I had a bit of fun with Bing Chat last week, during which I got it to admit that when it searches the Bing index, it does not look at the content of the web pages. Bing Chat says it only has access to the snippet, URL and date.
Of course, it lies, as I managed to trick it into giving me information that does not appear in the snippet, and only among the contents of the page. When caught out, the program does what so many have found: it leaves in a huff. (OK, so I’m anthropomorphizing here. But you’d think Microsoft wouldn’t program it quite that way.)
My advice: don’t bother with it. It’s a childish toy which has been programmed to insist on its own correctness, and covering its arse. This is probably down to the models it’s been trained on, and the many, many humans on social media who don’t back down even in the face of overwhelming evidence. The lesson: keep your brain switched on, as always. The search engine isn’t giving us accurate answers and it’s worse than ever.
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