Microsoft just let us know how it has been making the popular Bing chatbot more helpful in some areas, and most recently there have been improvements to how the AI handles queries about traveling and recipes for cooking.
In a blog post (opens in new tab) summarizing improvements made over the past week, Microsoft noted that steps have been taken to give its ChatGPT-powered AI better answers on those two topics.
In both cases, the software giant further observes that it has “improved the accuracy of citations” and that with recipes, improved ‘grounding data’ from recipe content providers has been used, with citations directing you to the provider’s site rather than Bing.com (avoiding poaching traffic).
Expect more tweaking in these areas based on user feedback, Microsoft tells us.
Elsewhere, the amount of ‘end-of-conversation triggers’ have been reduced, meaning instances where the Bing AI just clams up and ends a chat session prematurely (telling you something like: “I’m sorry but I prefer not to continue this conversation”).
Analysis: Bing bolstered, but what about Bard?
It’s good to see conversation-ending errors getting reduced, and this is something Microsoft has been regularly engaging in over time, so slowly but surely, the number of times you witness the Bing chatbot falling over and just closing a session should be fewer and fewer.
It’s also interesting to see Microsoft gradually honing the Bing AI in specific categories – recipes and traveling in this case as mentioned, but before now, we’ve seen further work on making the chatbot smarter with queries pertaining to your local area (like ‘where’s the nearest grocery store?’ for example). Not to mention improvements on the maths front, and with queries relating to the current (and breaking) news.
There’s a lot going on to push the Bing AI forward, it seems, and we’re not hearing nearly as much chatter about the progress of Google’s rival AI, Bard. That said, Bard is now starting to get meaningful updates – and full documentation of them – starting with various performance improvements and beefing up the variety of the chatbot’s responses. In short, this is important tinkering albeit at a basic level, and hopefully Google can build on that considerably from here.
There’s certainly no shortage of effort to drive forward with Bard from what we’ve heard via the rumor mill, with Google redeploying staff to focus on the AI (at the expense of Google Assistant, apparently).
Via MS Power User (opens in new tab)
