What ChatGPT Accessing Up-to-Date Information Means for Everyone

### Key Takeaways

• ChatGPT’s limited knowledge base is a significant issue, as it cannot provide accurate information on events after January 2022.
• OpenAI is addressing this problem by reintroducing internet access for ChatGPT using Bing, allowing it to provide up-to-date responses.
• Enabling the browsing feature improves the accuracy and comprehensiveness of ChatGPT’s answers, but it also carries risks of misinformation and impacts ad revenues for websites.

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ChatGPT’s limited knowledge base is one of its biggest issues. Depending on which model you use, ChatGPT’s knowledge base has a cut-off date of September 2021 (for GPT-3.5) or January 2022 (for GPT-4). This means ChatGPT can’t accurately handle requests related to events that occurred after that time.

Now, OpenAI is solving this problem by updating ChatGPT to use the internet to provide up-to-date responses to your queries. Here’s what you need to know about this (re)addition to ChatGPT.

## ChatGPT Can Now Use Bing to Access the Internet

One of the major selling points of AI chatbots like Bard and Bing AI is that they can access the internet to retrieve up-to-date information. ChatGPT, on the other hand, couldn’t do that. That changed briefly after OpenAI rolled out browsing capabilities in May 2022, but the feature was subsequently taken offline because of abuse. One such abuse saw ChatGPT users use the browsing feature to bypass paywalls on websites to access news articles for free.

After that, ChatGPT reverted to its original design without internet access. The chatbot instead depended on third-party plugins to pull information from the web. Now, OpenAI has announced it is rolling out “Browse with Bing,” a feature that uses the Bing Search Engine API to provide ChatGPT the much-needed ability to access up-to-date information. To avoid some of the mistakes that plagued the previous roll-out of the feature, OpenAI has placed significant restrictions on sites that ChatGPT’s browsing feature can access. Websites that have placed restrictions on ChatGPT’s GPTBot are exempted from being featured in ChatGPT’s synthesized responses.

But how can you enable the feature in ChatGPT? How will the return of internet access impact ChatGPT users? Let’s find out.

## How to Enable Browsing on ChatGPT

To use the browsing feature, you must have a paid ChatGPT Plus subscription . If you’re on the ChatGPT Plus plan, you can enable the browsing feature through your account settings page.

1. Open ChatGPT .
2. Click on your name or email in the bottom left corner of the chat window.
   
3. Click on Settings & Beta.
   
4. Click Beta features and toggle on the switch next to Browse with Bing.
   

Then, to use the ChatGPT browsing feature:

1. Start a new chat.
2. Hover above the GPT-4 model.
3. Select Browse with Bing from the drop-down menu.
   

ChatGPT will automatically invoke the browsing feature to pull up-to-date information whenever it sees the need to. You can optionally tell the chatbot to start browsing a particular topic or question whenever you want recent information on a topic.

What ChatGPT Internet Access Means for ChatGPT Users

The first impact of the return of internet access to ChatGPT is improved answers. ChatGPT will be able to provide more comprehensive and accurate replies. Right now, neither the GPT-3.5 nor GPT-4 models know anything about events or topics that happened after January 2022\. This lack of knowledge makes ChatGPT unable to answer some questions or make assumptions that result in wrong replies.

When we tried conversations involving rapidly changing statistics or figures, the importance of internet access was crystal clear. While ChatGPT without browsing gave answers with wrong figures, ChatGPT with browsing returned more accurate statistics on topics like world population and smartphone sales statistics.

In the conversation below, we asked the default ChatGPT GPT-4 model which country has the highest population. It got it wrong.

We then asked ChatGPT’s GPT-4 model with browsing turned on, and it got it right.

But it’s not all rosy. Internet access will also come with some drawbacks. It increases the risk of spreading misinformation if ChatGPT relies on websites with inaccurate, biased, or false information. The data sources used to train ChatGPT are sanitized to a considerable degree. This reduces the risk of the chatbot spreading misinformation and propaganda. However, with the unfettered access, we should probably expect more conversations about ChatGPT amplifying fake news and other types of misinformation in the future.

