be first.
Which search engine are you reading this on?
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Last week, Microsoft researchers announced an experimental framework to control robots and drones using the language abilities of ChatGPT, a popular AI language model created by OpenAI. Using natural language commands, ChatGPT can write special code that controls robot movements. A human then views the results and adjusts as necessary until the task gets completed successfully.
The research arrived in a paper titled "ChatGPT for Robotics: Design Principles and Model Abilities," authored by Sai Vemprala, Rogerio Bonatti, Arthur Bucker, and Ashish Kapoor of the Microsoft Autonomous Systems and Robotics Group.
In a demonstration video, Microsoft shows robots—apparently controlled by code written by ChatGPT while following human instructions—using a robot arm to arrange blocks into a Microsoft logo, flying a drone to inspect the contents of a shelf, or finding objects using a robot with vision capabilities.
To get ChatGPT to interface with robotics, the researchers taught ChatGPT a custom robotics API. When given instructions like "pick up the ball," ChatGPT can generate robotics control code just as it would write a poem or complete an essay. After a human inspects and edits the code for accuracy and safety, the human operator can execute the task and evaluate its performance.
In this way, ChatGPT accelerates robotic control programming, but it's not an autonomous system. "We emphasize that the use of ChatGPT for robotics is not a fully automated process," reads the paper, "but rather acts as a tool to augment human capacity."
(Score: 2, Troll) by crafoo on Monday February 13, @05:46PM (9 children)
Most people still use Google, but many people have been noticing how bad Google search results are. They're just bad. Often incomplete, with obvious results you already know about intentionally left off the results or buried. Not to help produce better, more useful results for you, but to serve someone else, some other goal. It's clear they are doing this, they've admitted doing this. Their goal isn't to produce the best search results.
I mean, Google is full of diversity hires and dead weight wearing the accomplishments of the white men that came before them like a skin suit. I'm not at all surprised they've begun to show their incompetence and negative-ingenuity.
(Score: 4, Touché) by Freeman on Monday February 13, @05:56PM (8 children)
I switched to Duck Duck Go a while back. DDG is what Google was, a search engine. While Google Search is still a thing, it's not anything special. In fact, I would say that they destroyed what made them great. A simple search page, with no fluff.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 3, Interesting) by optotronic on Tuesday February 14, @02:50AM (2 children)
And yet whenever I search with DDG it insists on first showing a page stating "You are being redirected to the non-Javascript site." I prefer to skip passive-aggressive behavior when doing internet searches. So I use Google more than I would like.
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Friday February 17, @03:10AM (1 child)
What's the problem with a non-javascript site?
(Score: 2) by optotronic on Saturday February 18, @02:39AM
I have no problem with a non-Javascript site; in fact, I prefer it. I don't want it to flash a message about it as though I made its life harder.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 14, @04:59AM (2 children)
I unironically use Bing, among others. It's not great, but if they integrate ChatGPT into the search, it could become amazing. I hear it costs $0.01 per request though.
(Score: 2) by richtopia on Tuesday February 14, @05:03PM (1 child)
I've heard numbers like 30x more expensive traditional queries; not sure if that translates to 1c. Either way, it is much more expensive.
Now, if Microsoft charges a reasonable price for searches I would like to move away from the ad-supported model we currently have (I know... we'll probably get a paid service with ads).
(Score: 2) by corey on Monday February 20, @10:16PM
Not to mention the green house gas emissions and resource use from running all that computing behind the AI.
Maybe Google should market themselves as carbon neutral and good for the planet. They probably can’t though, they’d use just as much.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 14, @03:57PM (1 child)
I use the Brave search and it useful. I have not tried the Brave browser. Their tag line is
"The best privacy online. Browse privately. Search privately. And ditch Big Tech."
How does the new Bing rate for privacy? Will people care as long as they can ask the AI?
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Wednesday February 15, @02:32PM
Asking "How does Bing rate for privacy?" is just literally asking "How does Microsoft rate for privacy?" which should be pretty obvious. -10/10 would yoink again
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 13, @07:16PM (1 child)
This all sounds like corporate marketing and bluster. Wake me up when my alarm goes off.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Monday February 13, @08:27PM
I'm going to guess neither AI is ready for "critical" tasks that require accurate answers, but both can provide interesting results with the usual caveats that search engines don't create the content and you're getting (a digested form of) whatever somebody put up on the web for their own reasons.
I'd also bet that, if there are any significant differences between the AI engines, one will be stronger in some areas and the other will be stronger in others - as it should be.
Even the best meatbag web editors can be fooled by inaccurate or false (whether intentionally or unintentionally) information posted on the internet, why would we expect an algorithm to be better, unless "The Singularity" has already passed (and nobody noticed.)
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end