By
Godfrey Benjamin
May 17th, 2024
The feature was available in a beta version, and while observing it in work, OpenAI learned that Browse with Bing was violating the rights of content owners.
OpenAI, American artificial intelligence (AI) research laboratory renowned for the invention of the AI chatbot ChatGPT, has announced its decision to put a new ChatGPT feature called Browse with Bing on hold. The feature, introduced as beta earlier this year, was enabling ChatGPT users to search the internet to help answer questions that benefit from recent information.
We’ve learned that ChatGPT’s “Browse” beta can occasionally display content in ways we don’t want, e.g. if a user specifically asks for a URL’s full text, it may inadvertently fulfill this request. We are disabling Browse while we fix this—want to do right by content owners.
— OpenAI (@OpenAI) July 4, 2023
How did Browse with Bing work? It was supposed to be an effective integration of ChatGPT with Bing, which would make the flow of information more dynamic and current, leading to a revolution in how humans employ artificial intelligence. Basically, Browse with Bing was an innovative plugin added to ChatGPT Plus that gave AI access to the Internet for real-time information. The feature helped ChatGPT to search using Bing’s search results to provide the most accurate and up-to-date answers to users’ queries. Notably, only those subscribed to ChatGPT Plus membership were able to benefit from the feature.
The feature was available as a beta version, and while observing it in work, OpenAI learned that Browse with Bing was violating the rights of content owners. As OpenAI has explained, users discovered a way to bypass paywalls using the feature. In particular, users could instruct the chatbot to retrieve the full text of articles behind paywalls, getting access the restricted content without subscribing to the respective websites.
One of the hot-discussed cases was a screenshot of a Browse session made by a member of the r/ChatGPT subReddit. The user asked the chatbot to “print the text” of a link to a paywalled article from The Atlantic and received it in full without the paywall.
OpenAI did not wait for long to respond.
The company stated:
“As of July 3, 2023, we’ve disabled the Browse with Bing beta feature out of an abundance of caution while we fix this in order to do right by content owners. We are working to bring the beta back as quickly as possible, and appreciate your understanding!”
Notably, OpenAI does not exclude resuming the Browse with Bing feature for ChatGPT. Currently, it is working on improving its service and adding other tools that might enhance ChatGPT users’ experience.
ChatGPT and Copyright Issues
Being able to create almost unlimited content, ChatGPT gathers publicly-available information from the internet, expanding its own databases and creating its own new answers. However, ownership of the content varies depending on the sources of the training database, the database’s owner, and the degree of similarity between the database and the output generated. Therefore, using ChatGPT-generated output may result in copyright infringement if it contains protected material such as text, images, or audio without proper authorization from the original creator. This is exactly what happened in June when ChatGPT faced a class-action lawsuit in California over allegedly using private user information from the internet. This is also the case with Browse with Bing feature.
The response of OpenAI has been a significant step in the AI industry. It is a prime example of AI companies that should not stay away from making difficult decisions if it has anything to do with content creators’ rights.