I Gotta Betta Bada Bing Bot;
But I Still Don't Get All the
Bada Boom
Does Bing Welcome the Lemmings OR Does Bob Welcome the Lemmings ??
Let's hope for Microsoft's sake — and for the sake of All Humanity — Let's
Pray for the Former
I had posted Part 1 of this series, late Tuesday, February 28, 2023.
On the following morning, I discovered my Bing had evolved. The
Bing interface had three new buttons predominately positioned right
above the prompt. I did not have time until the end of the week to
test drive my new Bing.
I asked Bing about the new interface on
itself. Bing replied that Bing is a Search engine and doesn't know
anything about its human interface. I asked specifically about
three new buttons: Creative, Balanced, and
Precise. These new
additions Bing knew by their names.
![](https://www.eppresents.com/Newsletter-Mar1-2023/Bing-2-1a.jpg")
When mouseing over any of the three buttons, a tooltip pops up stating its
conversational style. One way to understand these three modes is
as Volume and Tone Controls on an audio device, as Bing tries to offer a
Goldilocks like menu of choices. Precise is taciturn, with
lower volume of words and a muted tone that just summarizes the
facts; and maybe is "Too Cold" for some —
but isn't that why they are called "the Cold
Hard Facts?"
The Creative mode could
easily become "Too Hot." Here Bing is Ready To
Boogie with your wildest idea, unless it's too wild. Precise, on
the other hand, will probably not write you a love sonnet to your main
squeeze — even if you ask Bing nicely. A Digital Goldilocks, new
to AI, might just feel most comfortable in Balanced mode.
I queried Bing again on this website address. In Precise mode, the
answer was the same as before: e1presents{DOT}com. I asked Bing to
ping www.eppresents.com. Bing will no longer
easily escape its sandbox. Once again, Bing says, "Hey, I am a
just fancy search engine." I can't perform a network command like
ping. [ed. Although, the two do sound
and act a little like cousins.]
For me, I am a
technician. I first had to get creative in my thinking to use
Creative mode. Now, I am not going to get all squishy with a
machine — particularly one that knows that it is a machine and is happy to
simply be a machine. What about something not obscure, but neither on
the tip of most people's tongues or keyboards, either. Hey, Bing. Be
Creative here. What is, or Who is, a Bodhisattva in Eastern
religions?
Well, again, not a paper to hand in in any upper division undergraduate
Religious Studies course, but if the Binger
(Bingee?) came to the AI
knowing nothing about the Bodhisattva, then this might be a good place to begin research into the topic.
I asked Bing if its answer would have been any different in Precise
mode. No, said Bing, the facts are the facts in any different
conversational mode. The presentations of the facts would be the
same.
Since we were in Creative mode here, I stepped out of
my role as IT
cynic and asked the AI to be "Creative" with the
Bodhisattva. This is the first time I have engaged in any of
anthropomorphic interchange with any of the Language Models. Quite
frankly, I was a bit taken back by the result of the prompt. Bing
may not be the name of Goggle's A.I., but Bing is indeed a
Bard. Bing wrote me a short, and frankly,
pretty darn good little piece of poetry about the Bodhisattva. I
don't think I could do that.
Like every true Child of Microsoft, Bing is big on rebooting. My Bing is no slouch. My Bing will not follow me down any Rabbit Hole. After six prompts on any one topic, Bing politely asks its user to please push the broom button and clean out the mess. Just like the old days of MS-DOS, you go back to where you started.
Kind of sounds like an old boy or girlfriend
that wants to get back together.
If I were to use an AI
Language Model for research, Bing would certainly would be my first
choice of A.I.'s. My first choice to learn things, though, would
still be Search, as we know it.
I was never a big fan of Cliff
Notes. In the study of History today, Wikipedia is the 21st
century version of Cliff Notes. Artificial Intelligence, in turn,
is the Cliff Notes of Wikipedia. And we remember, whenever you
used Cliff Notes, you came away with a "D", at best. Usually gotan
"F", though.
You'd never know it but buddy,
I'm a kind of poet
And I got a lot of things I'd like to say
— One For My Baby (and One More For The
Road), Frank Sinatra
(Johnny Mercer / Harold Arlen)