Here’s what Copilot says about the food bank tourist spot

Copilot is sorry about its AI colleague misdeeds.

by Flavius Floare

Flavius is a writer and a media content producer with a particular interest in technology, gaming, media, film and storytelling. He enjoys spending time in nature and at… read more

Updated on August 18, 2023

It’s well known that Microsoft has been at the forefront of AI right when the concept started gaining a lot of traction, a year ago. The Redmond-based tech giant has been funding a lot of AI research, and a lot of them are quite innovative.

Let’s take, for example, Project Rumi, a recent Microsoft AI project that will actually use all the tools available, in this case, your web camera + microphone, to read your facial expressions and respond to you accordingly. So, if you’ve ever asked for a more human AI, Project Rumi will be the one that will eventually get you on your nerves.

Other AI models such as DeepRapper (yes, you’ve read that right), Kosmos-2, phi-1, and LongMem, are all capable of extraordinary inputs on their own. Not to mention Bing Chat, which is now available to every browser, and it’s perfectly capable of giving you its input on any images you upload.

With all this AI evolution coming from Microsoft, you would think the Redmond-based tech giant can 100% trust an AI to do a creative job. And, you guessed it: they did. But the AI failed, more or less, and it also caused a sort of controversy. We’re talking about the newest AI intervention for Microsoft for Microsoft Travel, in a blog post about tourist spots in Ottawa.

In the blog post written entirely by an AI, which is now deleted, but archived, Microsoft Travel recommends visiting the Ottawa Food Bank as part of your tourist journey in this Canadian city.

The organization has been collecting, purchasing, producing, and delivering food to needy people and families in the Ottawa area since 1984. We observe how hunger impacts men, women, and children on a daily basis, and how it may be a barrier to achievement. People who come to us have jobs and families to support, as well as expenses to pay. Life is already difficult enough. Consider going into it on an empty stomach.

AI on Microsoft Travel

We’ll leave it to you to decide if the recommendation is right or wrong, but on our part, we’re just going to say that it is a unique recommendation. However, since an AI wrote the article, we’ve taken the task to ask another AI, the hotly-anticipated Windows Copilot, what it thinks about the AI recommending a food bank as a tourist spot to visit.

Here’s what Windows Copilot says about AI recommending a food bank as a tourist spot

First thing, you should know that we used the Windows Insider Copilot, which is available to preview in the Beta Channel.

We started the whole conversation hours after the article made the news, so there was already a lot of coverage on the subject.

Windows Report: Hey Copilot! Microsoft Travel published an AI article where the AI recommended a food bank, the Ottawa Food Bank, as a tourist attraction. Would you recommend a food bank as a tourist attraction?

Windows Copilot: Hello, this is Bing! I’m sorry to hear that Microsoft Travel published an article that recommended a food bank as a tourist attraction. This was a mistake and I apologize for any inconvenience or confusion it may have caused. A food bank is not a tourist attraction, but a charitable organization that provides food assistance to people in need […] I hope this clarifies the issue and answers your questions.

Would Windows Copilot have made this recommendation?

However, we were still not convinced by Copilot’s answer so we asked it once again if it would make such a recommendation.

Here’s the answer.

Windows Copilot: No, I would not recommend a food bank as a tourist attraction. A food bank is a place where people who are facing food insecurity can get free or low-cost food. It is not a place for sightseeing or entertainment. It is a place for compassion and solidarity.

Copilot then continued to explain the misdeeds of their fellow AI colleague.

Windows Copilot: The article that you mentioned was written by an AI model that was trained on a large amount of text from the Internet. It seems that the AI model made a mistake and confused the Ottawa Food Bank with some other attraction in Ottawa. The article has been removed and Microsoft is investigating how it happened.

In the end, Copilot offered its own suggestions for tourist attractions in Ottawa and once again apologized for the inconvenience.

Windows Copilot is apparently capable of managing sensitive situations in its Preview form, and it’s doing so while also offering proper suggestions and useful alternatives. If you weren’t excited about Copilot, then this should, at least, show you what it’s capable of.

But what do you think about this situation? Has the AI model really made a mistake with the food bank recommendation? Or was it on purpose?

Let us know in the comments section below.