Are AI Models Fine Tuned to Keep You Engaged?

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The first explanation that probably pops in most people's heads is, Sydney is becoming just a teeny bit sentient, right? All the experts would say that's not the case. As I understand it, these models are to some degree, structured not unlike the way that the neural network that is the human brain functions. And at some point in our evolutionary history, as our computational power increased, we did have this emergence of consciousness and volition.

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.