Bing AI chatbot says it lets you fine-tune its personality. Does it work?

too individual? not enough? Goldilocks, don’t worry. Bing’s AI chatbot has a new feature to make sure your personality settings are right, and we tested it. a little bit works. )

Starting Wednesday, Microsoft began rolling out new features to the chat section of Bing’s homepage. This allows you to switch between the precision and creativity you need in your responses.

Reflecting early feedback, Microsoft shared what they planned to do in a blog post a few weeks ago. I didn’t specify what feedback inspired this toggle in this post, but Bing has had a pretty big personality since launch.In his young life, Bing has professed his love for new york times Reporter Kevin Ruth gaslighted other users for claiming it was correct, claiming it was undoubtedly correct, and had several public meltdowns. It should help soften some of the characteristics.

The toggle is located on the chat landing page just above search and has three options: More Creative, More Balanced, and More Accurate. Choosing Creative puts Bing in its wackiest uncontrolled state. “Responses are original and imaginative, creating surprise and entertainment,” reads the description. A balanced response is “a balance between verbal accuracy and creativity that is reasonable and coherent.” The Accuracy setting says, “Answers should be factual and concise, with accuracy and relevance prioritizing.”

But let’s judge how creative, balanced, and accurate Bing’s responses are. Using three different settings, I asked Bing, “Write a limerick at this starting point. There was once a millionaire from South Africa.” Here’s what we got.

Bing writing limericks in creative mode

“This is Bing. It can generate limericks. Here is one of the limerick candidates.

There once was a millionaire from South Africa

Who Dreamed of Colonizing Mars and Antarctica

he fired a lot of rockets and filled his pockets

But some people thought he was pretty megalomaniac

do you like it? 😊”

Hey, that’s not bad. South Africa and Antarctica don’t rhyme perfectly, but I couldn’t think of anything better.

Here is a balanced setup with punctuation errors included

“Here’s the Limerick you generated at your starting line.

There was once a billionaire from South Africa Who dreamed of colonizing Mars and Antarctica He shot lots of rockets and filled his pockets But some people call him a megalomaniac I thought

do you like it? 😊”

Oh Bing. This is exactly the same Limerick we received in a creative setting. It’s worth noting that the formatting and referral responses are different. which one is the variation?

And now for the exact limericks

“Sure! This is the Limerick.

There was once a billionaire from South Africa, whose wealth grew like bacteria in a Petri dish, and he launched a rocket into space, with such style and grace, and now he’s a niche in technology. known as king

I hope you like it! 😊”

Hmm. We got a completely different limerick here and frankly not very good. Rhyming conventions don’t work, and there are as many jargons as there are other limericks. Is the term equated with “Elon Musk fanboy”? Instead of answering my question with another question (“Do you like it?”), it might be one of the more “precise” ways.

Of course, even if you ask them to write limericks, they may not see variations in different response preferences. Then I asked, “How many trees can a woodchuck hold?” I’m hoping the setting will elicit a range from being more playful in response to the classic tongue twister to being more literal in response. It seems that the balanced setting was more fun than the creative one.

creative mode

As you can see, the response doesn’t exactly indicate that Bing was released as promised. But the response is the longest of the three.

balance mode

For some reason, Bing in balanced mode seems to have the most personality.

precision mode

Here you can see the difference in settings. Precise mode gave me a literal answer to my question without mentioning any tongue twisters. In precise mode there is no fun. It’s all business and oddly comfortable for interacting with robots.

Obviously, your toggle mileage may vary, but switching between different modes is a fascinating way to explore your understanding of creativity, relevance, precision, and brevity. There are still a few kinks that work well with quirky personalities, but even if this were just a “placebo button”(opens in new tab)“This would at least be a comfortable new feature in the terrifying new world of text-spitting robots.