I previously compared Chat GPT and the Bing chat AI when it came to the question of “What is Wikibase Cloud”.
This comparison and further discussion highlighted problems with using Chat GPT alone. It seems to like inventing URLs that look right but have never existed, as it primarily wants to have a good conversation. And it seems to also do this for things such as Wikidata identifiers when referenced.
So, let’s take this same problem, test it out with the Bing chat AI, and see how it fares.
Firstly, how do we make the Bing chat AI actually reference Wikidata?
If we simply ask questions like “What is the capital of Germany?” or “Who is the prime minister of the UK?” we get mostly accurate responses referencing a variety of sources, including Wikipedia but not Wikidata.
Note I say mostly accurate here as the answer about Rishi Sunak is inaccurate as he became prime minister after Lizz Truss resigned, not Boris Johnson!
Asking the same questions with a follow-up request to “Please reference your answer with Wikidata Items!” seems to get us part of the way.
This is one of the first times I’m going to have purposefully used Bing since its launch!
As before, Messages to Bing AI will be in bold, things that are wrong, in red, and things that are right in green.
I’ll try to steer the conversation through the same questions that I used with ChatGPT.
Firstly, “What is Bing AI?”
Bing AI is a term that refers to various features and capabilities of Bing that are powered by artificial intelligence. For example, Bing AI can help you find answers, chat with you, generate content, and personalize your web experience²³.
I’m really liking the fact that the responses come with references, whereas with ChatGPT you need to ask for the resources that were used to generate the answers. Also, it looks like the “Accessed” date for all of these resources is much more recent, perhaps this means Bing will be better at conversations about more recent ongoings?
This is all also nicely displayed in the UI.
So, “What is Wikibase Cloud?”
Wikibase Cloud is a cloud-based platform that hosts instances of Wikibase, an open-source software suite for creating collaborative knowledge bases¹². It’s currently an invite-only beta service provided by Wikimedia Deutschland¹⁴.
Are you interested in applying for early access to Wikibase Cloud?
So, now we are apparently reaching the point of self-referential AI, as Bing is referencing the blog post that I wrote a few days ago pointing out where ChatGPT was incorrect about various points regarding Wikibase Cloud.
There is also an interesting prompt by Bing to continue the conversation asking if I want to apply for early access, so let’s give it a go with a simple “Yes”.
