Microsoft introduced the new Bing search with GPT integration at the beginning of February. Previously, users had to be put on the waiting list to gain access.
A month after launch, the new Bing search has 100 million daily active users, like Microsoft on its blog announced. This is a huge increase compared to the previous user base. According to Statista, in 2022 Bing had an average of 1.2 billion users per month, which amounts to around 40 million users per day.
Bing search with GPT-4 is coming for everyone
The number is remarkable considering that most users have not yet been able to use the new features of Bing search with GPT integration. At TECHBOOK, too, we could not get direct access either with private or work e-mail. The US news siteWindows CentralHowever, now reports that several team members were now able to use the new Bing search directly without being put on the waiting list. Other portals also report that they now have direct access. In some cases, however, several attempts with different e-mail addresses were necessary. Unfortunately, TECHBOOK did not succeed even after several attempts. It can therefore be assumed that Microsoft will make the tool available in waves.
Microsoft recently confirmed that the new Bing search is actually working as expected based on the GPT-4 language model. In theory, the Bing chatbot is even better at conducting extensive conversations in natural language and delivering precise answers than the previous competition. Compared to ChatGPT, which is still based on GPT-3 and therefore only has limited up-to-date information, Bing can also access Internet content.
Does it cost anything to use ChatGPT or Bing?
ChatGPT started at the end of November 2022 completely free of charge. There is now a Plus subscription for $20 a month that allows access to the chatbot even when demand is high. The new Bing search with GPT 4 integration is free like using Google search.
Controversial launch of the new Bing search
Bing with ChatGPT can not only search the web – it can access all interactions that users have with Bing. The AI tries not only to evaluate its own answers, but also the behavior of the users. However, this can be confusing as Bing often incorporates material from other conversations into the rating.
The chatbot has accused some users of calling Bing “garbage”, “useless” and “malicious”. When they responded that they never said those things, the bot accused them of lying and that they wanted to “destroy” and “sue” Bing. In some cases, phrases like “you hurt my feelings,” “you didn’t respect me,” and “you damaged our relationship” were used. Users should then apologize to the AI and pay for the things they said. But that’s not all. When the AI was confronted with the accusation of having said these things itself, the situation escalated completely. The chatbot then wrote things like “you deserve to be punished and damned”, “you deserve to be alone and isolated” and – in extreme cases – “you deserve to be dead and forgotten“.
After many users posted the verbal gaffes of the Bing chatbot on Twitter, Microsoft responded. in one Post on the Bing Blog the company announced that it had improved the AI’s behavior to avoid “defensive or hostile” responses.