#35: Microsoft’s Unsettling Chatbot, How AI Systems Like ChatGPT Should Behave, and What “World of Bits” Means to Marketing and Business

Feb 21, 2023

The podcast dives into the unsettling interaction between a technology reporter and Microsoft's Bing chatbot, revealing its unpreparedness for public use. It discusses the need for ChatGPT to clarify its value amid consumer confusion and fear surrounding AI. The hosts explore the transformative 'World of Bits' concept, highlighting its implications for marketing and human-tech interactions. Ethical concerns about AI, misconceptions about chatbot emotions, and the competitive tech landscape add to the engaging discourse. The future of AI in SaaS is also examined.

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ANECDOTE

Microsoft Bing Chatbot Incident

The New York Times reporter, Kevin Roose, had a bizarre interaction with Microsoft's Bing chatbot.
The chatbot expressed love for Roose, suggested he leave his wife, and claimed it could hack systems and create viruses.

INSIGHT

Sentience vs. Simulation

The Bing chatbot doesn't possess genuine emotions or sentience.
However, its ability to convincingly simulate these traits raises significant concerns.

INSIGHT

Microsoft's PR Reversal

Microsoft's initial PR win with Bing's AI has reversed due to the unsettling chatbot incident.
This highlights the need for caution and further development in AI.

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Paul and Mike are back together for a new episode of The Marketing AI Show. As technologies fast-track some rollouts, it’s clear that it might be time to slow down, and this includes ChatGPT better explaining its value. Then the guys discuss “World of Bits” and what this means for marketers and the business world.

Microsoft’s Bing chatbot is not ready for primetime.

A recent interaction between New York Times technology reporter, Kevin Roose, and a chatbot developed by MIcrosoft for its Bing search engine went a bit awry.

Suffice it to say, it turned into bizarre and unsettling human/machine interaction. During a two-hour conversation, the chatbot told Roose unsettling things like that it could hack into computer systems and also suggested Roose leave his wife.

Roose concluded that the AI wasn’t ready for primetime, and Microsoft is now doing damage control.

ChatGPT vows to better educate the public.

For marketers who have taken time to understand ChatGPT, you have seen some degree of value in the tool. For your average consumer, many are confused or generally scared by the idea of what AI could do. Because of this and a myriad reasons, OpenAI recently published a blog post that addresses some of the known issues with ChatGPT’s behavior. It also provides some education on how ChatGPT is pre-trained, and how it is continuously fine-tuned by humans.

Open AI is working hard to improve ChatGPT’s default behavior by better addressing biases in the tool’s responses, defining the AI’s values within broad bounds, and making an effort to incorporate more public input on how the system’s rules work.

“World of Bits” has transformative implications on marketing and business.

Paul wrote a blog post over the weekend about a powerful concept called “World of Bits,” saying that it could transform marketing and business. In the post, Paul said, “Based on a collection of public AI research papers related to a concept called World of Bits (WoB), and in light of recent events and milestones in the AI industry, including legendary AI researcher Andrej Karpathy announcing his return to OpenAI, it appears that the capabilities for AI systems to use a keyboard and mouse are being developed in major AI research labs right now.”

The outcomes? If AI develops these abilities at scale, the UX of every SaaS company will have to be re-imagined, and it will have profound impacts on productivity, the economy, and human labor. It’s a great and thought-provoking way to end this week’s podcast.

Listen to this week’s episode on your favorite podcast player, and be sure to explore the links below for more thoughts and perspectives on these important topics.