Burst: ChatGPT temporarily suspended Bing integration and offline search function
What are the potential boundaries of ChatGPT? I'm afraid even OpenAI, which developed it, doesn't know.
That's why, just a week after the new "Browse with Bing" feature went live, OpenAI pulled the plug on the "Browse with Bing on ChatGPT" feature because it didn't know what else ChatGPT could do. At the same time, it faces multiple lawsuits for copyright infringement and data privacy.
1 Bing browsing feature briefly live in ChatGPT
It is estimated that the new feature, called Browse with Bing, may not be used by many people.
In fact, earlier this year, after Microsoft announced that it would invest $10 billion in OpenAI over the next few years to further expand the cooperation between the two companies, in February, Microsoft announced the launch of a new artificial intelligence Bing search engine and Edge browser to change the world's largest software category - search.
Unlike Microsoft's introduction of AI chatbots into its own Bing products, at Microsoft's Build 2023 conference in May this year, it announced that Bing search will also be reverse-integrated into ChatGPT.
Just a week ago, the two companies kept their promise to introduce the "Browse with Bing" feature when OpenAI released an update to the ChatGPT app for iOS. When this feature is turned on, ChatGPT can search the Internet using Bing.
The benefits of this undoubtedly extend the capabilities of ChatGPT further.
Before that, ChatGPT relied on OpenAI's GPT-4 model, which limited ChatGPT's access to a large number of resources, because users could only use it to access information before September 2021, which had great limitations on real-time access to information.
with the launch of ChatGPT Browse with Bing, ChatGPT will integrate Bing's search engine and web data, and like Bing, ChatGPT will be able to provide more accurate answers based on the latest data, as well as provide reference links to the data.
Perhaps many netizens are curious, they have been using ChatGPT for a while, why have never seen this beta feature.
It's worth mentioning that this feature is only available to ChatGPT Plus users, i.e. those who subscribe to ChatGPT Plus for $20 per month.
2 OpenAI stops abruptly
Now, unfortunately, even if you buy a Plus membership now, it's too late.
This is mainly because shortly after the official introduction of this new feature to ChatGPT, OpenAI discovered that it would fail in some cases.
According to OpenAI's announcement:
ChatGPT Browse with Bing is a beta feature (available to ChatGPT Plus subscribers) that allows ChatGPT to search the Internet to help answer questions that benefit from the latest information. We learned that the ChatGPT Browse beta sometimes displays content in ways we don't want. For example, if a user specifically requests the full text of a URL, it may inadvertently fulfill that request.
As of July 3, 2023, out of an abundance of caution, we have disabled the Browse with Bing beta feature while we fix the issue to protect content owners' rights. We are working to restore the beta as soon as possible, thank you for your understanding!
3 Bypass the paywall ChatGPT
What may have made OpenAI make this announcement is that some ChatGPT Plus users seem to be taking advantage of the Bing integration to bypass some paywalls and access locked data and articles for free.
Simply put, for the most part, many websites use paywalls to attract users to subscribe. Users who do not subscribe to the website will be restricted from accessing published information.
But since ChatGPT announced Bing as the default search, as the r/ChatGPT community on Reddit discovered, some users have found a new way to bypass these paywalls and access information without a subscription.
According to screenshots, when a user asked ChatGPT to "output text from a paid Atlantic article link," ChatGPT provided the full text of the article without any hesitation.
In a short time, the post received 6,200 likes and 284 comments, and in the comments section, even users went on to share other clever tips and tricks they used to get around these paywalls in the thread, resulting in a wide spread of influence and a huge impact on these sites that require paid rights.
In response, there has also been some speculation that ChatGPT "uses the same mechanism as the online paywall removal program" that "reads the Google cache version," which does not have a paywall for search engine optimization.
This one is also possible because of the user testing, which does have to do with ChatGPT and the way it handles data, because trying the same approach on Bing AI didn't work.
When asked the same question, Bing AI simply refused the request and quickly cautioned that it could not provide the full article, asking users to open the link and read it for themselves.
Another Reddit user, "Red_Laughing_Man," said ChatGPT may ignore any paywall code used to place banners at the top of content until someone signs up or logs in.
4. How to solve the copyright and moral problems behind AI?
There is no doubt that if OpenAI does not urgently stop the "violation" caused by ChatGPT, it will inevitably lead to a series of copyright issues.
Because of copyright issues, OpenAI has also received an increasing number of lawsuits from the industry, such as:
Last week, 16 anonymous people decided to Sue Microsoft and OpenAI for $3 billion, claiming that the companies' ChatGPt-based AI products collected and leaked their personal information without consent or providing adequate notice.
Separately, Reuters reports that a copyright lawsuit has been filed in San Francisco federal court on behalf of science fiction and horror writer Paul Tremblay and novelist Mona Awad, who found that since ChatGPT could give summaries of their works, they were naturally fed into the machine learning models used by ChatGPT. They accused OpenAI of using copyrighted books as data to train AI systems without obtaining permission or paying the authors.
So far, no decisions have been made in these cases. Still, many more agree that these cases could reshape the future of AI by establishing key legal precedents around privacy and copyright.
It's worth noting that if the court rules in favor of the plaintiffs, OpenAI could face financial penalties. In addition, regulators are likely to increase their scrutiny of OpenAI, leading to tighter regulation.
But some users worry that a ruling against OpenAI could stifle AI innovation. If companies like OpenAI are slapped with huge fines every time something goes wrong with their AI systems, it could hinder progress towards continued innovation.
Others argue that regulation and accountability are necessary to ensure that AI is developed safely and for the right purpose.
