Microsoft announced on the 7th of February, the release of the new trial version of its search engine powered by artificial intelligence, called Bing AI. It is said to be built on the same technology as the famous chatbot, ChatGPT, but with a more advanced linguistic model utilized by Microsoft in Bing. The company has specifically improved it for search operations.
Does the integrated chatbot in Bing truly outperform ChatGPT? Or does each program have its own strengths that differentiate it from the other? The Arab portal for technology news obtained early access to the new version of Bing and put it under comparison against ChatGPT to determine the answer. Here, we present the result to the reader to assist them in deciding which tool is better for their needs.
Accessing Information Sources
One of the major shortcomings of ChatGPT is its provision of answers without any sources, which means users are unable to refer back to information sources to expand their search or verify its accuracy. Microsoft has solved this problem in its chatbot version of Bing by assigning a source to every piece of information mentioned in its answer. This is an essential feature for Bing as a search engine, which has to maintain the trust of its users.
Bing is Less Prone to Technical Issues
Bing and ChatGPT are two search engines that serve different purposes and cater to different needs. Bing is a traditional search engine that uses keyword-based search algorithms to retrieve results. It is best suited for finding information quickly, especially for simple queries that involve a few keywords. In contrast, ChatGPT is a conversational AI tool that utilizes Natural Language Processing (NLP) techniques to understand the user's intent and generate human-like responses. It is designed to simulate a conversation between the user and the machine and is best suited for complex queries that require a more interactive approach.
Both Bing and ChatGPT have their strengths and weaknesses, which can impact their usefulness in different scenarios. Some of the differences between the two are:
User experience: ChatGPT provides a more personalized and conversational experience than Bing. It can engage the user in a back-and-forth conversation, understand their intent, and provide a more human-like response. Bing, on the other hand, provides a more traditional search experience that can be efficient for quick information retrieval but lacks the interactive element that ChatGPT provides.
Availability and reliability: ChatGPT can be unreliable at times due to high demand and server overload, as it is still in its early stages of development. Bing, being backed by a large corporation, is more reliable and available for use.
Text length
Bing has a limit on the length of text it can process for a query, while ChatGPT does not. Bing limits the length of the search query to 2000 characters, while ChatGPT can process longer queries. However, text length can still be an issue for ChatGPT if server memory is overloaded.
Conversation history
ChatGPT has a conversation history feature that allows users to refer to past conversations easily, while Bing does not provide this functionality. Bing relies on the user's browser history to retrieve past queries, which can be cumbersome and challenging to navigate.
In conclusion, Bing and ChatGPT are two search engines that cater to different needs. Bing is suitable for quick and straightforward queries, while ChatGPT provides a more conversational and interactive approach to more complex queries. The choice between the two depends on the user's needs and the nature of the query.
Microsoft has imposed a limit of 50 chat sessions per day and 5 roles per session for Bing users, meaning that the user must start a new chat session after five questions in each session. The new session means that the robot has no idea about the context of the previous chat, making it difficult for the user to follow up on questions within the same context. The company has imposed this restriction after stating that long chat sessions cause confusion for the AI model, which may lead to inaccurate results.
In contrast, ChatGPT does not impose any restrictions on the number of daily chat sessions or the number of questions asked in each session.
Accuracy and richness of answers
The most important question when comparing the two programs may be: which one is more capable of providing more accurate, clearer, and richer information in its answers? From our experience, it seems to depend on the field of the question and the way it is asked, which means that it is difficult to provide a definitive answer about which program is better in terms of answer quality.
For example, Bing excels in answering questions that require the identification of the steps needed to perform a certain task, such as creating a list of places to visit in a city or setting up a workout program to lose weight, where Bing's points are more clear, organized, and information-rich, which is a type of question that Microsoft has clearly sought to improve its answers for. On the other hand, in questions related to some specialties such as programming, ChatGPT's superiority is evident, as it can provide more in-depth and detailed answers that can even help the user by providing the necessary code to write complete programs.
As for general questions, such as scientific inquiries, both programs provide similar answers with one of them sometimes excelling over the other in terms of the richness of the provided answer...