While labelling Microsoft’s new AI infused Bing Chat a failure this early is kind of ridiculous, there’s no doubt the “new Bing” had its share of missteps in its first week. After numerous stories of Bing Chat “going off the rails,” Microsoft pulled back and set some limits on chats, limiting users to 50 chats per day and 5 chats per session.
However, CEO of Advertising and Web Services at Microsoft Mikhail Parakhin is promising more changes, and soon:
Next week is going to be big. Major improvement in quality of New Bing understanding are scheduled, ETA Thursday 23rd. Sports results will remain flaky for a couple more weeks, though 🙁
— Mikhail Parakhin (@MParakhin) February 18, 2023
Parakhin added some more interesting tidbits in the replies to the Tweet above, saying in part:
- Two biggest one I’m excited about are the larger context size, which should reduce errors in summarization and text analyzes (especially in Edge) and the new response tagging system that makes Bing less confused in longer conversations. (Tweet)
- (in reply to a question on increasing message limits) Well, if it is less confused on longer conversations – it stands to reason, right? But we hope to relax a bit even faster – keep checking 😉 (Tweet)
- (on availability) Already available in UK, gradually adding more users. Still planning a major increase in availability next week. (Tweet)
- (on issues with asking Bing Chat about itself) It doesn’t have any “self”, wasn’t the intended usage scenario, we didn’t imbue it with a backstory. So it hallucinates wildly and is very easily to lead with any previous context. (Tweet)
- (on update timing for sports queries) We know :-(, sports is one area where we are not doing well. Improvements are coming in March, 3-4 weeks. (Tweet)
- (in response to a different tweet on issues with authorship) This is a known problem (caused mostly by the context size limit and the prompt issues). This should get much better next week, currently still scheduled for the 23rd. Fingers crossed. (Tweet)
By the way, in case you’re wondering who Mikhail Parakhin is, so was I, so I asked Bing Chat:
According to web search results, Mikhail Parakhin joined Microsoft in August 2013 (1) as a Principal Development Manager for Bing (2) He became the CEO of Advertising and Web Services at Microsoft in 2021 (3). He leads engineering and business teams that create and build online products and services such as Bing, Microsoft News, Edge browsers and Maps(4)
(note: it’s way to hard to cite a Bing Chat response, hopefully this is being worked on, too)
A number of reports contend that Microsoft “rushed” Bing Chat out the door, and that may be true, although the company has been experimenting with AI chatbots for Bing for years, but at some point efforts like these need real world input. Instead of being upset that Bing Chat didn’t get everything right the first time, we should be happy that we’re getting a unique opportunity to witness the birth of a whole new way of interacting with the internet in real time, just sayin’.
Are you in the new Bing Preview? Are you anxiously awaiting acceptance? Let us know in the comments below.