ChatGPT vs. Bing Chat
As we all know, Bing Chat is effectively a wrapper of ChatGPT, but it's clear that it caters to web searches, which opens up a whole new dimension and level of utility. Since ChatGPT hit the mainstream, it induced a sort of trained incapacity in users by virtue of the fact that it could not reference current events or local phenomena. But it certainly showed the amazing prowess of large language models, being able to process large corpuses of data while originating new works in the voice of your favorite literary characters, etc, etc...
People have been publicizing their ability to "jailbreak" the engines directly, revealing pretexts baked into the products, and through the emerging field of Prompt Engineering, people are learning tweaks like walking through the thought process "step by step". Notwithstanding that, there are more fundamental ways that Bing Chat differs from ChatGPT.
First and foremost, Bing Chat caters to Internet Searches
This is to be expected. Bing Chat processes your input and shows you, step by step, what your prompt equates to in terms of Internet searching in order to dish up a response that is timely and relevant.
For example, if you ask for something based on a prolific persona, it would be able to provide a response with just the native ChatGPT engine, but if you ask about a lesser-known person than Shakespeare or Charlemagne, it will take inputs from the Internet by first querying for that person, and it will tell you exactly what it's searching for, in sequence, and you will notice that it provides the right search modifiers based on your question. It also annotates its Internet sources, and this is a clear differentiator from ChatGPT, obviously.
Clearly, both products are evolving daily, and a prompt that worked for you yesterday may not work today. That, plus the fact that Bing Chat doesn't preserve chat histories means that I was not able to provide an example where Bing Chat (said that it) used a service like MD5Generator to provide a response. I'm not sure of the veracity of that statement, but I don't necessarily care either. This does, however, emphasize the concerns of some in my field regarding AI poisoning, and that is the subject of another article in the works, so watch this space...
Prompt Engineering is paramount on both platforms
You have to know how to ask the question, and minor tweaks count, e.g.:
vs.
This is why Prompt Engineering is so important. Not only does it help it along to provide the proper context in the way it expects, but knowing the right phraseology is the difference between getting a quick accurate response vs. getting the trivia answer and additional runaround.
In my opinion, the best resource to start your journey in Prompt Engineering is here.
Notwithstanding that, there is a more fundamental concept that the multitude of startups (that will be spawned by this newfound fire from the gods) would do well to understand. There are two ways to think about harnessing the power of these large language models, and Bing Chat is making this painfully clear.
You could use it as the super-smart concierge for your services, off-loading the need to understand colloquialisms and local slang, not to mention zingers from hacker-types in the audience.
-OR- you can train the model to understand everything it needs to know about your products and services and allow it, with appropriate guard-rails, to intuit the needs of your customers and sell your products for you.
Of course this is easier said than done, but nonetheless, those that have the best imagination will benefit most from the technology. In my opinion, this will be the next big divide.
Other Things you would notice:
When Bing Chat hits a speed bump, e.g. by prompting for things against its prime directives or programming, it will tell you that it needs to start over, (not just error out), but notwithstanding that, chat histories are not preserved like in ChatGPT. With ChatGPT, it's nice to be able to have multiple parallel conversations and restart a previous conversation to go off on tangents with the relevant, running context.
Bing Chat is not available on mobile yet. I know what you're thinking, you think you can just access with a browser and your phone has a browser, but you'll see what I mean. This article was written in Feb 2023, and I'm sure this will not be the case come March.
Bing Chat continues to provide follow-up to keep the conversation going, e.g. "Why are you interested in MD5? Are you trying to crack a password? <-- Don't take the bait!
Shall we play a game?
Bing Chat
But it's non-deterministic
Bing Chat was either so sly and played along explicitly and I just didn't know it or it didn't want to play, but it doesn't matter because it was non-deterministic. And once you (are perceived as having) violated a rule, it's pretty unforgiving.
ChatGPT will play along...
to a point.
ChatGPT understood how to play the game, but used the equivalent of the 5-year-old strategy of keep asking why. Or rather, it's like interrogating your teen about missing curfew.
Both of them miss the point, but I don't expect them to get the point (yet). I was trying to start a socratic conversation, acting as either the student or the teacher. It was trying to solve my problem like a teller at a bank, a 9th grade teacher, or, as I said, my 14 year old son.
There is more to come...