ChatGPT users can finally, and properly surf the web with their favorite chatbot AI.
When OpenAI introduced ChatGPT, the tech world went into a frenzy, simply because it never saw anything like it. Competitors scramble, and users couldn't be happier.
While ChatGPT is very capable, and even more capable when subscribers of its ChatGPT Plus were given access to the smarter GPT-4, the thing about ChatGPT is that, it was never really able to browse the web.
Its knowledge cuts off in 2021.
This time, OpenAI is finally allowing users to use the chatbot to browse the web.
In about a week after releasing the feature, users found that the AI has the ability to bypass paywalls of websites.
Read: To Provide Real-Time Information, Microsoft Gives ChatGPT Access To Bing's Search Engine Data
It began in late June, when a member of the r/ChatGPT subreddit posted a screenshot of a Browse session where they asked the chatbot to "print the text" of a link to a paywalled article.
In response, ChatGPT provided the article in full without the paywall.
As a result of this, some ChatGPT users were able to browse paid content without having tp pay or subscribe to a service of anything.
All they did, was ask ChatGPT with the URL.
Some speculated that ChatGPT "uses the same mechanism" as online paywall removers, which reads Google-cached version of a web page that doesn’t have a paywall.
These caches are important for search engine optimization purposes, and is only meant for search engines, not humans.
Or, ChatGPT might simply be able to ignore any paywall code.
"Enjoy it while it lasts," said one of the Redditors.
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
Upon realizing this, OpenAI made a quick move, and puts a temporary halt to the 'Browse with Bing' feature.
In a July 4 tweet, OpenAI notified users of this, and saying that it's working to patch the issue, and "do right by content owners."
"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," OpenAI said.
At this time, the Browse is still in beta and is only available to subscribers of the ChatGPT Plus service.