Microsoft addresses misbehaving AI Bing reports; shares future plans to resolve issues

Reports about the problematic interaction behavior of ChatGPT-powered Bing with its users continue to surface. Microsoft recently addressed this, revealing that long chat sessions trigger unfavorable actions from Bing’s AI chatbot. Despite this, the Redmond company stressed that the new Bing is still in its testing phase, and it continues to improve. Alongside this assurance, the software giant shares the features users can expect from Bing in the future.

The smarter Bing is still the talk of the town, and not in an entirely good way. Different users report bizarre encounters with the search engine’s chatbot, ranging from love confessions and depression to threats and espionage. Microsoft wants the public to know it is aware of the problem. In a recent blog post, the company explained that such occurrences might be triggered by extended interactions with the chatbot, composed of 15 questions or more.

“In this process, we have found that in long, extended chat sessions of 15 or more questions, Bing can become repetitive or be prompted/provoked to give responses that are not necessarily helpful or in line with our designed tone,” Microsoft revealed.

In line with this, the company is considering a tool that will easily refresh the conversation or “start from scratch.” While this will directly end Bing’s problem occurring from long chat interactions, this means a rather limited memory for the chatbot in the future to remember long conversations, one of the capabilities that make it attractive.

Meanwhile, Microsoft said it is also now looking for ways to give users controls for fine-tuning Bing due to its characteristic of responding in an unintended tone. The company, nonetheless, said that the scenario “requires a lot of prompting,” which means it is unlikely to happen to casual users.

In relation to that, Microsoft admitted that Bing is still challenged when it comes to producing responses involving precision and creativity. As such, the company is considering a new toggle control to give users a choice of whether to have precise or creative responses. Additionally, it shared that there is a plan to bump up to 4 times the grounding data being sent to the model, helping the chatbot to be more efficient in answering number-related queries for financial reports and other situations.

Lastly, Microsoft said it is listening to its users’ requests and mentioned suggestions like the ability to book flights or send emails. The company said there is a possibility such recommendations could be included in future releases of Bing.