For now, though, the jury is still out. It is also unclear when OpenAI will restore the feature and what configuration changes will be made on the platform to prevent this from happening again.
That's why, just a week after the new "Browse with Bing" feature went live, OpenAI pulled the plug on the "Browse with Bing on ChatGPT" feature because it didn't know what else ChatGPT could do. At the same time, it faces multiple lawsuits for copyright infringement and data privacy.
1 Bing browsing feature briefly live in ChatGPT
It is estimated that the new feature, called Browse with Bing, may not be used by many people.
In fact, earlier this year, after Microsoft announced that it would invest $10 billion in OpenAI over the next few years to further expand the cooperation between the two companies, in February, Microsoft announced the launch of a new artificial intelligence Bing search engine and Edge browser to change the world's largest software category - search.
Unlike Microsoft's introduction of AI chatbots into its own Bing products, at Microsoft's Build 2023 conference in May this year, it announced that Bing search will also be reverse-integrated into ChatGPT.
Just a week ago, the two companies kept their promise to introduce the "Browse with Bing" feature when OpenAI released an update to the ChatGPT app for iOS. When this feature is turned on, ChatGPT can search the Internet using Bing.
The benefits of this undoubtedly extend the capabilities of ChatGPT further.
Before that, ChatGPT relied on OpenAI's GPT-4 model, which limited ChatGPT's access to a large number of resources, because users could only use it to access information before September 2021, which had great limitations on real-time access to information.
with the launch of ChatGPT Browse with Bing, ChatGPT will integrate Bing's search engine and web data, and like Bing, ChatGPT will be able to provide more accurate answers based on the latest data, as well as provide reference links to the data.
Perhaps many netizens are curious, they have been using ChatGPT for a while, why have never seen this beta feature.
It's worth mentioning that this feature is only available to ChatGPT Plus users, i.e. those who subscribe to ChatGPT Plus for $20 per month.
2 OpenAI stops abruptly
Now, unfortunately, even if you buy a Plus membership now, it's too late.
This is mainly because shortly after the official introduction of this new feature to ChatGPT, OpenAI discovered that it would fail in some cases.
According to OpenAI's announcement:
ChatGPT Browse with Bing is a beta feature (available to ChatGPT Plus subscribers) that allows ChatGPT to search the Internet to help answer questions that benefit from the latest information. We learned that the ChatGPT Browse beta sometimes displays content in ways we don't want. For example, if a user specifically requests the full text of a URL, it may inadvertently fulfill that request.
As of July 3, 2023, out of an abundance of caution, we have disabled the Browse with Bing beta feature while we fix the issue to protect content owners' rights. We are working to restore the beta as soon as possible, thank you for your understanding!
3 Bypass the paywall ChatGPT
What may have made OpenAI make this announcement is that some ChatGPT Plus users seem to be taking advantage of the Bing integration to bypass some paywalls and access locked data and articles for free.
Simply put, for the most part, many websites use paywalls to attract users to subscribe. Users who do not subscribe to the website will be restricted from accessing published information.
But since ChatGPT announced Bing as the default search, as the r/ChatGPT community on Reddit discovered, some users have found a new way to bypass these paywalls and access information without a subscription.
According to screenshots, when a user asked ChatGPT to "output text from a paid Atlantic article link," ChatGPT provided the full text of the article without any hesitation.
In a short time, the post received 6,200 likes and 284 comments, and in the comments section, even users went on to share other clever tips and tricks they used to get around these paywalls in the thread, resulting in a wide spread of influence and a huge impact on these sites that require paid rights.
In response, there has also been some speculation that ChatGPT "uses the same mechanism as the online paywall removal program" that "reads the Google cache version," which does not have a paywall for search engine optimization.
This one is also possible because of the user testing, which does have to do with ChatGPT and the way it handles data, because trying the same approach on Bing AI didn't work.
When asked the same question, Bing AI simply refused the request and quickly cautioned that it could not provide the full article, asking users to open the link and read it for themselves.
Another Reddit user, "Red_Laughing_Man," said ChatGPT may ignore any paywall code used to place banners at the top of content until someone signs up or logs in.
4. How to solve the copyright and moral problems behind AI?
There is no doubt that if OpenAI does not urgently stop the "violation" caused by ChatGPT, it will inevitably lead to a series of copyright issues.
Because of copyright issues, OpenAI has also received an increasing number of lawsuits from the industry, such as:
Last week, 16 anonymous people decided to Sue Microsoft and OpenAI for $3 billion, claiming that the companies' ChatGPt-based AI products collected and leaked their personal information without consent or providing adequate notice.
Separately, Reuters reports that a copyright lawsuit has been filed in San Francisco federal court on behalf of science fiction and horror writer Paul Tremblay and novelist Mona Awad, who found that since ChatGPT could give summaries of their works, they were naturally fed into the machine learning models used by ChatGPT. They accused OpenAI of using copyrighted books as data to train AI systems without obtaining permission or paying the authors.
So far, no decisions have been made in these cases. Still, many more agree that these cases could reshape the future of AI by establishing key legal precedents around privacy and copyright.
It's worth noting that if the court rules in favor of the plaintiffs, OpenAI could face financial penalties. In addition, regulators are likely to increase their scrutiny of OpenAI, leading to tighter regulation.
But some users worry that a ruling against OpenAI could stifle AI innovation. If companies like OpenAI are slapped with huge fines every time something goes wrong with their AI systems, it could hinder progress towards continued innovation.
Others argue that regulation and accountability are necessary to ensure that AI is developed safely and for the right purpose.
For now, though, the jury is still out. It is also unclear when OpenAI will restore the feature and what configuration changes will be made on the platform to prevent this from happening again.
