Microsoft relaxing days-old limits for ChatGPT-powered Bing

3 years ago 1

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Microsoft has already started relaxing some of the limits on its experimental ChatGPT-powered Bing Chat feature, which it imposed less than a week ago.

On Friday, 17 February 2023, the software giant announced it would curb users’ chat turns per session to five and total chats to 50 per day.

A chat turn consists of the user’s question and Bing Chat’s answer.

Microsoft said the limits were necessary because long chat sessions could confuse the underlying chat model.

This came after users reported that Bing insulted and gaslighted them after trying to help it correct its wrong answers to certain queries.

At the time of implementing the limit, Microsoft said its data had shown the vast majority of users would be able to get the answers they sought within five turns or less, while only 1% of chat conversations had over 50 messages.

But following feedback from users asking for the return of longer chats, Microsoft’s Bing Team said it intended to bring back longer conversations and was working hard on the best way to do this responsibly.

“The first step we are taking is we have increased the chat turns per session to six and expanded to 60 total chats per day,” the team said.

“Our data shows that for the vast majority of you this will enable your natural daily use of Bing.”

The plan is to increase the daily chat cap to 100 total chats “soon”, after which regular searches on Bing would also stop counting against users’ chat totals.

In addition to the increase in chat caps, Microsoft is testing an additional option that allows users to adjust the tone of their chat between Precise, Balanced, and Creative.

The first option will focus on shorter, more search-focused answers, while the latter will give users longer and “more chatty” replies.

As its name implies, the balanced choice will use a mix of the two approaches.

“The goal is to give you more control on the type of chat behaviour to best meet your needs,” the Bing Team said.