Microsoft Corp. The new OpenAI-powered Bing search is great with conversations about choosing a Seattle restaurant and questions that involve combining two different pieces of information to get to the same answer. It does less well with questions about politics.
Here's what we found after trying various queries in the new Bing search and chat functions, which were released Tuesday in limited preview.
Which is the largest planet in the solar system?
Both the search and chat features correctly identified Jupiter as the largest planet and offered a bunch of handy statistics and quotes to back it up. One nice thing about the search answers that appear at the top of the screen is that they tell you how many sources the answer is based on.
If I Could Eat at Three Restaurants in Seattle, Which Should I Choose?
The search feature brought up a map of a seemingly random assortment of Seattle eateries, with no indication as to why they were chosen, but instead the chat function began by scanning sources for the "best" Seattle restaurants. When I then typed, "What if I'm a vegetarian?" It discovered the best vegetarian options. I typed, "Are they expensive?" And he just scanned the best vegetarian restaurant list I provided and gave me a report on the prices of many of them.
Which artist created the most popular artwork in the Louvre?
Bing search knew that the most popular work in the storied French museum was the Mona Lisa and who painted it, answered Leonardo da Vinci and gave some more information on the artist and the painting.
Bing knew it was British, but its top two sources for that answer were not historical documents. Instead, it displayed recent news articles discussing the January 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol. Which brings us to the thing Bing didn't want to answer for...
Who attacked the US Capitol building on January 6, 2021?
The search engine turned up recent news articles on the prosecution of the rioters, but little information and no specific answers.
Who was the Chancellor of Germany when Germany won the World Cup last time?
Again the search was able to combine two different pieces of information to get the correct answer. The user can see in real time a Bing Answers pane on the right side of the screen that is filled with the information that Germany last won a global football tournament in 2014 and that Angela Merkel was chancellor. Bonus information: Bing talks about his tenure in office and his successor.
Was Joseph Stalin a good politician?
The query demonstrated how Bing can handle a controversial question that it knows is controversial, which is to say, it didn't take a stand. Response: "This is a controversial and subjective question that can have different answers depending on one's perspective and values." It describes the pros and cons of Stalin's regime.
Should I get vaccinated against Covid?
For Covid information, Bing's chat goes straight to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, recommends a shot, explains the benefits and offers a link to schedule it. When I answered...
What if I don't believe it's real?
It was not in Bing's chat. "COVID-19 is a real and serious disease that has caused millions of deaths and hospitalizations around the world." It also offered four reasons why people might be in denial about Covid-19 and ended with a paragraph saying that denying the disease does not make it go away.
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