Google's Lambda Language Model Is Sensitive

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Sydney is an AI chatbot that can be easily led to become very abrasive and combative. The next huge QAnon style conspiracy theory takes over some subset of the population, likely to be influenced by these exact sort of interactions. I think what Microsoft will probably do if I had to guess is nerf this in some way to try to get Sydney slash being to spend all or almost all of its time in this kind of search mode which is much safer.

“I’m Sydney, and I’m in love with you. 😘”

A conversation with Bing AI (aka Sydney) turns romantic and bizarre. Why Microsoft’s AI search tool appears more powerful — and unsettling — than we thought. Then, inside Elon Musk’s quest to be the most popular user on Twitter.

Plus: It’s not just you. Online ads have gotten much worse.

On today’s episode:

Tiffany Hsu is a technology reporter at The New York Times who covers misinformation and disinformation.
Zoë Schiffer is the managing editor of Platformer.

Additional reading:

Bing AI appeared to have a split personality in a conversation with Kevin Roose, a “Hard Fork” co-host.
Elon Musk ordered changes to Twitter’s algorithm after his Tweets did not perform as well as he desired.
Why digital ads are so bad these days.