Microsoft tries to justify AI’s tendency to give wrong answers by saying they’re ‘usefully wrong’
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella speaks at the company’s Ignite Spotlight event in Seoul on Nov. 15, 2022.
SeongJoon Cho | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Thanks to recent advances in artificial intelligence, new tools like ChatGPT are wowing consumers with their ability to create compelling writing based on people’s queries and prompts.
While these AI-powered tools have gotten much better at producing creative and sometimes humorous responses, they often include inaccurate information.
For instance, in February when Microsoft debuted its Bing chat tool, built using the GPT-4 technology created by Microsoft-backed OpenAI, people noticed that the tool was providing wrong answers during a demo related to financial earnings reports. Like other AI language tools, including similar software from Google, the Bing chat feature can occasionally present fake facts that users might believe to be the ground truth, a phenomenon that researchers call a “hallucination.”
These problems with the facts haven’t slowed down the AI race between the two tech giants.
On Tuesday, Google announced it was bringing AI-powered chat technology to Gmail and Google Docs, letting it help composing emails or documents. On Thursday, Microsoft said that its popular business apps like Word and Excel would soon come bundled with ChatGPT-like technology dubbed Copilot.
But this time, Microsoft is pitching the technology as being “usefully wrong.”
In an online presentation about the new Copilot features, Microsoft executives brought up the software’s tendency to produce inaccurate responses, but pitched that as something that could be useful. As long as people realize that Copilot’s responses could be sloppy with the facts, they can edit the inaccuracies and more quickly send their emails or finish their presentation slides.
For instance, if a person wants to create an email wishing a family member a happy birthday, Copilot can still be helpful even if it presents the wrong birth date. In Microsoft’s view, the mere fact that the tool generated text saved a person some time and is therefore useful. People just need to take extra care and make sure the text doesn’t contain any errors.
Researchers might disagree.
Indeed, some technologists like Noah Giansiracusa and Gary Marcus have voiced concerns that people may place too much trust in modern-day AI, taking to heart advice tools like ChatGPT present when they ask questions about health, finance and other high-stakes topics.
“ChatGPT’s toxicity guardrails are easily evaded by those bent on using it for evil and as we saw earlier this week, all the new search engines continue to hallucinate,” the two wrote in a recent Time opinion piece. “But once we get past the opening day jitters, what will really count is whether any of the big players can build artificial intelligence that we can genuinely trust.”
It’s unclear how reliable Copilot will be in practice.
Microsoft chief scientist and technical fellow Jaime Teevan said that when Copilot “gets things wrong or has biases or is misused,” Microsoft has “mitigations in place.” In addition, Microsoft will be testing the software with only 20 corporate customers at first so it can discover how it works in the real world, she explained.
“We’re going to make mistakes, but when we do, we’ll address them quickly,” Teevan said.
The business stakes are too high for Microsoft to ignore the enthusiasm over generative AI technologies like ChatGPT. The challenge will be for the company to incorporate that technology so that it doesn’t create public mistrust in the software or lead to major public relations disasters.
“I studied AI for decades and I feel this huge sense of responsibility with this powerful new tool,” Teevan said. “We have a responsibility to get it into people’s hands and to do so in the right way.”
Tik Tok creators gather before a press conference to voice their opposition to the “Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act,” pending crackdown legislation on TikTok in the House of Representatives, on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., March 12, 2024.
Craig Hudson | Reuters
The Supreme Court on Friday will hear oral arguments in the case involving the future of TikTok in the U.S., which could ban the popular app as soon as next week.
The justices will consider whether the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, the law that targets TikTok’s ban and imposes harsh civil penalties for app “entities” that continue to carry the service after Jan.19, violates the U.S. Constitution’s free speech protections.
It’s unclear when the court will hand down a decision, and if China’s ByteDance continues to refuse to divest TikTok to an American company, it faces a complete ban nationwide.
What will change about the user experience?
The roughly 115 million U.S. TikTok monthly active users could face a range of scenarios depending on when the Supreme Court hands down a decision.
If no word comes before the law takes effect on Jan. 19 and the ban goes through, it’s possible that users would still be able to post or engage with the app if they already have it downloaded. However, those users would likely be unable to update or redownload the app after that date, multiple legal experts said.
Thousands of short-form video creators who generate income from TikTok through ad revenue, paid partnerships, merchandise and more will likely need to transition their businesses to other platforms, like YouTube or Instagram.
“Shutting down TikTok, even for a single day, would be a big deal, not just for people who create content on TikTok, but everyone who shares or views content,” said George Wang, a staff attorney at the Knight First Amendment Institute who helped write the institute’s amicus briefs on the case.
“It sets a really dangerous precedent for how we regulate speech online,” Wang said.
Who supports and opposes the ban?
Dozens of high-profile amicus briefs from organizations, members of Congress and President-elect Donald Trump were filed supporting both the government and ByteDance.
The government, led by Attorney General Merrick Garland, alleges that until ByteDance divests TikTok, the app remains a “powerful tool for espionage” and a “potent weapon for covert influence operations.”
Trump’s brief did not voice support for either side, but it did ask the court to oppose banning the platform and allow him to find a political resolution that allows the service to continue while addressing national security concerns.
The short-form video app played a notable role in both Trump and Democratic nominee Kamala Harris’ presidential campaigns in 2024, and it’s one of the most common news sources for younger voters.
In a September Truth Social post, Trump wrote in all caps Americans who want to save TikTok should vote for him. The post was quoted in his amicus brief.
What comes next?
It’s unclear when the Supreme Court will issue its ruling, but the case’s expedited hearing has some predicting that the court could issue a quick ruling.
The case will have “enormous implications” since TikTok’s user base in the U.S. is so large, said Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of Berkeley Law.
“It’s unprecedented for the government to prohibit platforms for speech, especially one so many people use,” Chemerinsky said. “Ultimately, this is a tension between free speech issues on the one hand and claims of national security on the other.”
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