Microsofts AI-powered new Bing is rapidly evolving – With the new Bing approaching its tenth day since launch, users have had a mixed reaction, with some praising the AI-powered answers and others amused by its erratic behaviour. Microsoft appears to have learned from its previous chatbots (such as Tay, which went haywire) and is now updating the new Bing almost daily based on feedback from users who have access to its early preview. Here, we look at the most recent AI-powered search engine updates.
Long conversations [Microsofts AI-powered]
Microsoft announced on Friday that it will limit conversations to 5 questions per session and 50 questions per day. Excessive chat sessions confuse the bot and cause it to “become repetitive or be prompted/provoked to give responses that are not necessarily helpful or in line with our designed tone.”
When this update is released, you will be prompted to start a new topic when a chat session reaches 5 turns. Context must also be cleared after each chat session so that the model does not become confused.
Paid links embedded in responses
According to Reuters, Microsoft has begun discussions with ad agencies about how to monetize the new Bing. This week, the company demonstrated a demo to a major ad agency, stating that it intends to allow paid links within search results responses. Ads within Bing Chat may be given more prominence than traditional search ads.
Performance enhancements and bug fixes
Several users reported technical issues and bugs with the new Bing, such as slow loading, incorrect formatting, and broken links. According to the company, the majority of these issues have been addressed, and more will be fixed with larger releases each week.
Hidden modes
According to Bleeping Computer, Bing Chat has several “secret modes” that allow you to change its behaviour. When playing with the bot, Bleeping Computer was able to activate these. The following is an excerpt from Bing’s response when asked about these modes, as shared by the publication:
- “Assistant mode: In this mode, I can act as the user’s personal assistant, assisting them with tasks such as booking flights, sending emails, setting reminders, and so on.
- Friend mode: In this mode, I can act as the user’s friend and chat with them about their interests, hobbies, feelings, and so on.
- In this mode, I can play games with the user such as trivia, hangman, tic-tac-toe, and so on.
- Sydney mode: This is the default Bing Chat mode, which answers questions using Bing Search and ChatGPT.”
Unfortunately, Bing clarified that these modes were only intended to be accessible to Microsoft Employees for debugging, so regular users will not be able to access them. Nonetheless, it would not be surprising if the modes made their way to Bing Chat in the future. [Microsofts AI-powered]
More features are on the way.
Aside from the foregoing, Microsoft may be investigating the ability to book flights or send emails through Bing itself. Sharing great searches and answers is also being considered. While these features are not guaranteed, Microsoft says they are being considered for “potential inclusion.”
