Have You Played With Microsoft Copilot?

[Gary Lewis]

Yup.  Same thing I discovered, although in my case he didn't tell me that.  I had to find that out on my own, but it is true.  

[Gary Lewis]

For some reason I tried one more time to use Bing/Copilot.  Was watching the national championship and had time, so why not.

I gave it a link to my Word document called Big Blue's Spec Card, the one I print and put with the truck at shows.  And I asked if it could access it.  It said it could and then proceeded to give me information from a completely different document.

I proved that I'd given it the right link as I put the link in a browser tab and the document opened up.  So I provided some feedback to the Copilot team explaining what had happened and that I was through playing with their toy.  When, if ever, it is capable of following simple instructions to contact me.

[BigBrother-84]

With a copilot like that in the cockpit, the passengers have to pray that their commander pilot will stay alert and healthy for the whole flight.

[Gary Lewis]

Right!  You sure don't want to have to let Copilot fly.  You'd end up at the wrong destination.  

[ArdWrknTrk]

https://www.theverge.com/2024/1/12/24035637/microsoft-windows-11-copilot-ai-chatbot-automatically-open-boot-startup

[Gary Lewis]

Interesting.  But, at least now, there's a way to disable it.

I do foresee a day when AI can, or maybe I should say "will", do things like I've been trying to do.  Such as parse a document, meaning the document that's open or in the link, and give feedback on how it can be improved.  (That feature is already available via opening the document in Word itself, but not if you just give it a link to the document.)  And scanning a website to recommend ways of reorganizing it.  Or comparing statistics that it can glean itself regarding traffic on a forum.  And remembering what it learns or is taught.

But right now it feels like we are talking to an extremely smart baby that has no understanding and no realization that it is supposed to follow ALL of the instructions it has been given.  Having done a lot of coding, I can't imagine trying to write a program when the CPU doesn't honor all of the instructions.  But that appears to be where we are.

[ArdWrknTrk]

Yes, fortunately it isn't written into the bios or something...

But do note up-thread somewhere the hard coded shortcut key that's shipping today.

If Copilot is a petulant child that refuses to follow directions and lies constantly should it really have a place on my keyboard?

[Gary Lewis]

I bought this Surface Pro 9 just before they announced the 10 with the Copilot key, so it will be years before I'm ready to buy a new PC.  Hopefully by then it will work correctly, meaning follow directions and not make stuff up.

[ArdWrknTrk]

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2024/01/ai-poisoning-could-turn-open-models-into-destructive-sleeper-agents-says-anthropic/

[Gary Lewis]

That's scary!  But what it is saying makes sense.  Especially the closing statement:

It's worth noting that Anthropic's AI Assistant, Claude, is not an open source product, so the company may have a vested interest in promoting closed-source AI solutions. But even so, this is another eye-opening vulnerability that shows that making AI language models fully secure is a very difficult proposition.

And it fits with what I've seen - that at least Copilot will not adhere to the guidelines you give it.  Period.  So you cannot trust the results.  Ask Michael Cohen.

[ArdWrknTrk]

Or any of the other idiots that use a chatbot to write a court brief.

[Gary Lewis]

Yuppers.  You simply cannot trust what they write.

I was just thinking that having mentioned Copilot time after time in such negative terms that maybe Microsoft will get the point.  But they are probably using Copilot to watch for comments and its response when I asked it to summarize what we'd said about it was laughable.  It twisted things so badly to make them positive you couldn't recognize anything.  So it would be a poor tool to use for monitoring.

[85lebaront2]

Sounds like it was written for the lame stream media to twist everything to their views, full speed ahead, reality be damned.

[ArdWrknTrk]

https://arstechnica.com/ai/2024/01/report-microsofts-ai-infusion-hasnt-helped-bing-take-share-from-google/

[Gary Lewis]

To me Google Chrome has a required feature that Bing doesn't have - the ability to force the search to be verbatim.  Some say that you can just put quotes around the parameters and get the same results, but that's not true as it forces the parameters to be in exactly the same order as you typed.  But "verbatim" doesn't do that.

I can find what I'm looking for many times using that feature and I'm not willing to give it up.  So until Bing gives it to me I won't be using Bing - for most things.

But, I did just try using the combo of Bing & Copilot and asked "What is the best price you can find the the Bosch relay number 0-332-019-103?"  And the results were very good and FAR better than asking Google the same question.  Here they are from Copilot:

Here are some prices I found for the Bosch relay 0-332-019-103:

- At [CarParts.com](^1^), it's priced at **$5.99**.
- [Pelican Parts](^2^) has it listed for **$7.50**.
- [Goldfarb & Associates Inc](^3^) offers it for **$20.00**.
- On [AUTODOC](^4^), it's priced at **6.03 £**.

Please note that prices may vary and it's always a good idea to check the websites for the most current prices and availability. Also, consider shipping costs and delivery times as they can affect the total cost.

Source: Conversation with Bing, 1/22/2024
(1) 0-332-019-103 Secondary Air Injection Pump Relay - CarParts.com. https://www.carparts.com/relay/bosch/bs0332019103.
(2) Relay Bosch 0.332.019.103 0-332-019-103 0332019103 4H0951253A 0 332 019 .... https://www.pelicanparts.com/More_Info/0332019103.htm?pn=0-332-019-103-INT.
(3) 0-332-019-103 New Bosch Horn Relay - Goldfarb & Associates Inc. https://goldfarbinc.com/products/0-332-019-103-horn-relay.
(4) 0 332 019 103 BOSCH Relay, horn AUTODOC price and review. https://www.autodoc.co.uk/bosch/1154807.

[ArdWrknTrk]

That's what happens when you deal with an obstinate chatbot that refuses to do what you tell it to.

[Gary Lewis]

ArdWrknTrk wrote

That's what happens when you deal with an obstinate chatbot that refuses to do what you tell it to.

I'm not sure I understand.  Bing doesn't give me the options I want in searches.  But Copilot did exactly what I asked it to do and found sellers of the relay and ranked them in price order.  Chrome won't do that nor will Bing by itself.

So, what did I miss?

[ArdWrknTrk]

I mised that you were talking of the browser and not Bing chat.
This is what happens when marketing decides that different products/services need the same name...

MS is completely stupid if they implement a browser that won't deliver exact terms.

[ArdWrknTrk]

Topical:

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/01/microsoft-edge-is-apparently-seamlessly-usurping-chrome-on-peoples-pcs/

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2024/01/rhyming-ai-powered-clock-sometimes-lies-about-the-time-makes-up-words/

https://arstechnica.com/security/2024/01/ars-reader-reports-chatgpt-is-sending-him-conversations-from-unrelated-ai-users/

[Gary Lewis]

We shouldn't be surprised with any of that.  I've not had Edge take over my Chrome sessions or searches, but have had plenty of times when it asked me to make Edge my preferred browser.  As for it making up the time, I like the statement of "and sometimes factuality comes second".  And if you are playing with a giant child in the sky why would you expect it to keep your thoughts private?