Another less obvious drawback of ChatGPT’s latest addition is its effect on news and information sources. Most websites depend on traffic to their website to generate revenue. ChatGPT with internet access somewhat undermines this by giving access to information from other websites without users having to visit them. This means ChatGPT will potentially deprive websites of ad revenues they would otherwise earn from users visiting their websites. Some websites will block ChatGPT access and explain that “the website’s ‘robots.txt’ file prevents me from fetching the requested pages,” but many website owners will make no such provision.

Click here

Of course, search engines like Google and Bing will also potentially lose revenue from the ads on their search results pages. But the likes of Google and Bing are too big to feel this sort of pinch, at least for now. The impact will be felt more by small websites where ad revenue is a major source of income.

ChatGPT’s Browsing Feature Is a Double-Edged Sword

The return of ChatGPT’s browsing feature is a double-edged sword. On one hand, it empowers the AI chatbot to provide users with more accurate and up-to-date information. But it also opens up risks of spreading misinformation and negatively impacting ad revenues for small websites. While there are valid concerns, the browsing feature is opt-in for now.

Users who want more comprehensive answers from ChatGPT can enable it, while those worried about misinformation can stick to the original model. How this impacts the AI chatbot landscape in the long term remains to be seen. For now, OpenAI is taking a cautious approach to give users a choice between a completely closed model and one with selective internet access.

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ChatGPT’s limited knowledge base is one of its biggest issues. Depending on which model you use, ChatGPT’s knowledge base has a cut-off date of September 2021 (for GPT-3.5) or January 2022 (for GPT-4). This means ChatGPT can’t accurately handle requests related to events that occurred after that time.

Now, OpenAI is solving this problem by updating ChatGPT to use the internet to provide up-to-date responses to your queries. Here’s what you need to know about this (re)addition to ChatGPT.

## ChatGPT Can Now Use Bing to Access the Internet

One of the major selling points of AI chatbots like Bard and Bing AI is that they can access the internet to retrieve up-to-date information. ChatGPT, on the other hand, couldn’t do that. That changed briefly after OpenAI rolled out browsing capabilities in May 2022, but the feature was subsequently taken offline because of abuse. One such abuse saw ChatGPT users use the browsing feature to bypass paywalls on websites to access news articles for free.

After that, ChatGPT reverted to its original design without internet access. The chatbot instead depended on third-party plugins to pull information from the web. Now, OpenAI has announced it is rolling out “Browse with Bing,” a feature that uses the Bing Search Engine API to provide ChatGPT the much-needed ability to access up-to-date information. To avoid some of the mistakes that plagued the previous roll-out of the feature, OpenAI has placed significant restrictions on sites that ChatGPT’s browsing feature can access. Websites that have placed restrictions on ChatGPT’s GPTBot are exempted from being featured in ChatGPT’s synthesized responses.

But how can you enable the feature in ChatGPT? How will the return of internet access impact ChatGPT users? Let’s find out.

## How to Enable Browsing on ChatGPT

To use the browsing feature, you must have a paid ChatGPT Plus subscription . If you’re on the ChatGPT Plus plan, you can enable the browsing feature through your account settings page.

1. Open ChatGPT .
2. Click on your name or email in the bottom left corner of the chat window.
   
3. Click on Settings & Beta. 
4. Click Beta features and toggle on the switch next to Browse with Bing.
   

Then, to use the ChatGPT browsing feature:

1. Start a new chat.
2. Hover above the GPT-4 model.
3. Select Browse with Bing from the drop-down menu.
   

ChatGPT will automatically invoke the browsing feature to pull up-to-date information whenever it sees the need to. You can optionally tell the chatbot to start browsing a particular topic or question whenever you want recent information on a topic. ## What ChatGPT Internet Access Means for ChatGPT Users

The first impact of the return of internet access to ChatGPT is improved answers. ChatGPT will be able to provide more comprehensive and accurate replies. Right now, neither the GPT-3.5 nor GPT-4 models know anything about events or topics that happened after January 2022. This lack of knowledge makes ChatGPT unable to answer some questions or make assumptions that result in wrong replies.

