Microsoft Downgrades Bing's AI After It Unsettles Users

Speaker 1: If you've read the headlines lately, it looks like AI has lost its mind. Users have been posting screenshots of their interactions with Microsoft Bing's new chat bot and responses coming from the artificial intelligence or AI have been sassy, weird and left. Some people deeply unsettled instances include the AI calling users rude and confused in saying it has been a good bing smiley face or repeatedly telling one user the year is 2022. And [00:00:30] to quote, trust me on this one. And in one case the chat bot not only saying it fell in love, but attempted to convince its user that he was unhappy in his own relationship saying, quote, you're married but you're not in love. Slanted frown phase, the emojis make it that much Creepier. Most of these exchanges took crazy turns after extensive conversations and provoking these chats sometimes lasted over two hours long, which is no longer allowed. Speaker 1: Microsoft has officially limited users [00:01:00] to only five questions or statements per conversation, after which Bing will ask for a new topic. Users are now also limited to just 50 total replies a day. Before I get any further, Bing's chatbot is a word prediction technology. The AI is not sentient, a can't feel motions or think it simply uses information from the internet to generate responses to users queries. Microsoft calls Bing an AI powered co-pilot for the web and says [00:01:30] it delivers search results infused with information from the large language model from Microsoft's partner Open ai. This is the same company that released chat G P t Bing's AI is built into Microsoft's browser edge with its own chat window that looks like texting. Bing sees this tech eventually getting used everywhere from writing documents in word inserting data in spreadsheets or creating PowerPoint presentations back to the news. Speaker 1: Bing has also been limited in what it [00:02:00] can discuss. C Net's editor at large, Scott Stein asked Bing what rules it followed and the AI responded with a list of topics. But now if you ask the exact same question, it will say it prefers not to talk about it. In fact, it appears Bing won't answer anything that has to do with itself. I reached out to Microsoft to get a comment on all the changes and a spokesperson said they have quote received good feedback on where to improve and continue to apply these learnings to the models to refine the [00:02:30] experience. Not saying much, but I wonder how surprised could Microsoft really be about these interactions. Back in 2016, Microsoft released a Twitter chat bot named Tey that quickly began echoing racist and violent remarks and was quickly shut down. Anyway, while Bing's AI has been heavily limited, I still want to give you a quick tour of what the interface looks like and how to use it. Speaker 1: Odds are when it's released to the public, this is what you'll experience. If you want to try it out sooner, you [00:03:00] can sign up for the wait list on bing.com/new. Let's take a look. Once you have access to Bing's AI chat bot, all you gotta do is go to bing.com and from the search area you just have to scroll down and you'll enter the chat with the new AI. From here I can ask it anything. Now the first thing I want to ask is about a person. Let's search me. I have a pretty unique name, Justin er, and let's see what Bing does. So you can see it says that it's searching for Justin [00:03:30] er, it's doing that search and it's just gonna start typing and it also provides you links where you can learn more. So you see, uh, it gave uh cnet.com, LinkedIn, but it says Justin is a host and senior video producer at cnet. Speaker 1: Correct. He covers topics such as smart home vr, wearables, diabetes tech. That's definitely from my Twitter. Oh no, I guess that's from cnet. And he also has his own YouTube channel call Justin Tech also True. Tell me more about Justin. Alright, [00:04:00] this is where it gets weird <laugh>. So it says, here are some more details about Justin Easter. He grew up on Long Island as a bachelor's degree in journalism from Emerson College. Correct. He was diagnosed with Type one diabetes in May, 2021 and I hacked my insulin pump. Yes, also true. I like that It's giving you these sources that you can then click and then go find out more and see if they're trusted sources because you can't always trust Bing. It could be getting from sources that are incorrect. Next, I wanna search something I've genuinely wanted to search in the past, [00:04:30] which is tell me about activities you can do in New York City when it rains. Speaker 1: So it's searching for the activities in New York City when it rains and then it is in real time generating the response. So first it's got some museums going, shopping at Chelsea Market. That's definitely a good activity. Uh, watching a Broadway show, taking a tour of Madison Square Garden, I didn't even know you could do that. If I was visiting