Last month, Microsoft introduced new AI-powered products, Bing and Microsoft Edge, which offer better search, comprehensive answers, a new chat experience, and the ability to create content. Microsoft has already seen chat reinvent the way people search, with more than 100 million chats to date. The company has seen people use chat in a variety of ways, whether it’s to refine answers to complex questions, for entertainment, or to find creative inspiration. Now Microsoft is taking the chat experience to the next level by making the new Bing more visual.
Continuing its AI efforts, Microsoft announced Bing Image Creator. Powered by OpenAI’s DALL-E, this tool can be used to generate artificial intelligence images. According to Microsoft, Bing Image Creator will be part of Bing Chat and will accept natural language prompts to create (pretty much) any type of image. The tool will also be available in Microsoft Edge, which the company points out will make it the first and only browser with an integrated artificial intelligence image generator.
In its announcement, Microsoft says, “We’re excited to announce that we’re bringing Bing Image Creator, new AI-powered visual stories, and updated knowledge maps to the new preview for Bing and Edge featuring our OpenAI partners’ DALL∙E model you can use Bing Image Creator to create an image simply by describing in your own words the image you want to see. Now you can generate written and visual content in one place, from the cat”.
Microsoft raises concerns about the use and misuse of such a tool, noting that Bing Image Creator has built-in safeguards.
At Microsoft, our teams are guided by our Responsible AI Principles and Responsible AI Standard to help them develop and deploy AI systems responsibly. To reduce the potential abuse of Image Creator, we are working with our partner OpenAI, who developed DALL∙E, to provide an experience that encourages responsible use of Image Creator. We made sure that OpenAI protections as well as additional protections are built into Image Creator. For example, we have controls in place to limit the generation of harmful or dangerous images.
The company adds: “When our system detects that a potentially dangerous image could be generated by a command prompt, it blocks the prompt and warns the user Bing icon in the bottom left corner of each image to indicate that the image contains Image Creator was created. We continue to work closely with OpenAI to develop, test, and revise metric mitigations for our integrations.”
Bing Image Creator is rolling out to Bing Preview desktop and mobile users. It is also possible to test the system on bing.com/create in English. The tool is also available for Edge users (mobile and desktop) via the Image Creator icon in the sidebar. Microsoft specifies: “We will soon also integrate Image Creator into Edge from the new Bing button in chat mode in the preview version of Edge”.
Create images with your words
Microsoft is excited to announce that it is bringing Bing Image Creator, new AI-powered visual stories, and updated knowledge maps to the new version of Bing and Edge. Bing Image Creator is based on an enhanced version of OpenAI’s DALL∙E model and allows you to create an image by simply describing in your own words the image you want to see. You can now generate written and visual content from chat in one place.
Research has shown that the human brain processes visual information approximately 60,000 times faster than text, making visual tools an essential means of research, creation, and understanding. According to Bing data, images are one of the most searched categories, right after general web search. In the past, searches were limited to images that already existed on the internet. Today there are practically no limits to research and design.
For Bing Preview users, Bing Image Creator will be fully integrated into the Bing Chat experience and initially launched in creative mode. By entering an image description, providing additional context such as location or activity, and choosing an art style, Image Creator creates an image of your own imagination. It’s kind of a creative co-pilot. Just tap draw picture or create a picture as a prompt in chat to create a design for a newsletter to your friends or get inspiration for decorating your living room.
Bing Image Creator preview will also be available in Microsoft Edge, making it the first and only browser with an integrated AI-powered image generator. To use Bing Image Creator in Edge, simply click the Bing Image Creator icon in the sidebar to create your image, or bring it up from Bing Chat in Edge.
At Microsoft, teams are guided by the Responsible AI Principles and the Responsible AI Standard to help them develop and deploy AI systems responsibly. To mitigate potential abuse of Image Creator, Microsoft is working with partner OpenAI, which developed DALL∙E, to provide an experience that encourages responsible use of Image Creator. Microsoft has ensured that OpenAI protections as well as additional protections are built into Image Creator. For example, they have implemented controls to limit the generation of harmful or dangerous images. If the system detects that a potentially dangerous image could be generated by a prompt, it blocks the prompt and warns the user. Microsoft also makes it clear that Image Creator images are AI-generated and includes a modified Bing icon in the lower-left corner of each image to indicate the image was created with Image Creator. Microsoft continues to work closely with OpenAI to develop, test, and revise mitigations for their integrations.
Since the new Bing has been in preview, Microsoft has been testing it with people to get real feedback to learn and improve the experience. People used it in ways the company expected and in ways it didn’t. In this spirit of learning, and to continue to responsibly develop new features, Microsoft is introducing Bing Image Creator in a phased approach, testing it with a group of users before rolling it out to more users. Microsoft is initially including Image Creator in Bing Chat’s Creative mode only, and plans to make it available in Balanced and Accurate modes over time. Microsoft is also working to improve how Image Creator works in multi-round chats. Microsoft remains convinced that the best way to bring these technologies to market is to test them thoroughly and publicly where everyone has a say.
New AI-powered visual stories and knowledge maps
To meet the growing demand for more visual search experiences, Microsoft is also making Stories and Knowledge Cards 2.0 available to all Bing users. Stories provide a more engaging way to find and interact with content by including images and short videos. Also new to Bing users today is Knowledge Maps 2.0, an infographic-inspired, AI-powered experience that provides fun facts and important information at a glance. It has been updated to include interactive and dynamic content such as charts, graphs, timelines, visual stories and more. With these updates and more to come, the goal is to deliver more immersive experiences on Bing and Edge that make finding answers and exploring the web more engaging, useful, and fun.
Availability
Bing Chat, integrated with Bing Image Creator, has been rolling out to Bing Preview users on desktop and mobile since Tuesday 21st. For those who don’t like Bing’s new preview, the Image Creator preview experience is now available in English at bing.com/create for Bing users worldwide. Microsoft will add more languages over time.
Bing Image Creator is also available in Microsoft Edge via the Image Creator icon in the sidebar for desktop and mobile devices for Edge users worldwide in English. Microsoft will also soon integrate Image Creator with Edge via the new Bing button in chat mode in Edge Preview.
Source: microsoft
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