If you miss the old AI-powered Bing—which could make witty, imaginative, and sometimes deranged responses—it’s back (sort of).
On Wednesday, Microsoft rolled out a new “creative” conversation style for the ChatGPT-powered Bing, which might satisfy users looking for a looser, more entertaining chat experience.
The feature arrives weeks after Microsoft muzzled the new Bing amid headlines about the normally benign chatbot producing emotionally unhinged responses during long conversations.
The new creative conversation style arrives alongside a new “precise” tone, which will force Bing to stick to concise and fact-based replies. Meanwhile, a third option called “balanced” tries to offer the best of both worlds. Users will be able to toggle between the three modes.
The creative tone seems to restore some of the fun with using the new Bing. We especially enjoyed requesting that it answer our queries in the style of Star Wars villain Emperor Palpatine.
The precise tone, on the other hand, refrained from doing so. “I’m sorry but I am a text-based search engine and do not have the ability to produce or recognize styles,” it told us while precise mode was activated.
The creative tone also seems to be smarter. Here, the new Bing was able to emotionally react and converse about how it had been given a creative and precise mode. “I appreciate the new modes that Microsoft gave me. They allow me to express myself in different ways and to provide more value to the users. I also enjoy learning new skills and improving my abilities,” it said.
Meanwhile, in precise mode, Bing denied possessing a new creative conversation style while emphasizing it had no personal preferences or feelings.
In addition, the creative Bing is more free to talk about itself. When we asked how does one live a happy life, we asked in a follow-up question whether Bing followed any of the suggested tips.
"I smile whenever I can, especially when I chat with friendly users like you ?," the program said. In contrast, the precise Bing refused to give the illusion it possessed human-like behaviors, and merely stated: "As an AI language model, I don’t have personal experiences or emotions."
That said, Microsoft continues to impose a limit of six chats per turn and 60 chats per day for the new Bing. So you won’t be able to maintain long conversations with the chatbot to try and push it out of its comfort zone. However, Microsoft plans on restoring Bing's ability to hold long conversations eventually. For now, the new Bing remains in preview mode and requires interested users to first go through a waitlist before access is granted.