More Chatting, More Learning: Microsoft Expands Bing AI Chat Sessions
Microsoft's new AI-powered Bing Chat and Microsoft Edge products have been around for just a short period of time. Last week, Microsoft published some of its initial findings about the launch to the public.
Microsoft stated that Bing's Chat AI was very popular, and that most of the users that tried it gave the product a thumbs-up as feedback. While the initial feedback was mostly positive according to Microsoft, the company had to admit that the product was behaving in unintended ways sometimes.
In the post, Microsoft announced that it would limit chat interactions to 5 per session and 50 per day for all regular users. The limitations were put in place after several early users of Bing's Chat AI reported that the artificial intelligence was becoming emotional.
In one recorded chat dialogue, the AI declared its love to a participant, in another, it stated that the user was not a good person and not worth its time or energy".
Microsoft's analysis of the incidents suggested that the AI could get confused in prolonged chat sessions. The longer a session lasted, the more difficult it became for the AI to focus on the topic, according to Microsoft. The company admits that its internal testers did not encounter these issues, as chat sessions were not "long or intricate" usually.
One of the reasons for launching a public preview of Bing Chat AI was to find edge cases and other "atypical use cases" to "learn and improve the product" according to Microsoft.
Microsoft's consequence was radical: it limited chat interactions for all users immediately. Individual chat sessions were limited to 5, which involved a user query and a response by the AI, and 50 per day.
Now, Microsoft announced that it is increasing these limits again based on user feedback that it received. Some Chat AI users requested that longer chat sessions return to Bing, to "search more effectively and interact with the chat feature better".
The Bing Chat AI limit has been raised to 6 interactions per session and 60 per day. Microsoft plans to increase the limits further, and it mentioned a daily cap of 100 chat interactions specifically.
In addition, normal searches do no longer count against the chat totals, which should provide testers with more options to interact with the artificial intelligence on Bing.
Microsoft notes that the limit of six chat interactions with the AI should be sufficient for "the vast majority" of users and that it will enable a "natural daily use of Bing".
The company plans to introduce a new option to Bing's Chat AI soon that is giving users an option to customize the tone of the chat. Microsoft highlights the modes Precise, Balanced and Creative speecifically.
Precise will focus on "shorter, more search focused answers", and Creative on "longer and more chatty answers". Balanced, finally, provides a good mix of the two other modes.
