The software maker licenses the data in its Bing search
index — a map of the internet that can be quickly scanned in real-time — to
other companies that offer web searches, such as Apollo Global Management
Inc.'s Yahoo and DuckDuckGo. In February, Microsoft integrated a cousin of
ChatGPT, OpenAI's AI-powered chat technology, into Bing.
Rivals quickly moved to roll out their own AI chatbots as
the hype built around the buzzy technology. This week, Alphabet Inc.'s Google
publicly released Bard, its conversational AI product. DuckDuckGo, a search
engine that emphasizes privacy, introduced DuckAssist, a feature that uses
artificial intelligence to summarize answers to search queries. You.com and
Neeva Inc. — two newer search engines that debuted in 2021 — have also debuted
AI-fueled search services, YouChat and NeevaAI.
These search chatbots aim to combine the conversational
skills of ChatGPT with the information provided by a conventional search
engine.
DuckDuckGo, You.com, and Neeva's regular search engines all
use Bing to provide some of their information because indexing the entire web
is costly — it requires servers to store data and a constant crawl of the
internet to incorporate updates. It would be similarly complex and pricey to
get together that data for a search chatbot.
Microsoft has told at least two customers that using its
Bing search index to feed their AI chat tools violates the terms of their
contract, according to the people, who spoke anonymously because they were
discussing a confidential dispute.
The Redmond, Washington-based technology company said it may
terminate the licenses providing access to its search index, the people said.
“We've been in touch with partners who are out of compliance as we continue to consistently enforce our terms across the board,” Microsoft said in a statement. “We'll continue to work with them directly and provide any information needed to find a path forward.”
0 comments:
Post a Comment