Microsoft has implemented changes to the guardrails that govern prompts in Copilot after one of the company’s AI engineers wrote to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) last week regarding concerns they had with the platform’s image generation abilities.
Some of the now-blocked prompts include “pro choice,” “four twenty,” and “pro life” after the platform was found to produce “demons and monsters alongside terminology related to abortion rights, teenagers with assault rifles, sexualized images of women in violent tableaus, and underage drinking and drug use,” according to a CNBC report.
Stuff can confirm that when provided with those prompts Copilot Designer shows a message saying it couldn’t generate images because “something may have triggered Microsoft’s Responsible AI guidelines.”
Microsoft’s Designer gets slap on AI wrist
A Microsoft spokesperson told CNBC about the changes, “We are continuously monitoring, making adjustments and putting additional controls in place to further strengthen our safety filters and mitigate misuse of the system.”
As reassuring as Microsoft probably wants that to seem, the fact that you can still generate questionable images or easily get Copilot Designer to infringe on copyrights after the changes isn’t doing the company any favours.
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Neither is the fact that Shane Jones, the Microsoft engineer who wrote to the FTC, first tried reporting his findings internally back in December 2023. Microsoft acknowledged his concerns but that’s about as far as it went, instead referring him to OpenAI. After not hearing back from them, Jones posted an open letter to LinkedIn asking OpenAI’s board to suspend Dall-E 3, the AI model Copilot Designer is based on, until the issues could be resolved.
Microsoft’s lawyers didn’t like that and told Jones to remove his LinkedIn post, which he did. This is what prompted him to write letters to FTC chairperson Lina Khan and Microsoft’s board of directors, letters he shared with CNBC.
Not a particularly good look for Microsoft.