New York on a rainy day, [00:05:00] this would be such a great way to find out this information rather than Googling it and going to an article and hoping that that article has the information. What are some of the best coffee shops in New York City? Oh wow. And we reached the cap. It needs to talk about something else that's kind of tough. Like while I understand they limited the amount of responses because of all the things that were going on, I'm genuinely asking for more questions in the [00:05:30] topic that I want to know about and we've gotta move on. Speaker 1: Now, the last test I want to do is the, am I replaceable by AI test? Well, let's hope not. I'm going to search like what someone who's looking for the best VR headset would search. And I know a lot about VR headsets, so I'm gonna see if this advice is what I would give or even remotely close to it. So I'm gonna search what are the best VR headsets available. Now, [00:06:00] I could have told you already. Okay. Wow. So it's searching for best VR headsets 2023 VR headset comparison 2023. Interesting. Good job, Bing. Let's see what it says. There are many VR headsets available now, but some of the best ones are expected to be released in 2023. Oh my goodness. That was really good advice. For example, meta Aquest three most likely coming in the fall. Sony PlayStation VR two, which like comes out in a week and Apple ar VR headset, which is most [00:06:30] likely they're saying getting announced in June. Speaker 1: The interesting thing is though, I did say, what are the best VR headsets available now? Because I didn't want to hear about what's coming. So it didn't quite do that, but it did give incredible advice. Now of course, if I hover over this, this is coming from vr source.com, so ultimately AI like this can't replace the human because it is pulling from human [00:07:00] work. But wow, I have to say I am extremely impressed with this answer, but I want to make sure that I get the actual answer I wanted, which is, but what about VR headsets I can buy today? So it's putting in best VR headsets 2022. Okay, so now it's saying if you wanna buy a VR headset today, there are some good options. You've got the MedQuest two Valve Index B next, HTC five Pro Two, and the Oculus Rift S. [00:07:30] Now some of these I wouldn't be recommending the Oculus Rift s I don't even think you can truly buy anymore. Speaker 1: So that isn't the best advice. I'm gonna have it compare the meta quests to to valve index. They're two very different headsets and let's see what happens. Wow. And look at the way it does this. So it's gonna organize it in different ways. It's got price, it's comparing the prices, the platform, it's on, the performance, the features. A lot of what it's saying [00:08:00] here is vague, but from what I'm seeing as I quickly scan through it, it is very accurate. Am I replaceable by ai? Not quite, because at the end of the day, humans need to review this stuff, write the article so that Bing AI can pull it and put it in such a nice way. From this alone, you can tell that Bing search is a way more helpful search than what we're currently using on Google for a starting point for our research. Speaker 1: And it's only gonna get better. [00:08:30] Microsoft's not the only one getting in this game. Google has also announced their own AI chat bot called Bard at an event recently. They announced it and it actually fell flat on its space. When asked to show an image from the James Webb telescope, it showed an image from a different telescope and Google came out saying that it probably wasn't really ready to show off Bard, but they were feeling pressure from Microsoft to do so. While there still are some issues with this technology, the future of it is very exciting. [00:09:00] One day we could be seeing it in video games with NPC players where when you talk to these non playable characters, you will have your own individual experience compared to other players because you're interacting with them differently. Or think about telephone operators. Sometimes you get calls from these operators and they already sound kind of real. Speaker 1: What about when they have artificial intelligence and can truly interact with you and answer your questions better? Or even with companionship? Think back to the movie her that came out like 10 years ago where [00:09:30] this character played by Joaquin Phoenix falls in love with his artificial intelligence assistant. It felt very far off at the time, but now after seeing these experiences, it truly doesn't feel that far away, which is also kind of scary. We are going to have a lot more AI coverage coming at CNET because this is constantly changing. So make sure to keep it here by subscribing to the channel and check out the links down in the description. To learn more about Bing's ai, what would you ask ai? Let me know [00:10:00] in the comments. As always, make sure you like this video if you enjoyed it. I'm Justin and I'll take you later.