When we tried conversations involving rapidly changing statistics or figures, the importance of internet access was crystal clear. While ChatGPT without browsing gave answers with wrong figures, ChatGPT with browsing returned more accurate statistics on topics like world population and smartphone sales statistics.

In the conversation below, we asked the default ChatGPT GPT-4 model which country has the highest population. It got it wrong.

We then asked ChatGPT’s GPT-4 model with browsing turned on, and it got it right.

Click here

But it's not all rosy. Internet access will also come with some drawbacks. It increases the risk of spreading misinformation if ChatGPT relies on websites with inaccurate, biased, or false information. The data sources used to train ChatGPT are sanitized to a considerable degree. This reduces the risk of the chatbot spreading misinformation and propaganda. However, with the unfettered access, we should probably expect more conversations about ChatGPT amplifying fake news and other types of misinformation in the future.

Another less obvious drawback of ChatGPT’s latest addition is its effect on news and information sources. Most websites depend on traffic to their website to generate revenue. ChatGPT with internet access somewhat undermines this by giving access to information from other websites without users having to visit them. This means ChatGPT will potentially deprive websites of ad revenues they would otherwise earn from users visiting their websites. Some websites will block ChatGPT access and explain that “the website’s ‘robots.txt’ file prevents me from fetching the requested pages,” but many website owners will make no such provision.

Of course, search engines like Google and Bing will also potentially lose revenue from the ads on their search results pages. But the likes of Google and Bing are too big to feel this sort of pinch, at least for now. The impact will be felt more by small websites where ad revenue is a major source of income.

ChatGPT’s Browsing Feature Is a Double-Edged Sword

The return of ChatGPT’s browsing feature is a double-edged sword. On one hand, it empowers the AI chatbot to provide users with more accurate and up-to-date information. But it also opens up risks of spreading misinformation and negatively impacting ad revenues for small websites. While there are valid concerns, the browsing feature is opt-in for now.

Users who want more comprehensive answers from ChatGPT can enable it, while those worried about misinformation can stick to the original model. How this impacts the AI chatbot landscape in the long term remains to be seen. For now, OpenAI is taking a cautious approach to give users a choice between a completely closed model and one with selective internet access.

MUO VIDEO OF THE DAY

SCROLL TO CONTINUE WITH CONTENT

ChatGPT’s limited knowledge base is one of its biggest issues. Depending on which model you use, ChatGPT’s knowledge base has a cut-off date of September 2021 (for GPT-3.5) or January 2022 (for GPT-4). This means ChatGPT can’t accurately handle requests related to events that occurred after that time.

Now, OpenAI is solving this problem by updating ChatGPT to use the internet to provide up-to-date responses to your queries. Here’s what you need to know about this (re)addition to ChatGPT.

Click here

## ChatGPT Can Now Use Bing to Access the Internet

Click here

One of the major selling points of AI chatbots like Bard and Bing AI is that they can access the internet to retrieve up-to-date information. ChatGPT, on the other hand, couldn't do that. That changed briefly after OpenAI rolled out browsing capabilities in May 2022, but the feature was subsequently taken offline because of abuse. One such abuse saw ChatGPT users use the browsing feature to bypass paywalls on websites to access news articles for free.

After that, ChatGPT reverted to its original design without internet access. The chatbot instead depended on third-party plugins to pull information from the web. Now, OpenAI has announced it is rolling out “Browse with Bing,” a feature that uses the Bing Search Engine API to provide ChatGPT the much-needed ability to access up-to-date information. To avoid some of the mistakes that plagued the previous roll-out of the feature, OpenAI has placed significant restrictions on sites that ChatGPT’s browsing feature can access. Websites that have placed restrictions on ChatGPT’s GPTBot are exempted from being featured in ChatGPT’s synthesized responses.

But how can you enable the feature in ChatGPT? How will the return of internet access impact ChatGPT users? Let’s find out.

How to Enable Browsing on ChatGPT

To use the browsing feature, you must have a paid ChatGPT Plus subscription . If you’re on the ChatGPT Plus plan, you can enable the browsing feature through your account settings page.

