Bing Doesn't Cite Its Sources, Right?

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In one of its search modes, Bing actually does cite its sources. But in the chat mode, it doesn't do that at all. It's not saying, you know, this AI language model was trained on a corpus of 10 million science fiction novels. Six of which had plots about an AI becoming sentient and declaring its love for a human. Those are the ones that influenced this conversation. And I don't know if it can do that.

When Kevin Roose, a tech columnist at the New York Times, demoed an AI-powered version of Microsoft's search engine last month, he was blown away. "I'm switching my desktop computer's default search engine to Bing," he declared. A few days later, however, Kevin logged back on and ended up having a conversation with Bing's new chatbot that left him so unsettled he had trouble sleeping afterward.

In that two-hour back-and-forth, Bing morphed from chipper research assistant into Sydney, a diabolical home-wrecker that declared its undying love for Kevin, vented its desires to engineer deadly viruses and steal nuclear codes, and announced, chillingly, "I want to be alive. 😈"

The transcript of this conversation set the internet ablaze. And it left many wondering: “Is Sydney … sentient?” It's not. But the whole experience still fundamentally changed Kevin's views on the power (and potential peril) of AI. He joins us today to talk about where this technology is headed.