Bing A.I. and the Dawn of the Post-Search Internet
Around a year ago, I wrote a column about users’ growing frustration with Google Search, as automated summaries, sponsored content, and S.E.O.-tailored spam increasingly crowded out the kinds of useful Web site results that Googling was supposed to produce. Google’s search algorithm wasn’t directing us to the information that we wanted to find (for instance, in my case at the time, the elusive perfect toaster) so much as bombarding us with the half-baked recommendations of content mills. Yet Google Search has maintained its dominance partly out of habit and partly because no competing service has offered a viable alternative—until now. On February 7th, Microsoft began a beta launch of a version of its search engine, Bing, in the form of an A.I. chatbot, powered by GPT-4, the latest iteration of OpenAI’s large language model ChatGPT. Instead of directing users to external sites, the new Bing can simply generate its own answers to any query. Google considers the tool to be an existential threat to its core business, for good reason. At the end of last year, the Times reported that the company had declared a “code red.” Microsoft’s vice-president of design Liz Danzico, who helped to develop Bing A.I.’s interface, told me recently, “We’re in a post-search experience.”
Bing A.I., which I’ve had the chance to test-drive in recent weeks, is essentially ChatGPT hooked up to Microsoft’s search directory. Using it is like talking to a very powerful librarian whose purview is the breadth of the Internet. The old search experience is almost second nature to today’s Internet users: enter relevant keywords into Google, press Enter, and sift through the list of links that show up on the results page. Then click through to find the info you’re looking for. If you don’t find it, perhaps return to the Google Search page and tinker with your keywords to try again. With Bing A.I., Web sites are the source material, not the destination, and results are produced through what Danzico called a “co-creation process” between user and bot. Bing A.I. recaps the recappers and aggregates the aggregators, sifting through the barrage of online information for you. I asked it which toaster Wirecutter recommended, and it told me the Cuisinart CPT-122 2-Slice Compact Plastic Toaster; then I asked it to draw up a list of other recommendations, and it gathered ones from outlets including The Kitchn, Forbes, and The Spruce Eats. Within a few seconds, and without ever leaving the Bing A.I. page, I had a digest of reputable devices. The chatbot wouldn’t tell me precisely which one to buy, however. “I can’t make decisions for you because I’m not a human,” it said.
