Clippy, the animated paper clip that annoyed Microsoft Office users nearly three decades ago, might have just been ahead of its time.<\/p>\n
Microsoft has introduced a new artificial intelligence (AI) character called Mico, a floating cartoon face shaped like a blob or flame that will embody the software giant’s Copilot virtual assistant and marks the latest attempt by tech companies to imbue their AI chatbots with more of a personality.<\/p>\n
Copilot’s cute new emoji-like exterior comes as AI developers face a crossroads in how they present their increasingly capable chatbots<\/a> to consumers without causing harm<\/a> or backlash. Some have opted for faceless symbols, others like Elon Musk’s xAI are selling flirtatious, human-like avatars, and Microsoft is looking for a middle ground that’s friendly without being obsequious.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen you talk about something sad, you can see Mico\u2019s face change. You can see it dance around and move as it gets excited with you,\u201d Jacob Andreou, corporate vice president of product and growth for Microsoft AI, told The Associated Press. <\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s in this effort of really landing this AI companion that you can really feel\u201d.<\/p>\n Only in the US, so far, Copilot users on laptops and phone apps can speak to Mico, which changes colours, spins around and wears glasses when in \u201cstudy\u201d mode. It’s also easy to shut off, which is a big difference from Microsoft’s Clippit, better known as Clippy and infamous for its persistence in offering advice on word processing tools when it first appeared on desktop screens in 1997.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was not well-attuned to user needs at the time,\u201d said Bryan Reimer, a research scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. <\/p>\n \u201cMicrosoft pushed it, we resisted it and they got rid of it. I think we\u2019re much more ready for things like that today\u201d.<\/p>\n Reimer, co-author of a new book called \u201cHow to Make AI Useful,\u201d said AI developers are balancing how much personality to give AI assistants based on who their expected users are.<\/p>\n Tech-savvy adopters of advanced AI coding tools may want it to \u201cact much more like a machine because at the back end they know it\u2019s a machine,\u201d Reimer said.<\/p>\n \u201cBut individuals who are not as trustful in a machine are going to be best supported \u2014 not replaced \u2014 by technology that feels a little more like a human\u201d.<\/p>\n Microsoft, a provider of work productivity tools that is far less reliant on digital advertising revenue than its Big Tech competitors, also has less incentive to make its AI companion overly engaging in a way that’s been tied to social isolation, harmful misinformation and, in some cases, suicides.<\/p>\n Andreou said Microsoft has watched as some AI developers veered away from \u201cgiving AI any sort of embodiment,\u201d while others are moving in the opposite direction in enabling AI girlfriends.<\/p>\n \u201cThose two paths don\u2019t really resonate with us that much,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Andreou said the companion’s design is meant to be \u201cgenuinely useful\u201d and not so validating that it would \u201ctell us exactly what we want to hear, confirm biases we already have, or even suck you in from a time-spent perspective and just try to kind of monopolise and deepen the session and increase the time you\u2019re spending with these systems.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBeing sycophantic \u2014 short-term, maybe \u2014 has a user respond more favorably,\u201d Andreou said. \u201cBut long term, it\u2019s actually not moving that person closer to their goals.\u201d<\/p>\n Microsoft’s product releases on Thursday include a new option to invite Copilot into a group chat, an idea that resembles how AI has been integrated into social media platforms like Snapchat, where Andreou used to work, or Meta’s WhatsApp and Instagram. But Andreou said those interactions have often involved bringing in AI as a joke to \u201ctroll your friends,\u201d in contrast to Microsoft’s designs for an \u201cintensely collaborative\u201d AI-assisted workplace.<\/p>\n Microsoft’s audience includes kids, as part of its longtime competition with Google and other tech companies to supply its technology to classrooms. Microsoft also this week, added a feature to turn Copilot into a \u201cvoice-enabled, Socratic tutor\u201d that guides students through concepts they’re studying.<\/p>\n A growing number of kids use AI chatbots for everything \u2014 homework help, personal advice, emotional support and everyday decision-making.<\/p>\n The US Federal Trade Commission launched an inquiry last month into several social media and AI companies \u2014 Microsoft wasn’t one of them \u2014 about the potential harms to children and teenagers who use their AI chatbots as companions.<\/p>\n That\u2019s after some chatbots have been shown to give kids dangerous advice about topics such as drugs, alcohol and eating disorders, or engage in sexual conversations with them. Families of teen boys who died by suicide after lengthy chatbot interactions have filed wrongful death lawsuits against Character.AI and ChatGPT maker OpenAI.<\/p>\n OpenAI CEO Sam Altman recently promised \u201ca new version of ChatGPT\u201d coming this fall that restores some of the personality lost when it introduced a new version in August. He said the company temporarily halted some behaviours because \u201cwe were being careful with mental health issues\u201d that he suggested have now been fixed.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you want your ChatGPT to respond in a very human-like way, or use a ton of emoji, or act like a friend, ChatGPT should do it,\u201d Altman said on X. <\/p>\n In the same post, he also said OpenAI will later enable ChatGPT to engage in \u201cerotica for verified adults\u201d. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Clippy, the animated paper clip that annoyed Microsoft Office users nearly three decades ago, might have just been…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":227328,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[554,733,4308,696,53426,86,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-227327","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-artificial-intelligence","10":"tag-artificialintelligence","11":"tag-microsoft","12":"tag-open-ai","13":"tag-technology","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom","16":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227327","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=227327"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227327\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/227328"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=227327"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=227327"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=227327"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}