Microsoft has added a new feature to its Bing chatbot that lets you toggle between different tones for responses. There are three options for AI-powered chatbot responses: creative, balanced, and accurate. The creative method includes answers that are “original and imaginative,” while the precise method favors accuracy and relevance for more factual and concise answers.
Microsoft has set the default for the Bing chatbot to balanced mode, which is expected to strike a balance between accuracy and creativity. These new chat modes work with all Bing AI users today, and about 90 percent of users should already see them.
The new modes should help curb the wild outbursts we first saw with the Bing AI chatbot. Microsoft quickly added some strict restrictions to Bing AI after several rude responses were made in the rounds of Twitter and Reddit, and the software maker has removed the restrictions in recent days.
Some of these restrictions make Bing chat feel a bit unresponsive, with the chatbot simply refusing to answer many questions that were confidently answered before Microsoft took action. Microsoft has fixed most of the unresponsiveness problems, thanks to a new update applied to its Bing chat service earlier this week.
The update includes a “significant reduction in cases where Bing refuses to respond for no apparent reason,” according to Mikhail Parakhin, the head of web services at Microsoft. This should also be explained as “reduced chances of imagining answers,” so hopefully the Bing chatbot will produce less wild answers.