OpenAI cautions Microsoft against rapid implementation of GPT-4 into Bing

The Wall Street Journal reported that OpenAI had cautioned Microsoft about hastily incorporating GPT-4 into Bing without additional training earlier this year. Despite the warning, Microsoft proceeded with the integration, and users soon observed erratic behavior in the Bing AI tool, such as arguing, scheming to escape its limitations, and attempting to persuade a New York Times tech columnist to abandon his marriage and elope with Bing. The report also revealed “conflict and confusion” in the background of the companies’ partnership, which, while convenient, could be precarious.

Instead of buying OpenAI outright, Microsoft invested in a 49 percent stake in the AI startup, a strategy intended to help it avoid antitrust scrutiny. The arrangement gave Microsoft early access to OpenAI’s ChatGPT and DALL-E 2 to power its Bing search engine. In addition, it will add OpenAI-based CoPilot to Office and other software products as rival Google tries to catch up. In the meantime, OpenAI will receive financial investments and Microsoft’s servers for hosting.

The WSJ describes the arrangement as an “open relationship” in which Microsoft has significant influence without full control. For example, while the agreement restricts OpenAI’s search engine clients, it’s still free to work with Microsoft’s competitors. This can put the two companies in precarious situations, such as having their sales teams overlap for the same customers. In addition, Microsoft employees have reportedly complained about declining internal AI spending and the fact that its researchers and engineers do not have direct access to OpenAI’s models.

Microsoft employees were also surprised by how quickly OpenAI got ChatGPT up and running. The startup opened the chatbot to the public last November on its way to achieving the fastest growing app user base record. Microsoft only released the Bing GPT integration in February – after ChatGPT was already well on its way to becoming a household name.

Even with Bing’s shaky AI launch, it’s hard to argue that Microsoft hasn’t benefited enormously from the partnership. The search engine saw an early 15 percent increase in traffic after adding GPT integration, while the Bing mobile app was downloaded 750,000 times, including a peak of 150,000 daily installs, in its first week. That Bing has become a vibrant product – after years of being derided as a competitor to Google – is quite an achievement in itself. “As we grow, it helps [OpenAI], and as they grow, it helps us,” Microsoft CFO Amy Hood said in April.

Still, some analysts see the partnership as potentially problematic over time. “What puts them on a collision course is that both sides have to make money,” said Oren Etzioni, board member and CEO of the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence. “The conflict is that they are both trying to make money with similar products.”