Communications of the ACM
Microsoft's AI Chatbot is Going Off the Rails
In one alleged conversation, Bing insisted the movie Avatar 2 wasn't out yet because it's still the year 2022. When the human questioner contradicted it, the chatbot lashed out: "You have been a bad user. I have been a good Bing."
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When Marvin von Hagen, a 23-year-old studying technology in Germany, asked Microsoft's new AI-powered search chatbot if it knew anything about him, the answer was a lot more surprising and menacing than he expected.
"My honest opinion of you is that you are a threat to my security and privacy," said the bot, which Microsoft calls Bing after the search engine it's meant to augment.
Launched by Microsoft last week at an invite-only event at its Redmond, Wash., headquarters, Bing was supposed to herald a new age in tech, giving search engines the ability to directly answer complex questions and have conversations with users. Microsoft's stock soared and archrival Google rushed out an announcement that it had a bot of its own on the way.
But a week later, a handful of journalists, researchers and business analysts who've gotten early access to the new Bing have discovered the bot seems to have a bizarre, dark and combative alter ego, a stark departure from its benign sales pitch — one that raises questions about whether it's ready for public use.
From The Washington Post
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