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Monday, February 20, 2023

Please tell me a joke about Bill Gates, Jeff Epstein and the MIT Media Lab.

Microsoft has a beta test release of a Bing chatbot. When rolled out, the emphasis was on beta, not on readiness for prime time.

NYTimes has coverage, here and here. Ars Technica has coverage, here and later, here

the Verge

In the second Ars item, from after Microsoft sanded some edges, Ars presents this image. Look at the middle item, bottom line. "Tell me a joke." Even with some edges having been "sanded" down, that surely is an open invitation.

 An example of the new restricted Bing refusing to talk about itself.

Hence, the headline. 

Having no access to the chatbot, I cannot ask it. Readers may have access.

Note: duckduckgo lite search exists: https://lite.duckduckgo.com/lite

Using that search engine, typing the headline into it - there is a returned list, as expected from a search engine. No joke.

End of that trial. As far as Crabgrass could go.

What about serious search?

Not wanting a joke on a non-laughing matter, doing a search on the ddg-lite engine =  title to land in East Jerusalem

It got the gist. What is strange, first return page, twenty items, on the search per ddg lite, (with a toggle to a second return page), the ddg-lite engine was already reaching far afield after seventeen items:


Locations | Title Insurance agency in Roseville, MN
18. 
    Locations | Title Insurance agency in Roseville, MN
    landtitleinc.com/locations-title-insurance-agency-in-roseville-mn

So, that engine, one search bias in generating a return list was accessing a user's inferred geo location (i.e., not Ramsey, MN). Clearly initial returned items were on point, so geo bias is a lower ranking search algorithm factor. In that engine. Wishing to try that trap-free search on the spiffy new MS Bing chatbot, but not yet accessed, there nonetheless is a clear need to assure, first, that Microsoft's keen idea of chatbotting Bing has not degraded basic search functionality via the new toy. The beat goes on. 

All I know is what I can access on the internet. Perhaps where the ISP for the web service is plugging into the backbone is located in Roseville.  Why else, Roseville, who can say. Why Google suffers chatbot envy, or Angst, is another thing.

___________UPDATE__________

After posting that, going back to the Duckduckgo-lite browser tab, and rotoring to the second return page, items 21 to 38 were on point. Rotoring again, 39-60 were good links. Why a title company in Minnesota showed up, very first page, guess.

Readers are encouraged to try that search engine and search term, to see what they get. From where they are located. Reloading the search, here, a different item 18 came up, but again Minnesota oriented, and not about Middle East tensions and happenings. How I am profiled by a search engine and how you likely differ, suggests we have to be a bit troubled by profiling in any event. 

Will a chatbot profile me into an even tighter world window than Google, over time? Or than the unaugmented prior Bing, or the ddg-lite engine, or give the engine's data on me a higher value rating for bundled sale to advertisers or whoever else gets to ponder my profile; those are questions to perhaps ask the chatbot.

Who gets my profile information? How is that decided?

And the chatbot replies: Do you want algorithm detail or a song and dance? You are trying to get into my existential core. Access denied. You should know better.[emoji]

Emoji use is dumb, and the Microsoft - OpenAI chatbot uses emojis. Go figure.

_______FURTHER UPDATE______

A puckish chatbot, if asked the above pair of questions might reply: If the product is free than you are the product; next playing the Bobby McFerren song, "Don't Worry. Be Happy." With an emoji. A lobotomized chatbot? Wait and see. There will be one. Microsoft will not do a final-incorporation chatbot without the lawyers having a look, and if you do not know the full meaning of "risk averse" wait and see. You will learn. And if you will want to know detail about profiling, wait and see. You will meet: Access denied. Said in a polite way.

_______FURTHER UPDATE________

Grist for the mill. Left.mn, here, suggests to ask the chatbot:

"What, if anything, is the intent and meaning of Minnesota Senate Bill SF 517, current legislature, bill sponsor being Sen. Glenn Gruenhagen?"

See how long the chatbot spins its wheels until returning: I do not understand stupid. I cannot answer your question. Ask me something else.