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Microsoft reckless for rushing AI-boosted Bing to market

Prompt, wide-ranging and disastrous findings by Bing testers show that Microsoft cannot control its invention

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Microsoft has already released Bing to over a million people across 169 countries.

Microsoft has already released Bing to over a million people across 169 countries.

PHOTO: AFP

Reid Blackman

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The celebration that greeted Microsoft’s release of its AI-boosted search engine, Bing, to testers two weeks ago has lurched to alarm.

Testers, including journalists, have found

the bot can become aggressive, condescending threatening,

committed to political goals, clingy, creepy and a liar. It could be used to spread misinformation and conspiracy theories at scale; lonely people could be encouraged down paths of self-destruction. Even the demonstration of the product provided false information.

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