1. Open ChatGPT .
2. Click on your name or email in the bottom left corner of the chat window.
   
3. Click on Settings & Beta.
   
4. Click Beta features and toggle on the switch next to Browse with Bing.
   

Then, to use the ChatGPT browsing feature:

1. Start a new chat.
2. Hover above the GPT-4 model.
3. Select Browse with Bing from the drop-down menu.
   

ChatGPT will automatically invoke the browsing feature to pull up-to-date information whenever it sees the need to. You can optionally tell the chatbot to start browsing a particular topic or question whenever you want recent information on a topic. ## What ChatGPT Internet Access Means for ChatGPT Users

The first impact of the return of internet access to ChatGPT is improved answers. ChatGPT will be able to provide more comprehensive and accurate replies. Right now, neither the GPT-3.5 nor GPT-4 models know anything about events or topics that happened after January 2022\. This lack of knowledge makes ChatGPT unable to answer some questions or make assumptions that result in wrong replies.

When we tried conversations involving rapidly changing statistics or figures, the importance of internet access was crystal clear. While ChatGPT without browsing gave answers with wrong figures, ChatGPT with browsing returned more accurate statistics on topics like world population and smartphone sales statistics.

In the conversation below, we asked the default ChatGPT GPT-4 model which country has the highest population. It got it wrong.

We then asked ChatGPT’s GPT-4 model with browsing turned on, and it got it right.

But it's not all rosy. Internet access will also come with some drawbacks. It increases the risk of spreading misinformation if ChatGPT relies on websites with inaccurate, biased, or false information. The data sources used to train ChatGPT are sanitized to a considerable degree. This reduces the risk of the chatbot spreading misinformation and propaganda. However, with the unfettered access, we should probably expect more conversations about ChatGPT amplifying fake news and other types of misinformation in the future.

Another less obvious drawback of ChatGPT’s latest addition is its effect on news and information sources. Most websites depend on traffic to their website to generate revenue. ChatGPT with internet access somewhat undermines this by giving access to information from other websites without users having to visit them. This means ChatGPT will potentially deprive websites of ad revenues they would otherwise earn from users visiting their websites. Some websites will block ChatGPT access and explain that “the website’s ‘robots.txt’ file prevents me from fetching the requested pages,” but many website owners will make no such provision.

Of course, search engines like Google and Bing will also potentially lose revenue from the ads on their search results pages. But the likes of Google and Bing are too big to feel this sort of pinch, at least for now. The impact will be felt more by small websites where ad revenue is a major source of income.

ChatGPT’s Browsing Feature Is a Double-Edged Sword

The return of ChatGPT’s browsing feature is a double-edged sword. On one hand, it empowers the AI chatbot to provide users with more accurate and up-to-date information. But it also opens up risks of spreading misinformation and negatively impacting ad revenues for small websites. While there are valid concerns, the browsing feature is opt-in for now.

Users who want more comprehensive answers from ChatGPT can enable it, while those worried about misinformation can stick to the original model. How this impacts the AI chatbot landscape in the long term remains to be seen. For now, OpenAI is taking a cautious approach to give users a choice between a completely closed model and one with selective internet access.

MUO VIDEO OF THE DAY

SCROLL TO CONTINUE WITH CONTENT

ChatGPT’s limited knowledge base is one of its biggest issues. Depending on which model you use, ChatGPT’s knowledge base has a cut-off date of September 2021 (for GPT-3.5) or January 2022 (for GPT-4). This means ChatGPT can’t accurately handle requests related to events that occurred after that time.

Now, OpenAI is solving this problem by updating ChatGPT to use the internet to provide up-to-date responses to your queries. Here’s what you need to know about this (re)addition to ChatGPT.

## ChatGPT Can Now Use Bing to Access the Internet

One of the major selling points of AI chatbots like Bard and Bing AI is that they can access the internet to retrieve up-to-date information. ChatGPT, on the other hand, couldn’t do that. That changed briefly after OpenAI rolled out browsing capabilities in May 2022, but the feature was subsequently taken offline because of abuse. One such abuse saw ChatGPT users use the browsing feature to bypass paywalls on websites to access news articles for free.

