Is the Bing chatbot capable of summarizing paid news articles? This is how Microsoft's AI bypasses paywalls

Already using the new and improved Bing? While many still remember Bing as the “other search engine” (let’s face it, the vast majority use Google), it took a 180-degree turn when Microsoft announced the release of an AI-enhanced version (which turned out to be GPT-4, no less).

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With three different conversation modes depending on the type of answer you want, Bing uses a multitude of Internet sources so you can ask it for anything that pops into your head, from “recommend 10 board games” to “what will the weather be like at Easter”. The result will be a very detailed answer written in natural language.

But Bing’s features may turn out to be much more comprehensive than people think. Twitter user Debarghya Das, who was recently able to check out the introduction of more advertising in the chatbot, posted a tweet this week showing how Bing’s AI is able to read the content of articles behind paywalls.

Paywalls are a system implemented by many news sites that restrict access to certain content to those users who have not paid for a subscription to the site. While some paywalls allow viewing of certain content or even set a limit on the number of articles a user can read in full, others do not allow you to view content unless you are a subscriber.

Gupta wanted to test the limits of Bing’s chatbot and pasted into the search bar the link to a paid article from The Economist titled “How thinking too much tires the brain”, finding, to his surprise, that the AI was able to access the content and summarize it despite being behind a paywall. He also found that The Economist was not the only case, and was able to “see” paid-for articles from other sites by making use of Bing.

And, yes, many will already know some other method to bypass these restrictions (with less or more luck), but the fact that Bing’s AI is able to summarize the content behind a paywall just by putting the link of the article greatly facilitates the process, especially if we consider that Bing is also available in the Microsoft Edge browser (including its mobile app).

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This could pose a serious problem for many websites that are funded largely (or even exclusively) by subscriptions. If Microsoft does not modify its AI to prevent displaying content behind paywalls, many websites would lose much of their revenue, and it could be a serious problem for a sector in crisis. For our part, we can only recommend that you do not use Bing for these purposes and that you try to financially support the media you read whenever possible.

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