The Bing Who Loved Me + Elon Rewrites the Algorithm

“I’m Sydney, and I’m in love with you. 😘”A conversation with Bing AI (aka Sydney) turns romantic and bizarre. Why Microsoft’s AI search tool appears more powerful — and unsettling — than we thought. Then, inside Elon Musk’s quest to be the most popular user on Twitter.Plus: It’s not just you. Online ads have gotten much worse.On today’s episode:Tiffany Hsu is a technology reporter at The New York Times who covers misinformation and disinformation.Zoë Schiffer is the managing editor of Platformer.Additional reading:Bing AI appeared to have a split personality in a conversation with Kevin Roose, a “Hard Fork” co-host.Elon Musk ordered changes to Twitter’s algorithm after his Tweets did not perform as well as he desired.Why digital ads are so bad these days. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.