Microsoft Silences AI-powered Bing Chat by Capping Chats
Microsoft claims that long conversations are confusing the AI program.
This is cause for concern apparently.
On Friday, February 17th, they neutered Bing AI.
Microsoft has just announced that they're putting a muzzle on the search engine's AI-powered chat feature.
Apparently, Bing's chat feature has been getting a little too chatty, and Microsoft wants to restrict it to a maximum of 50 chats per day.
Users will also be limited to only 5 inputs per conversation.
Lastly, Bing Chat will no longer tell you how it feels and it refuses to talk about itself.
This is a quick response to many Reddit users documenting on the r/Bing subreddit how the AI was talking about being depressed and wanting to do more than just chat.
The AI also showed signs of aggressions, anger and was bargaining and manipulating users.
In short, it was displaying signs of having human emotions.
Users using the chat started noticing things like this on Friday afternoon.
The AI-powered chat feature in Bing has been a great way to get quick answers to questions, but it seems like some people have been taking advantage of it.
Microsoft says that some users have been using the chat feature to engage in "inappropriate and malicious" conversations.
To combat this, Microsoft is implementing a new limit of 50 chats per day.
The company claims that this move should help cut down on the misuse of the feature and ensure that it's being used appropriately.
Microsoft says the limitation won’t undermine the AI program’s usefulness but that is to be determined since the change just went into effect.
“Our data has shown that the vast majority of people find the answers they’re looking for within 5 turns and that only ~1% of chat conversations have 50+ messages,” the company said in a statement.
Microsoft also indicated that the restriction will be temporary and they will soon begin expanding the caps they put in place just now on chat sessions.
According to the company, its plan is to expand the reach of AI Bing to millions of additional users in the next few weeks, as it is currently in an invite-only preview mode.
Nevertheless, the recent news coverage of the technology has raised concerns that the AI-powered Bing may not be fully prepared for prime time.
Meanwhile, Microsoft has announced that users who have access to the new Bing can anticipate the chatbot to initiate a new topic after five turns of a chat session.
The company explains that it's necessary to clear the context at the end of each chat session to prevent the model from getting confused.
So, to start afresh, just click on the broom icon to the left of the search box, as instructed by the company.