ChatGPT can now browse the internet
OpenAI announced a major update to ChatGPT this week: the chatbot can now browse the internet to provide up-to-date information to users' inquiries, instead of being limited to data prior to September 2021 that was previously used for training. The feature, called “Browse with Bing,” notifies users when it's searching for information from the web and provides citation links along with answers.
The browsing feature is currently available to Plus and Enterprise users. OpenAI says it will be “expanding to all users soon,” but no timeline for a wider rollout has been announced. To enable the feature, users must select “Browse with Bing” in the GPT-4 selector.
The company announced that its latest browsing feature will allow you to control how websites interact with ChatGPT. Some news sites have chosen to block OpenAI's web crawler tool, citing unfair web scraping that could lead to copyright infringement and lack of compensation or credit. So, even though ChatGPT is connected to the web, you will miss out on news sites such as: The New York Times, The Washington Post, ParentsReuters, and CNN.
Equipped with an internet connection, ChatGPT is a powerful tool, but it's not the first chatbot to access real-time information: Microsoft's Bing Chat on Windows and Edge browsers can already return live information from the web, as can Google's Bard on Chrome and other browsers. And now Meta has announced that it will also use Bing to provide real-time web results in its Meta AI Assistant, which will be added to WhatsApp, Instagram, and Messenger.
OpenAI also revealed that ChatGPT will soon be able to process voice commands and image-based queries. Android and iOS users who opt-in will be able to have voice conversations with ChatGPT. The conversations are powered by a new text-to-speech model that can generate a “human-like voice” from just text and a few seconds of sample audio. The new image recognition feature allows users to ask ChatGPT questions related to images. For example, they can show ChatGPT a photo of what's in their fridge and have it help them create a meal plan based on that content. The voice and image feature will initially be available only to Plus and Enterprise users, and will then be rolled out more broadly.
Source: BBC, Mashable, The Verge, Engadget
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