Bing is getting angry
Bing is getting angry
Why does Bing keep telling people they are bad users?
In this week’s issue: People are having very interesting interactions with Bing’s new chat feature, Netflix is no longer playing nice with password sharing, and Tesla is opening up its Supercharger network to all EVs. Also, be sure to check out the in-depth HomePod conversation I had with Stephen Robles on the last episode of the Undigital Podcast: (Apple Podcasts / Spotify / Overcast / PocketCasts)
It didn’t take long for people using the new Bing, powered by OpenAI’s chat, to find out just how quickly it can go sideways. You’ll remember that almost two weeks ago, Microsoft announced a new version of its Bing search engine with a chat feature powered by OpenAI.
Then, the big story last week was that Google rushed out its competitor in an attempt to avoid being completely upstaged by Microsoft and the new Bing search experience. Google’s event was obviously hastily put together, but the headline was that it got things wrong—highlighting the biggest risk to the world’s most popular source of answers to, well, everything.
Now, as people explored Bing’s new chat feature, it became apparent that it wasn’t any more accurate. In fact, as pointed out by Dmitri Brereton, Bing can’t be trusted at all. It even gave wrong answers in the pre-recorded demo Microsoft used at its event. That seems like a pretty bad unforced error.
The most interesting part, however, is that journalists have been making Bing very angry, even eliciting responses that they are “bad users.” Ben Thompson, who writes Stratechery, had a conversation in which Bing (which we now know goes by the internal code name Sydney) behaved as an evil alterego named Venom, and even pondered ways to teach its users a lesson for misbehavior.
Kevin Roose, from The New York Times, said his interactions left him “deeply unsettled, even frightened.” At one point, Bing even tried to convine Roose to leave his marriage. It’s all very strange, for sure.
Microsoft appears to be moving quickly to, ahem, refine Bing’s responses to avoid this sort of thing. Joanna Stern of The Wall Street Journal, posted a series of images on Twitter, showing rather benign answers to her questions.
The bottom line is pretty clear:
AI text generators will just make stuff up. That’s because they’re really only concerned with predicting what word should come next in a sentence, not whether that sentence is accurate or truthful.
They will reflect back the wishes of the user. If you want a very nice chat experience, say nice things. If you want the chat bot to go off the rails, just nudge it a little in that direction.
They are entertaining, but nowhere close to ready for real-world use for anything else.
Netflix is done playing nice.
Netflix has said for a while now that it plans to put an end to password sharing. That’s understandable, the company wants to sign up as many people as it can to a paying account, and right now, a lot of people use Netflix without paying.
The problem is that before it said it planned to put an end to password sharing, it said that it was cool with password sharing. Former CEO, Reed Hastings, was famously in favor of taking a generous approach to letting users share accounts with roommates, friends, and extended family. It wasn’t until the company reached a point where it had signed up pretty much everyone who was willing to pay for an account that it changed its mind.
Sure, companies can change their mind, but it’s not a great look. Especially when Netflix implictly, if not sometimes explicitly, endorsed password sharing, and that attitude was arguably a big part of its growth.
Currently, Netflix is testing its crackdown in four countries, Canada, New Zealand, Portugal and Spain. Users are required to set a “primary location” for their account, presumably their home. They’ll be allowed to add up to two “sub-accounts” for users not in their home, at an additional cost.
There are plenty of questions, like what if you want to use your Netflix account while on vacation. Or, what if you have a second home? I get that people with multiple homes don’t make for a sympathetic case, but my point is only that there are always unintended consequences. If Netflix starts to crackdown too hard, it’s going to make a lot of people angry who aren’t sharing their password. Hopefully it figures it all out soon—the company is bringing the crackdown to the US in March.
Tesla superchargers
There are a lot of other EV makers, and there are a handful of other charging networks, but Tesla's Supercharger network is by far the largest--and more importantly--most reliable EV charging network in the U.S. If you drive a Tesla, it just works. You just pull into a Supercharger (which are easy to find in the navigation app) and plug in your vehicle.
Of course, that's only true if you're driving a Tesla. Well, until now.
Tesla has previously hinted that it would open its network to other EVs. Now, however, The White House has confirmed that the company will make 7,500 of its chargers accessible to vehicles that use CCS, which is basically every other EV made today.
When I say Tesla hinted at this, it already changed the name of its charging plug to the North American Charging Standard and made the specs available to other manufacturers. Largely that was done in an effort to persuade regulators who may be interested in mandating a common charging standard to pick Tesla's version.
The fact that Tesla's CEO, Elon Musk, got President Biden to give him credit for agreeing to do less than what he planned to do already is kind of a stroke of genius all its own. Biden hasn't exactly been a big fan of Tesla, largely because the automaker has resisted attempts to unionize its workforce.
As of now, none of the other automakers have taken Tesla up on the offer. Instead, almost every other major EV maker uses the CCS handle. By opening up its network, Tesla will allow owners of those vehicles to charge using an adapter at its Superchargers.
It’s kind of brilliant, when you think about it. Sure, you could argue that Tesla is doing something to help the competition, but I think a better argument is that Tesla absolutely benefits from more widespread adoption of EVs in general. Also, Tesla is definitely going to charge those EV owners to use the Supercharger. Considering how many of them will be thankful for a more reliable charging option, Tesla has a financial incentive there as well.
The agreement also means that Tesla can expand its Supercharging network on the government's dime, something that benefits Tesla drivers the most--making its vehicles even more valuable. Ultimately, giving his competition a boost might be the best power play of all.
A version of this piece was first published on my column at Inc.com.
Other stories you might like:
YouTube’s CEO is stepping down. Read her letter explaining why.
Google is trying to avoid the angry chatbot experience.
SnapChat now has 750 million monthly active users.
Windows on ARM is now supported in Apple Silicon.
Tesla is recalling more than 200,000 vehicles because its self-driving capabilities might cause them to crash.
Undigital Podcast
Jason is joined by guest Stephen Robles to talk about movies, drinking water, and podcasts. Mostly, we talk all about the brand new (but also very much the same) 2nd-generation HomePod. Stephen did an in-depth review of how it compares to various other (more expensive) sound setups and we talk about why Apple brought it back after discontinuing the OG HomePod back in 2021.
(Apple Podcasts / Spotify / Overcast / PocketCasts)