(Original title: “We made them dance”, Microsoft CEO declared war on Google: OpenAI’s next-generation model will be a game-changer for search)
On February 7 local time, Microsoft announced the launch of the latest version of the Bing (Bing) search engine and Edge browser. The new Bing will answer questions with a lot of context in a manner similar to ChatGPT. As a result, Microsoft has launched its latest challenge to its old rival Google.
After the press conference, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella accepted an interview with the foreign media The Verge, and had an in-depth dialogue on hot topics such as the future of artificial intelligence, the alliance between Microsoft and OpenAI, and the competition between Microsoft and Google. The reporter of “Daily Economic News” summarized six highlights.
Talking about Bing+ChatGPT: the revolution of search platform
Regarding this conference, Nadella said, “This major announcement is a rethinking of the largest software category-search with a new generation of artificial intelligence. This is a (search) platform revolution, from now on To start, almost everything, including the core ranks, can be reimagined.”
Nadella believes that Bing, which has added the ChatGPT function, is not only a search engine, but also an answer engine.
“Users can prompt or ask questions in natural language, and they can be long. You get a good answer, and then you can build on the prompt or have a conversation based on the context. So the new Bing is going to introduce a more ChatGPT’s more complex and larger next-generation model and root it in search data.”
Talking about cooperation with OpenAI: both return on investment and business return
According to The Verge, in fact, Microsoft has cooperated with OpenAI for nearly four years, but instead of choosing to acquire it, it has made a huge investment in it. Why would Microsoft, which owns the world‘s largest software category, work with outside technology vendors? Nadella gave a clear answer in the interview.
“First of all, everyone should remember the relationship between Microsoft and OpenAI. There are many aspects of cooperation between Microsoft and OpenAI. The most important thing we have done in the past four years is to build the core infrastructure on which OpenAI is based, including these large models and Training infrastructure, and unconventional cloud infrastructure,” Nadella said.
“We had to evolve Azure to have a dedicated AI infrastructure, which OpenAI is built on top of. Then we took those big models and put them into Azure AI (and to other businesses),” Nadella added, “in all of this effort, we have both a return on investment and a return on business. So I think we have the ability to be partners.”
Nadella also mentioned that Inception and Character.ai are also using Microsoft’s Azure infrastructure, and more companies will use Azure in the future. “We’re very excited,” he said.
Talking about competition with Google: We make them “dance”
When talking about competition with Google, Nadella acknowledged that Google search dominates the market by a huge margin.
But he also said that what he cares about is whether there are some new powerful technologies that can make search a better product, organizing other people’s content in useful ways so that users can better find it. “So we live and die by our ability to help content creators get that content seen by as many people as possible.”
“We hope that having two or more search engines—not just us, but other competitors—will help producers get traffic from multiple sources by spreading search share more evenly. In doing so, Advertisers will get better pricing, content producers will make more money, users will get a lot of innovation, what a day it will be.”
For the Edge browser, Nadella said that on Windows, Google makes more money than the entire Microsoft. “So if we get some additional share, whether it’s our browser or our search engine, that’s a huge opportunity for us. So let’s first build a product that’s competitive in the market, it’s Can really meet the needs of users.”
Recently, Microsoft and Google announced a partnership to install Microsoft 365 software on Chromebook computers.
In this regard, Nadella said that Google plays a major role in the search field. “I admire Google and everything they do, but I want people to know that we let them ‘dance’,” he said, ” Today, Microsoft is bringing more competition in search, and I’ve been doing it for 20 years, and I’ve been waiting for this moment.”
Microsoft Edge browser can chat and plan trips Image source: Microsoft official website
Talking Next-Generation Models: A Game-Changer for Search
In the interview, Nadella mentioned the next-generation model with OpenAI, but did not directly disclose the name of the model.
“It’s already done, and we call it the Prometheus model. We’ve done a lot of work on the model to get a foothold in search. When I first saw the original model in the summer of 2022, I thought It’s a game changer in the search category, and I’m even worried about Azure having an API for this model,” he laments.
When talking about the relevance of the next-generation model to Microsoft, Nadella said excitedly, “Here, I see two things. One is that it is an absolute new technology, built on top of the cloud. So this Is one place where we already have relevance so there will be a next generation of cloud. Second, on the search side, we already have a profitable business, but a small share, so I want more users and higher Gross margin. I do see a huge opportunity for us to make real progress on that.”
In Nadella’s view, two things have to happen in a revolution in search platforms. “You have to redesign every single one of your products, like Microsoft had to move to the cloud, we had to rebuild a new core in Azure; you also had to think about the business model. From a high share server business with high gross margins, to A quarter-margin cloud business, that’s tough, but we’ve done it,” he said.
On how to develop and maintain the vitality of the ecosystem, as well as potential intellectual property risks, Nadella said that search needs to be used reasonably. “But at the end of the day, I don’t think any of this can happen without the legal framework and the economic incentives that ultimately benefit,” he said.
Bing with Chat GPT introduced Image source: Microsoft official website
Talking about protecting the interests of content producers: everything is linkable
In the traditional search mode, if you ask a search engine a question, it will usually provide a list of links, and sometimes some snippet hints may be fed back. If you visit a webpage in search results, the creator of that webpage may receive some advertising or other income.
But now, search engines train their models on the information they already have. How does Microsoft ensure that Bing is as relevant to content creators as traditional search engines?
Nadella thinks this is a very important issue. “In fact, this is one of our biggest changes. If we generate traffic for the people who create it, we can only use (limited) content in search engines. And from chat and answers, users in different ways Get what they need.”
“Core metrics, even search engine optimization (SEO), that’s something we’ll all be learning for years to come. Maybe there will be new incentives in SEO to even generate more authoritative content. Overall Say, everything you see is annotated, everything is linkable, whether it’s in a search, in an answer, or in a chat session,” Nadella said.
Talking about the value difference with OpenAI: Safety is our consensus
In an interview with The Verge, Nadella believes that Microsoft and OpenAI have a consensus. “First of all, OpenAI is very concerned about safety. In a sense, they have thought about the safety and consistency of AI from the beginning. On this point, we have a consensus.”
One of the things he thinks about a lot, he says, is that when there’s a new model coming out, the most important thing is probably to involve humans in it, not make it replace humans. “So you can, ensure the human authority and judgment, which is the basis for training the model to align with human feedback, which is what we’re doing.”
“When I look at our Bing business, we’re taking AI a step further into the context of search. There’s a lot you can do with prompts and feedback, and we can help,” Nadella said.
“If you look at it from another angle: Since the model is trained on pre-trained data, you have to care a lot about the pre-trained data. What is the quality and source of the pre-trained data? This is where we have done a lot of work.” He added, “Search is an AI product. We’re talking new algorithmic breakthroughs in big models now, but we’ve actually had AI models for decades. During that time, we’ve established what is authoritative, how to detect what is Authoritative cognitions. Now, those cognitions work.”
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