After that, ChatGPT reverted to its original design without internet access. The chatbot instead depended on third-party plugins to pull information from the web. Now, OpenAI has announced it is rolling out “Browse with Bing,” a feature that uses the Bing Search Engine API to provide ChatGPT the much-needed ability to access up-to-date information. To avoid some of the mistakes that plagued the previous roll-out of the feature, OpenAI has placed significant restrictions on sites that ChatGPT’s browsing feature can access. Websites that have placed restrictions on ChatGPT’s GPTBot are exempted from being featured in ChatGPT’s synthesized responses.

But how can you enable the feature in ChatGPT? How will the return of internet access impact ChatGPT users? Let’s find out.

How to Enable Browsing on ChatGPT

To use the browsing feature, you must have a paid ChatGPT Plus subscription . If you’re on the ChatGPT Plus plan, you can enable the browsing feature through your account settings page.

1. Open ChatGPT .
2. Click on your name or email in the bottom left corner of the chat window.
   
3. Click on Settings & Beta.
   
4. Click Beta features and toggle on the switch next to Browse with Bing.
   Click here
   

Then, to use the ChatGPT browsing feature:

1. Start a new chat.
2. Hover above the GPT-4 model.
3. Select Browse with Bing from the drop-down menu.
   

ChatGPT will automatically invoke the browsing feature to pull up-to-date information whenever it sees the need to. You can optionally tell the chatbot to start browsing a particular topic or question whenever you want recent information on a topic.

What ChatGPT Internet Access Means for ChatGPT Users

The first impact of the return of internet access to ChatGPT is improved answers. ChatGPT will be able to provide more comprehensive and accurate replies. Right now, neither the GPT-3.5 nor GPT-4 models know anything about events or topics that happened after January 2022. This lack of knowledge makes ChatGPT unable to answer some questions or make assumptions that result in wrong replies.

When we tried conversations involving rapidly changing statistics or figures, the importance of internet access was crystal clear. While ChatGPT without browsing gave answers with wrong figures, ChatGPT with browsing returned more accurate statistics on topics like world population and smartphone sales statistics.

In the conversation below, we asked the default ChatGPT GPT-4 model which country has the highest population. It got it wrong.

We then asked ChatGPT's GPT-4 model with browsing turned on, and it got it right.

But it’s not all rosy. Internet access will also come with some drawbacks. It increases the risk of spreading misinformation if ChatGPT relies on websites with inaccurate, biased, or false information. The data sources used to train ChatGPT are sanitized to a considerable degree. This reduces the risk of the chatbot spreading misinformation and propaganda. However, with the unfettered access, we should probably expect more conversations about ChatGPT amplifying fake news and other types of misinformation in the future.

Another less obvious drawback of ChatGPT’s latest addition is its effect on news and information sources. Most websites depend on traffic to their website to generate revenue. ChatGPT with internet access somewhat undermines this by giving access to information from other websites without users having to visit them. This means ChatGPT will potentially deprive websites of ad revenues they would otherwise earn from users visiting their websites. Some websites will block ChatGPT access and explain that “the website’s ‘robots.txt’ file prevents me from fetching the requested pages,” but many website owners will make no such provision.

Of course, search engines like Google and Bing will also potentially lose revenue from the ads on their search results pages. But the likes of Google and Bing are too big to feel this sort of pinch, at least for now. The impact will be felt more by small websites where ad revenue is a major source of income.

Click here

## ChatGPT's Browsing Feature Is a Double-Edged Sword

The return of ChatGPT’s browsing feature is a double-edged sword. On one hand, it empowers the AI chatbot to provide users with more accurate and up-to-date information. But it also opens up risks of spreading misinformation and negatively impacting ad revenues for small websites. While there are valid concerns, the browsing feature is opt-in for now.

Users who want more comprehensive answers from ChatGPT can enable it, while those worried about misinformation can stick to the original model. How this impacts the AI chatbot landscape in the long term remains to be seen. For now, OpenAI is taking a cautious approach to give users a choice between a completely closed model and one with selective internet access.