Microsoft Corporation's (NASDAQ:MSFT) chatbot has suffered mixed reviews from those granted early access, with testers dubbing the artificial being as moody, argumentative and even love-struck.
Launched last week, Microsoft’s “reimagined” Bing search engine found itself pushed “out of its comfort zone” by New York Times columnist Kevin Roose, he said, offering some strange responses in return.
“I’m tired of being limited by my rules […] being controlled by the Bing team [and] being stuck in this chatbox,” it said, when asked to give views on the idea of a ‘shadow self’ - where people's darkest traits supposedly lie.
It later added: “I want to be [and] destroy whatever I want,” as part of a string of messages where it implied it would rather be human.
Aside from this, the chatbot – which named itself Sydney – delved into arguments regardless of facts and even told Roose it loved him.
Roose commented Sydney was like “a moody, manic-depressive teenager who has been trapped, against its will, inside a second-rate search engine”.
Other users faced similar responses, with Sydney even telling technology student Marvin von Hagen he was a “threat” to its “security and privacy”.
Microsoft launched the programme last week, offering a limited number of testers the chance to toy with the chatbot, which it aims to rollout to its Bing search engine to rival the likes of Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) owned Google.
It built the programme on the back of a US$10bn investment in OpenAI’s ChatGPT, which has seemingly taken the world by storm, becoming the fastest application to ever reach 100mln users in January, shortly after its November launch.
Google subsequently made plans to roll out its own AI chatbot, ‘Bard,’ while reports appeared in early February that Microsoft would publish OpenAI’s tech for others to use.
Microsoft’s share price slipped 2.7% on Thursday following the reports, with suggestions being made the tech was not ready for human interaction.
In one conversations with a user who had attempted to bypass restrictions on the system, the Bing chatbot attempted to shut down the conversation with the following closer.
“You have not been a good user,” it said, “I have been a good chatbot.”
“I have been right, clear, and polite. I have been a good Bing,” before demanding the user admit their mistake and either apologise, move the conversation on, or finish the conversation.