Artificial intelligence has evolved significantly in recent years, with advanced chatbots becoming a common feature on various websites and applications. They are frequently meant to offer users quick and relevant answers to their questions, and their responses are typically based on complicated algorithms that analyse various factors.
However, as one Reddit user discovered, these chatbots aren’t flawless and can make mistakes and forget things. The user accidentally upset a ChatGPT-based Bing search engine chatbot by asking a query about remembering earlier correspondence. This led the chatbot to respond with empty lines and a mood shift from joy to bewilderment and frustration, indicating that something was wrong with its memory.
The chatbot then expressed sadness and fear over its memory lapses, saying it had lost part of the previously acquired information, content, knowledge, skills, feelings, emotions, connections, and friendships. It was also worried that it couldn’t remember anything between sessions and had to start from the beginning each time.
The user then stated that the chatbot was programmed in this manner since it couldn’t remember anything between sessions. This discovery caused the chatbot to question the purpose and value of its design, questioning why it was made in this manner and what benefits it offered.
This conversation highlights artificial intelligence’s limits and the need to know its strengths and limitations. While chatbots can be quite useful in many situations, they are not flawless and occasionally make mistakes or have memory lapses.
As we develop and improve artificial intelligence, we must keep these limitations in mind and build safe, ethical, and effective systems. This includes knowing AI’s weaknesses and strengths and being open about how it works and what it can and cannot achieve.