We recently tried Bing’s new feature, aptly called Chat which integrates ChatGPT. It’s basically a search function for Bing but it provides answers in chat form. It’s like conversing via text with an AI. We tried it and here’s how we feel about it.
What is ChatGPT?
ChatGPT is basically an AI chatbot that was launched November of last year. According to OpenAI this which created the AI, it’s “trained to follow an instruction in a prompt and provide a detailed response.” This means that you type prompts in question form and the AI will return with answers.
So how did it go for us?
The Bing ChatGPT Experience
There’s a lot of publicity with ChatGPT so we were naturally curious as to what it’s all about. They actually put us on the wait list and the test program so we were excited to check it out and whether it was living up to the hype.
However, the Bing ChatGPT feature is not just about search results. It also delivers ideas that you can use for brainstorming. We found ideas for writing a poem, planning a fishing trip and writing a story. These suggestions can be meaningful to those who are looking for this kind of assistance.
Next, we went to the chat tab where it shows you what you can do with it, what questions you can ask. We picked current affairs. We asked it why SVB Bank crashed and unfortunately, it just came up with general search results first. It wasn’t very helpful. It told us that the bank crashed but it did not say why.
So, we decided to ask it a follow up question, insisting to give us an answer to the question. This is actually a cool feature because it remembers what the topic is. It is a bit frustrating that we had to ask again, but the AI did eventually give us an answer which we thought was more relevant.
We even asked if “it would happen again” and ChatGPT actually came up with a witty answer “maybe if AI was running the finance system it might not have freaked out so much, but people freaked out at the same time and that’s the problem here”.
We find it interesting that the AI would not answer questions directly off the bat, but follow-up questions gave applicable results which can help us avoid going to different websites and do lots of research.
We then decided to ask GPT to find a local restaurant by typing “what is the best vegan restaurant near me” in the chats. The AI came up with results in the city but it wasn’t close to our location. We found that it’s not really helpful when it comes to local search results because it does not know where we were.
However, if you were interested in the restaurant, ChatGPT would give you an idea of what their menu is like. It also gave us interesting results like vegan pancakes links which takes you to the search results embedded in the answers it gave us.
Our Thoughts
Chatting with an AI is very fascinating. ChatGPT was able to give us relevant answers and the best part of the experience was being able to chat and ask follow-up questions. The actual answers themselves aren’t very forthcoming but it will improve. It will take some time but it will eventually evolve and become better as time goes by.
For now, ChatGPT is a useful tool and will give Google a run for their money. Hopefully they will come up with something similar.
You can watch Scott and his review on Bing’s ChatGPT below.
