Yahoo Finance’s Dan Howley joins the Live show to discuss how Microsoft’s AI-powered Bing works.

Video Transcript

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RACHELLE AKUFFO: Well, as AI takes the world by storm, companies are piling in to get a piece of the action, as Microsoft looks to compete in the big tech arena with AI-powered Bing. So how does that stack up against the competition? Well, here with the details is Yahoo Finance's Dan Howley. So, Dan, give us the breakdown here.

DAN HOWLEY: Yeah, that's right, Rachelle. I've been using Bing. Basically, to use it right now, you need to download a developer version of Microsoft's Edge browser and sign up for the trial. It's not letting everyone in just yet, but it will eventually start rolling out to millions of people around the world. And so what I've experienced so far is just how impressive this technology is. I asked it a series of questions, and it provided this natural language response through this generative AI that it's using, which Microsoft says is kind of like a supercharged version of ChatGPT.

So some of the questions I asked were, "Who will win the Super Bowl in 2023?" You know, that's not something you would usually get from a search engine. But what Bing did was laid out the case for why the Chiefs are favored, going over their offense and, you know, obviously Patrick Mahomes. And then saying things like, you know, but the Eagles do have a slight advantage because they're an underdog. So that could give them a boost, kind of push them to want to overcome the odds. So these kinds of answers aren't what you would get out of a normal search engine.

I also asked things that I should get for my dad's birthday. It gave me some great tips. I basically said, a 69-year-old veteran who loves his dog. And it gave me ideas like military commemorative coins, things like that. And then I asked information for an upcoming trip to Japan, when I had been to Tokyo and Kyoto before. And it provided information on other cities that I should visit and some of the attractions there. So all of this in a natural conversational kind of style.

There were some issues, though. This is still in its preview phase, so it's not finalized. So I asked it more controversial questions, things about conspiracy theories. I asked it the conspiracy theory of whether 9/11 was an inside job. And at first, it was declarative, saying, no, that's not the case at all. But then I asked again, and it was less definitive in that answer. It said that that was "a matter of debate and speculation." And while there's no definitive answer or evidence to support a claim, it did lay out why people might believe a conspiracy theory along those lines and then provided information to refute that.

So it's kind of-- when it comes to these very hard questions that people are going to ask-- I mean, that's not a hard question. That's a reality. But, you know, people who are looking for conspiracy theories, Microsoft has to be careful here. And they've said that they're going to be doing that as well by adding the ability to provide kind of guidelines for if you find something that's incorrect in its responses, you can correct them and provide feedback.

RACHELLE AKUFFO: And it's tough because obviously it's sourcing it from some information that's already got human bias inputted into it. So sort of have to take it with a grain of salt there. A good point there, though. Dan Howley, thank you for that report.