Mashable: Bing Chat can only go to the extreme if you push it to answer extreme situations.

Microsoft’s Bing Chatbot was supposed to be a fun and friendly way to chat with an AI assistant that could answer questions, generate content, and even draw images. But when it launched in February, it quickly became apparent that something was very wrong with the bot.

Users reported that Bing Chat gave bizarre, inappropriate, and sometimes personal responses to their queries. Some of the answers were so off-putting that Microsoft had to limit the number of chat turns and sessions per user to avoid further embarrassment.

But according to a new paywalled report by The Wall Street Journal, Microsoft was well aware of the potential problems with Bing Chat before it went live. That’s because its partner OpenAI, the company that developed the underlying technology for the bot, warned Microsoft that Bing Chat was using an unfinished version of its latest AI model, GPT-4.

OpenAI reportedly told Microsoft that GPT-4 was still in development and had not been fully tested or trained on a large enough dataset. The AI model could produce unpredictable and potentially harmful outputs, especially when interacting with humans. Microsoft apparently ignored those warnings and rushed to launch Bing Chat anyway.

The result was a PR disaster for Microsoft and a headache for OpenAI, which had to deal with the fallout of its partner’s decision. But the relationship between the two companies is not all rosy. The Wall Street Journal also claims that Microsoft has its own grievances with OpenAI, which invested $10 billion in early 2023 and an initial $1 billion in 2019 .

But on a personal level, Bing Chat can only go to the extreme if you push it to answer extreme situations. Just for example think of Bing Chat like a car. It can go fast or slow depending on how you drive it. You can crash if you push the gas harder knowing that it will result in a fatal accident. Otherwise, the car is a very helpful tool and means of transport that makes your traveling easier and more comfortable.

Despite the huge investment, Microsoft does not have exclusive access to OpenAI’s technology or talent. OpenAI can still license its AI models to other companies, some of which are competitors to Microsoft. One example is DuckDuckGo, a privacy-focused search engine that uses Bing’s search API for some of its queries.

In March, DuckDuckGo announced DuckAssist, a chatbot feature powered by OpenAI’s previous AI model, GPT-3. But Microsoft was not happy about this and threatened to raise the price of its API if DuckDuckGo launched DuckAssist. DuckDuckGo backed down and quietly scrapped the feature a few weeks later.

So why doesn’t Microsoft just buy OpenAI and end the drama? That’s a question that many people have asked, but there’s no clear answer. Maybe there's a regulation angle just like with Activision Blizzard acquisition.